Art at RMS

"I love how I can see and reach everything I need"

I overheard a child say this when she was visiting our art classroom. My students are used to the studio set-up, but for visitors, it may be the first time that have had access to tools and materials (instead of having the teacher pass things out!) I think the studio-set up is an essential component of the program; it lets learners behave like artists.

We have had many discussions around this topic, and we are fairly comfortable with the unknown (this is a good time to start humming the Clem Snide song ; I love the unknown), but my students got the point. If this is simply tape-wasting, it’s all over.

"There are many benefits to child centered arts learning experiences, among them,that intellectual growth and increased cognitive function is a direct result of children continuing to become expert in the areas they do well in and building upon these areas of expertise..."

– Clyde Gaw (TAB Practitioner/Art Educator)

“J” is a middle school student who‘s preferred working style is to work in series. Last year he produced an impressive collection of clay bird sculptures. Recently, it’s all about paper.
“J” specializes in designing stencils (early attempts were made of paper and tag board, but he now prefers “scratch foam,” sold for printmaking). “J” prepares paper pulp of needed colors, and proceeds to craft his design into the paper prior to “couching” (blotting).

"J" especially likes the way the trees escapes beyond the natural border of his paper sheet

“What if we used a hammer for printmaking?”

This question, by 7-year old “S,” sparked a mini-lesson about how artists employ objects in their environment to make art. At the start of class, learners were invited to choose any item in the art studio (any item that paint would not damage) to test as a printmaking devise. Each child in turn dipped their new tool into paint and observed the resulting image or texture. As this experiment concluded, learners were invited to stay and make prints or to choose a different center and begin their work.
All but one student moved off to work elsewhere. The learner who remained had more experiments to conduct: What would the imprint of a feather look like? Would a pom-pom work as a paintbrush? Many different items were tested, and in the end, some of the objects that were used to make prints were attached to the paper (did you know paint could work like glue?), becoming a permanent part of the resulting image.
Art education professor and artist George Szekely (University of Kentucky) once told me about a field trip he conducted with his class of undergraduates. He gave each student a dollar, and drove them to a dollar store. Their mission: find something to make art with or to make art out of. They returned to the studio to make art with their odd-ball treasures-turned-art –tools (picture; toilet plungers, mustard squeeze bottles, feather dusters, pizza cutters…).

Wouldn’t that be fun?

The whole school gathered in our community room last week to witness the inauguration of President Barak Obama. Together we stood up, sat down, applauded, cried and cheered. Later that day, in the art studio, I showed some artwork created by artists from around the world; portraits of Barak Obama. I was gratified to point out that with the exception of bronze, students in our art studio have available to them all the media used by the artists in the slides I presented, even, surprisingly, dryer lint. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/16/obama.art.irpt/index.html)
After viewing the slides, “E” (age 10) was inspired to draw president Obama’s portrait. This is her first attempt, drawn from memory.

Last week, during our extended “Wednesday Workshop” time, “J” tested out an intricate and ambitious stencil cut from the same kind of Styrofoam we often use to make relief prints (one could use a meat tray as well). He prepared his pulps, agonized over which color should be background and which should be used for the image of the bird he cut into his stencil. A third pulp was prepared for a design element surrounding the bird. The result was not as crisp and clear as he imagined, but while assessing the experience, “J” commented that he likes the end result because it is less overt, more abstract, and this he finds more interesting to look at.

During a recent whole-group demonstration at the start of class, “R” had seen many possibilities for finding or crafting armatures for papier mache sculptures, and readily adapted one of these techniques to fashion just the right size and shape for his animal’s head.

This watercolor and marker painting was created by 6-year old "K". It was hard for me to watch it walk out the door with "K," because it's magic had already cast a spell on me.