Discussing da Vinci's Drawings

Yesterday we looked at drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci, in preparation for making Renaissance-style drawings from nature. My original goal in this discussion was to highlight his hatching technique, line quality and subject matter. However, as I was preparing for this, I realized it would be a perfect opportunity to touch on a couple of the ‘big ideas’ I had been thinking about emphasizing in my teaching.
In class, we discussed the many different purposes art can have—even within the work of one artist. As we studied drawings of inventions, skeletons, plants, people and animals, we talked about the variety of reasons Da Vinci had for making his work. He drew an object as a way of studying it more carefully, or committing it to memory. He also drew to invent or design something new, or to improve his skill level of drawing a particular subject. Other times he drew in order to make a beautiful drawing as a work of art, or to prepare for the creation of a painting.
This brought us to talk about the fact that sometimes when artists draw, their purpose is not to produce a finished work of art. Instead, the process is more important to them than the finished product. Among other purposes, Da Vinci used the act of drawing to more carefully observe his subject. I am hoping that my students’ experience of drawing from nature will serve the same purpose for them.

The Color Wheel: Variations on a Theme

I walked my students through making a color wheel last week, reviewing the mixing of colors. We also talked about the signicance of complimentary and analogous color schemes. Students then made their own color wheels, having their choice of any medium or form. They came up with some pretty creative color wheels! I encouraged them to 'think outside of the box,' and one student took me quite literally.

Teaching Students to Think About Art

I have been reading and reflecting on encouraging creative thinking in the classroom. This may be more challenging than it has been in the past. As a society, our abilities to work and think creatively are affected by the ‘instant gratification’ mindset that dominates so many aspects of our lives, from microwavable dinners to e-mail. We have gotten to the point where we take for granted what we hear and see coming from television or the internet. Images are not as thought-provoking as they used to be, since we are inundated by commercial ones on a daily basis. We barely see them after a while. As art educators, we need to train our students to work against this tide—to see art as a process, rather than merely a product—a process wherein they slow down and think about what they want to accomplish, and take time to decide upon the best way to go about doing that.

However, as I’ve read about characteristics that would ideally exist in a ‘mindful’ classroom, I’ll have to admit that my classroom does not exhibit many of these, at least consistently. I think one problem is I dedicate all of my students’ class time to working on art projects, and do not give them time to really think about what they are doing. I discuss their creations with them individually, but have not blocked out substantial time in the class period to focus on talking, as a group, about their work. We also do not spend large amounts of time simply having dialogue about art.

Why do I do this? After all, my classroom routine certainly did not arise out of my artistic habits. When I set out to make a painting, the steps of coming up with an idea, and developing the perfect composition, are very large and important parts of the battle. Throughout much of my teaching career, I have thought that a good way to keep my students engaged was to keep things moving. I have expected my students to be most interested in hands-on activities, so they have dominated my students' class time. However, as an art educator, I should be teaching my students, as a class, to stop and think rather than merely do. The 'thinking' part should be a more important part in my curriculum, one that deserves its own allotted time.

How can I change this? I am attracted to the structure of hands-on activities, so the best way to promote ‘brainstorming’ or ‘information gathering’ time would be in a very structured format. It should be part of the classroom routine, like that of passing out supplies, or cleaning up at the end of the class period.

I have decided to incorporate ‘thinking time’ into my classes by adding a couple of structured activities to the routine. These will consist of regular writing in art journals, and group critiques. Art journals are something I have used sporadically in the past. One reason I did not use them this year was that I did not have a unified vision for the purpose of the journal entries, so I preferred to devote more of the class time to working on projects. However, I am inspired by the idea of focusing on one two larger questions or ideas throughout the year, which would also be reflected in my lessons. The journal assignments would center on these, whether they involved looking at another’s art, reflecting on one’s own art, or coming up with new ideas. I would also like to use the journals as springboards into class discussions. With these discussions, as in the journal assignments, I would focus on asking broad, open- ended questions, and will encourage my students to take time to think about their answers.

The concept of taking class time to do a critique is something that was new to me in my college studio art classes. I found critiques to be motivating and inspiring. They helped me realize that people looked at my paintings and actually thought about why I made them the way I did. This encouraged me to think more about how I chose to express the ideas and emotions I wanted to convey (or at least let me know that my choices did convey ideas and emotions). They also helped me to assess my decisions and feel more confident in developing my artistic voice.

In addition to everything critiques helped me learn about my own art, they also taught me how to engage with another artist about their art. It was here that I learned how to ask the ‘why’ questions about a piece of art. I was also able to see firsthand how a fellow student went about the artistic process, and compare it to my own method.

Until now, I had not thought about using critiques in my middle school classes. However, I would like to try to do this regularly. The day after a project is due, my goal is for my class to be in the routine of spending most of the 50-minute period in a group critique, although every student’s work may not be featured in one day. I may also try breaking my class up into groups of four or five to accomplish this, in order for every student to be critiqued. A good way to start this activity might be to give students a list of questions they might ask the artist, in order to help them develop the ability to ask meaningful questions about a work of art. My hopes for this activity would be that it would have the same effect on my students that it had for me—that it would help them to ask questions and make decisions in a more thoughtful manner.

As I use these two ideas in my classes, it is my hope that my students will develop substantially in various areas of creative thinking. I want them to be able to step back and look at their thought processes, elaborate on their ideas, and take ownership of them. I want them to work on the edge of what they know, and to see the intrinsic value in creating something meaningful. Teaching them to slow down and think carefully would be a significant step in that direction, and devoting time in class to this would help them to see its importance. It is my plan to have both of these practices worked into my clasroom routine within the next couple of weeks.

Paper Mache

In Language Arts, seventh graders are reading 'Call of the Wild' by Jack London. In order to integrate this with Art, they have been looking at Northwest Pacific totem poles and are constructing their own totem pole models using paper mache. They started the building process this week. It was messy......but fun!

Where Do Artists Get Their Ideas?

“Artists often get their ideas from their surroundings and experiences.”

A good way to introduce this idea would be to start a class discussion with the question “Where do artists get their ideas?” One common misnomer about artists is that all of their ideas simply pop into their heads from out of nowhere. The mystery of ‘inspiration’ makes some people think that it is a gift that is bestowed upon the ‘enlightened’ artist, with little or no effort on their part, and all they have to do is translate their vision onto a canvas for ordinary people to see. (Granted, there are instances where artists create pieces based on dreams, but even these are technically drawn from life experiences.)

To teach this principle, I could show students a series of several artworks, perhaps by famous artists, and explain how each artwork arose out of the everyday experiences of the artist. Some artists, such as Rosa Bonheur and Edgar Degas, purposefully placed themselves in certain environments, or around certain subjects, to make their favorite subjects part of their everyday experience. Others just made art from that which they happened to see throughout the course of an average day.

Following this discussion, the students could research the art themselves. They could even create and perform skits which involved actual people, places and things which made their way into the work of the artist, and showed a bit of the artist’s creative process. Assessing the students’ understanding in this case would involve evaluating how much of the skit actually linked the artist’s work to the artist’s life, rather than simply showing them as co-existing.

Another way to drive this point home would be to use the students’ art journals. In order to do this, it might be beneficial to have the students focus on studying the lives of a small number of artists throughout the year, by means of internet research, reading time, unit projects and or class discussions. As a starter exercise for multiple classes, I could show them a slide of one of the artists’ works and have the students hypothesize about the inspiration of the artist’s ideas, based upon what they know about the artist’s life. In assessing this, I would to see that the students drew upon the knowledge they had about the artist’s life, or that they tried to look at the subject through the artist’s eyes, in order to come up with their answers.

Students could see this truth at work in their own art by keeping a sketchbook. In using this tool, I would instruct them to draw items, people and places from their lives, and encourage them to incorporate their drawings in class projects. I would especially challenge them to think outside of the box, looking for beauty or interest in objects or places that they might not normally think to create art about. They would be required to write a sentence or short paragraph about their drawings, explaining why they chose to draw what they did, and how each person, place or thing is significant or interesting to them.

In assessing these, I would look to see that the drawings and writings had strong connections to one another, and were, in fact, part of the students’ life experiences. I think this would be easily reflected in the writing and in the detail and uniqueness of the drawings. By doing this exercise they might see firsthand how many ideas an artist tries out in his sketchbook before incorporating one or two of them into his artwork. They would also understand from personal experience how an object that may seem mundane in everyday life can be transformed as the subject of an inspired work of art.

Purposeful Art

I will now explore ways to assess how well my students understand each of these three 'big ideas,' one at a time.

“Art, although it has had a variety of purposes throughout history and different cultures, should have purpose, and should be meaningful.”

In order to stress this to my students, I would teach them about some of the many of purposes art has served around the world, throughout history. I would spend time showing and explaining artworks to them which were used for each of these purposes. We would also spend time talking about art as a language; for example, how artists use color to express mood. Over the course of the year, I would show them multiple works of art. I would spend at least half of the year asking them questions which make them think about what the artist intended their work to do for the viewer, and why they created the work the way they did. I would probably have the students write their answers in an art journal.

I would look for journal entries that show they understand the connections among function, artists’ intentions, and the language of art. The inclusion of each of these considerations in their writing, in a coherent way, would probably show that the students understand how they are related.

My goal for them would not only be for them to come up with thoughtful answers to my questions, but also for them to learn to ask their own thoughtful questions about art. To assess the students’ abilities to ask thoughtful questions, I would change the routine that involved me asking them questions, and would give them the opportunity to come up with the questions themselves. I might ask a different student each day to write one question on the board concerning the artwork, and everyone would answer the question in their journals. Some days they may simply write, and some days we would discuss the questions as a class. Another idea would be for the students to write their questions in their journals, and then answer them. A class discussion may also follow this activity.

In order for students to see how this truth plays itself out their own artwork, I would give them projects that would allow them to express their ideas using visual language. These projects should make them aware of the of the decisions they make while creating art, and their purposes in making them. I have been reading through Engaging the Adolescent Mind by Ken Veith, and have been impressed by the way he wrote a ‘visual problem’ at the beginning of every lesson. Instead of merely giving his students a series of steps, he gave them a problem for them to solve using visual means. I think this gave the students ample opportunity to express themselves by making art that was meaningful to them. It also made it clear that we, as artists, have a reason behind every part of the art-making process; each piece of art is the result of a number of meaningful decisions. Making students aware of this should help them to place importance upon the choices they make during the creative process, strive to express themselves in a way that can be understood by the viewer, and inspire them to ask questions about the art of others.

I would assess how well the students applied the language of visual art to express their ideas or solve a problem by asking them questions about their art. I would ask them how the choices they made in material, color, line, form, etc. work to solve the visual problem presented to them at the beginning of the project. I would also ask them what ideas inspired them as they created their artwork.

The Value of Tone

This week, my 6,7, and 8th grade students learned several shading techniques. They used these to draw spheres and cones, and ended up with some impressive 3-D effects.

Three Big Ideas in Art

“If you could teach your students three things, what would they be?”

When I was asked this question last week, I knew it would be very challenging to narrow down what I felt was important in art to three things. From my perspective, there is so much to know about this field, and it is my job to teach as much of it as I can. To try to come up with an answer, I immediately started to tick through the list of elements and principles of design I’ve focused on in my teaching, and tried to decide which ones were most important. I soon realized that picking three of those and deeming them essential would have been as ludicrous as picking three major scales and telling a piano student that knowledge of these was the heart of understanding music. I changed my approach, and started to think bigger than just the ‘how to’ aspect of art.

Yesterday, I came across an interesting quote by George Sand: “Art for art’s sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of the true, art for the sake of the good and beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.” This quote inspired the first principle on my list: Art, although it has had a variety of purposes throughout history and different cultures, should have purpose, and should be meaningful.

I would like to encourage my students to see art in an authentic, meaningful way. Art should help people wrestle with essential questions, or understand some facet of the human experience. This may involve religion, social concerns, or appreciating the beauty of nature. Whatever the artist’s purpose in creating his or her art, ordinary people should be able to connect with it, on some level. Understanding this would encourage my students to try to learn about society and the world through art, and also to strive to make art that is meaningful.

A second truth I would like my students to remember is that artists often get their ideas from their surroundings and experiences. I want them to look for inspiration from people, places and things in their everyday lives. I would also like them to think about the relationships between the works of art they see, and the lives of the artists who created them.

Third, it would be important for my students to understand that sometimes the art making process is more important than the product. Even though art should communicate something to the viewer (and good art naturally will), creating the art is often first and foremost the means by which the artist interacts with his or her environment or experience. Sometimes that is the sole reason an artist creates. It can help the artist understand his or her surroundings more fully. The act of creating can also be the consummation of the artist’s emotional experience toward his or her surroundings.

Even though I have attempted answer to this question here, I know I will ponder it for years, and my answer will probably change multiple times. I do not really think it is possible to pick three principles that are absolutely the most important to understanding art. However, thinking about this question is challenging me to focus on a few essential aspects of art, and emphasizing them in my teaching, rather than trying to teach everything.