It's about time I get into the whole blog-thing!

Over the past few weeks, we've been discovering the process of markmaking, and lately we've focused on line and pattern. It's interesting to note the different ways students think, process, and show their learning. Each student shows his or her learning by way of their personality. Some are shy, some are bold, some are quiet and contemplative, others are direct and loud.

In being the "head" teacher the first few weeks of Saturday School, I didn't get to relax and observe the students. Unfortunately, I found it difficult to multitask, simultaneously interacting, speaking, documenting, and teaching. Since Melanie took over, I enjoyed simply being along for the ride and letting the students teach me a thing or two.

In socially interacting with the students, I get to check for their retention and understanding of the concepts being discussed. For instance, in this video, I ask students questions and have them explain to me what they are doing...




This short discussion happened after students had me step on the paper in order to show the pattern on the sole of my boot.

ME: "So.. why is that a pattern?"
GARRISON: "It's 'cause what's there is there."
ME: "So, it's doing what?"
GARRISON: "Repeating."

Thus, we can conclude that the student understands that patterns can be made by repeating lines or shapes.

Week 5-Collage Murals

Demonstrations were a major part of the lesson this week. This picture documents one of these sessions, specifically demonstrating collage techniques using paint and stencils. Notice the orientation of the students in relationship to the materials, each other and the Miss Melanie. Some are sitting on the canvas and others are standing, but both are close to Miss Melanie so they can see. It is also important to note Jason's interaction during the demo. Melanie allowed him to participate in facilitating that part of the lesson which I think helped the other students relate to and better understand what they were supposed to do. The level of student engagement seems to rise when another classmate is given the opportunity to participate in the demonstration. The students seem to be able to identify with the task on a more personal level since one of their peers, and not the experienced art teacher, is creating the art. The positioning of the students is also part of an effective demonstration. Melanie created a space where the students could have enough space to get close to the point of instruction and engage what is going on. This set-up also helps the teacher manage the students and asses their understanding as she explains the information.


Here is another example of the students interacting with a teacher-led demonstration:


Attention and exploration of materials was another important component of the lesson this week. Students were allowed to work with many different techniques of collage using paint and paper. This image shows an example of one way students experimented with these materials and how they created the final composition on the larger mural. Here, Kiran is implementing chance into his creative process by allowing the pieces to fall on the canvas.




In this image is an example of a student exploring materials once they were placed on the canvas. As she applied the glue to the surface of the collage pieces, the ink started to bleed. The brushstrokes left residue of the ink color on the canvas adding another dimension to the materiality of the work.

Both of these examples are important when art teachers consider what materials they allow students to use in a project and the balance of teacher-based instruction verses student-led experimentation/self-guided learning. They offer issues to ponder such as how a teacher would be able to recreate something like this in a normal classroom setting, where there are more freedoms with materials and scale of the work? Or what kind of environment you create that allows students to respond in an unmitigated and creative way?

Week 4- Pattern and Collage

This image captures the many layers of learning and teaching that were going on in the classroom this week. Both the teacher and the instructor are engaged in this activity; both parties are working together equally to create the artwork. Uninhibited exploration is also evident in this image. The students noticed that as they moved around the paper, their shoes would make patterns and marks as well. They took this idea and pushed it further by coloring the bottom of Leigha's boots so she could make marks on the paper. In the following image, you can see the students emphasizing the pattern by tracing over it to make them stand out as intentional marks. It was interesting to see the students form together as a group to accomplish this episode of experimentation in that they saw this as a opportunity, executed it, and reflected on it with very little if any guidance from the teacher.
Also, one cannot deny the overwhelming sense of joy and laughter that is captured in this moment. This opportunity to color on a teacher's boot is not something that happens everyday in the regular art classroom. By setting up a classroom environment that encourages unique approaches and challenges seems to bring forth excitement within the students which I hope will continue to happen each time we meet. When planning future lesson, it is important for the teacher to keep this moment in mind, and how the activity provoked such excitement and energy in hopes of planning other activities which achieve the same goal.




This image marks another special moment during class where a student observed unintentional pattern in her work. At first, this student had just drawn the grid outline and said she was done. I thought she could explore more pattern and layering of pattern in this piece, so I asked her what she could do or add to make it have more. With my prompting, she started to color in the squares to make another kind of pattern. The most exciting moment was when she had finished this layer of pattern, she stood back, looking at what she had done, and said,

"Look! There's pattern coming through the pattern!"

What a great example of a student comprehending a concept in that she can both execute it and recognize it in her work! From a teacher standpoint, this also speaks to the importance of reinforcing an idea in various ways throughout the lesson. We, the teachers, were paying close attention to pointing out different kinds of pattern as well as different examples of where it exists in everyday life within the classroom. It seems that the breath of reinforcement allowed students to recognize patterns in a new way, which is what is happening in this image.





This image captures another important moment where students were participating in unprompted informal critiques of each others' artworks. This is a conversation happening between students themselves as they created their photomontages. The materials were spread out all over the table, so many of the students had to get up from their chairs and move around to retrieve the photos and supplies they needed. Creating an environment that permits students to move in and out of their seats helped to facilitate great discussions between students about their artwork.
Freedom to move around also helped facilitate moments of student to student instruction with is also going on in this image. In particular, the student in the middle had traveled to this side of the table to get some more pictures for her artwork, but she stopped to look at the work the other two girls were creating. She made some comments about how she liked what they were doing, and then she proceeded to give a demo of sorts about how she would put 2 of her pictures together on the photomontage. It was wonderful to see these students interacting, helping one another, leaning and teaching from one another without the "real" teacher being present.
With regard the conversation happening between these students, it is important to keep in mind how we as teachers allow students to move around the classroom and what affects that decision will have on opportunities for spontaneous conversations to develop between students. This kind of peer interaction is important and can be scaffolded by the teacher so that it becomes an encouraged activity happening within the daily routines of the classroom.

Here are a few more images of what students were learning and creating:

Week 3- Watercolor Narratives

"Johnny on the woodpile,
Johnny on the fence
Johnny got a haircut
For fifteen cents."

This was the narrative that the student selected to draw for her sketchbook assignment. At first, she had just the figure and green marks, but then I asked her what else she could add to that helped to tell the story she read. She continued to add the blue marks and flowers. The most interesting part of this drawing is what she had transformed it into in the artwork on the left. The students were told to recreate their sketchbook narrative onto the watercolor marks. Look at the wonderful changes!You can see the evolution of ideas that already existed in the preliminary drawing. The oval shapes she described to be the woodpile and happily pointed out the wonderful mohawk haircut of the figure. It seemed as though in the second project that the student extended her ideas from the first drawing in a more creative and exploratory way. Whereas in the sketchbook drawing, the initial confines of illustrating a narrative might have influenced her ideas and level of creativity. This image is a great example of the progression of the student's thought process and ability to combine old and new ideas into one artwork.




When the students were working on the collaborative mark-making exercise, there was a low mumble of sound effects filling the classroom as the students vocalized what sounds the marks made. For example, this student picked the emotion, "jealous", and would make aggressive sharp, short marks each accompanied by her saying "jealous, jealous" quickly followed by "Andele! Andele! I love scribbling!" Many students did the same thing where they combined a vocal and kinesthetic reaction to the marks they were making.

A challenge with using "mark-making" as a unit theme is to help students realize the differences between just scribbling and deliberate mark-making. There was a wonderful moment of dialogue about this during a discussion about Cy Twombly's marks in his drawings. The question was raised:

Teacher:"So what is the difference between scribble and marks?"
Student:"Marks are when you are focusing. When you think about the mark."
Student" Scribbles are when you are having fun. They are when you are not thinking."

It is interesting that the student attributed "fun" to scribbling and not to mark-making. However, the fact that they realized you need to focus more for making marks shows that they realized the difference that certain marks need more thinking then just the innate, kinesthetic reaction of drawing scribbles on the paper. Discovering and exploring the boundaries between scribbling and "mark-making" will continue to unfold in different forms each week.









While students worked in this collaborative setting, there was an exchange of teaching and learning happening within each group individually. Each member of the group saw each others' marks and some responded to them by repeating them while others made up an opposite form of that mark. At different times within the activity, different students rose up as leaders and facilitated the activity as well. One student noticed that only one half of the paper was being filled with marks, so she took the initiative to turn the paper in order for them the fill the other side with marks.