Artists are Self Directed: Art Two

Above: jewelry making

In the traditional art class, the teacher picks the project idea, find and demos any tutorials, and decides on the medium the students will use. That might sound like the role of the teacher... but, it's not. That's the role of an artist.


for this first unit, Artists are Self Directed, I wanted the students (AKA, the artists) to decide what inspires them, to seek out 'how to' information when they weren't sure how to complete something, and to pick the media. After all,  I'm not the artist. They are the artists! Here's a look at what the Art Two artists came up with...

Pastel on wood

Acrylic on canvas

Candle making

Abstract designs drawn with fire and smoke

Mixed media

Mixed media (in progress)

Spray paint

Spray paint

Acrylic on canvas

Creating and 3D Printing

We've started printing with our Makerbot 3D printer and we're learning a lot! The students have been using apps on the iPad including 123D Design and 123D Sculpt+. These apps let students either organize and combine forms to create new objects or manipulate the equivalent of virtual clay. In either case, the students are able to build unique things.

There is a little bit of a learning curve trying to understand how best to orientate an object to get the best print. Do we leave it standing up or lay it down? A lot of trial and error.. a lot of error.. but success too. Here is a look at some of the objects in various stages of printing...

SchoolArts: Locker Project & TABology

The March issue of SchoolArts magazine is out and it features not one but two articles out of Apex High School. How very exciting!

What's in Your Locker?
The first article is about our locker project. In class, we talked about space and how artists utilize space when creating art. Then we took advantage of the empty lockers in our school. nobody uses those lockers.. not till now!

Read the Locker Project online!

High School TABology
The second article talks about incorporating TAB at the high school level. Sure, there are plenty of "how to" publications on elementary TAB but not so much at the HS level. This article addresses TAB vs choice based teaching and explains w what teaching TAB in high school really looks like.

Read TABology online!

Artists are Self Directed: in Progress

The first day of the new semester I handed my students paper and colored pencil and said, "We're going to do this tutorial... and we did. When we were done we talked about what my role in the project was. Here were the findings:

I picked the project idea
I found the tutorial
I decided on the medium

That might sound like the role of the teacher. Well, it's not. That's the role of an artist. Artists decide what inspires them, artists seek out 'how to' information when they aren't sure, and the artist always picks the media. So why was I doing it?? I'm not the artist. They are the artists!

First issue was knowing what materials were available. stealing an idea from Jean Barnette, our students went on a material scavenger hunt. They had a list of items to find out about including different papers and different types of paint, they even had to find stuff that they didn't know what it was.

Next, they had to find their own techniques. I encourage them to find a tutorial that they either didn't know how to do or one that improved on a skill they already knew. Then I asked them to do that tutorial.

Finally, we talked a bit about inspiration. What are you concerned about? What are you interested in? What are your passions?

Once they went through all three steps, I asked them to design their first project for my class. They had to decide what to make, they had to learn a new technique or improve on an older skill to make it, and they had to decide what medium to use to best bring their idea to fruition.

The one thing I can say is, I have no idea what's going on! Students are hard at work on something.

They are trying new techniques, new media...

We got everything going on from 3D printing...

To candle making...

To traditional materials like pastels..

To ceramics..

To drawing with fire....

Wait hold up.. drawing with fire! I got go!!!


.

What’s a Bootcamp?

The term Bootcamp, originally coined by Melissa Purtee, refers to a method for handling the teaching of a set of techniques. Bootcamps are best utilized when covering a detailed range of techniques within a particular medium that couldn't be sufficiently cover in demos or mini-lessons. 

During the bootcamp, students are given both short demos as well as more thorough exercises in which to explore the media. The goal is for students to gain an understanding, not to create a work of art.

Though Purtee prefers to run her bootcamps consecutively, I prefer to roll mine out a week at a time, alternating between Bootcamps and Artistic Behavior Units.

Examples of my Bootcamps:

Drawing Bootcamp: 

This one week Bootcamp covers observation skills, value and perspective. This is one of the first Bootcamps I’ve run with my Art One students, usually the first week of class. It’s starts off by drawing Chick, our class skeleton then proceeds to value portraits and end with linear perspective. 

Painting Bootcamp: 

Slightly longer than one week depending on the amount of dedication the students put on the final artwork. This bootcamp covers color theory, proper tool handling, brush techniques as well as some Bob Ross style tippy tappy brush techniques. We usually will complete a small acrylic painting at the end of this unit. Click here for a closer look at our painting Bootcamp!

Clay Bootcamp: 

A week long tutorial which runs much like a traditional teacher directed project. This Bootcamp covers score and slip, stages of clay, firing and glazing. Most students create a simple slump mold or other slab piece while learning the techniques.

Technology Bootcamp:

A week long exploration unit of the different types of applications our school offers including the Adobe Suite and the iPads, both 2D and 3D programs. Each day is spent learning a few techniques on each application. 

Art Ed Blog of the Year!

So how about that! The Art of Apex blog just won 2nd Place Art Ed Blog of the Year! 

From the Art of Education website: 

"There are many amazing places to find ideas, inspiration, and encouragement on the web, and it’s no secret art teacher blogs are some of the best! That’s why for the past few years we’ve been highlighting these talented and generous individuals in our annual Art Ed Blog of the Year contest, the web’s only contest that exclusively honors Art Education blogs. The contest is a way for art teachers across the world to recognize their peers for blogging excellence."

"With thousands of votes coming in for the 2015 Blog of the Year Contest, you ended up in second place!"

Thanks!

from Virtual 123D to Literal 3D

This is the third test of our  Makerbot 3D printer and it's an important one. For this test I wanted to see if we could take a creature created in 123D Creature on the iPad and turn it into an actual 3D object.

It started a a virtual moose created using 123D Creature on the iPad. From the iPad we were able to export the mesh. The mesh was easily imported into the Makerbot software to prepare for printing.

The 123D Creature file was exported as a .obj file. Once imported into the Makerbot software, it was easy to rotate and scale. The software also allowed us to decide which way to rotate the creature so it uses the least amount of supports, saving filament. This is still something we're learning about.

The final result is this very cool little moose!

3D Printing on the Makerbot

Look at that! It's a shark! Pretty exciting, I know! OK maybe not that exciting if you don't know the backstory. So let me tell you a tale of the 3D printer.

Back in November I received an email from the folks in the Media Center. It was from Makerbot. They were holding a contest. Whomever had the most retweets that used the Makerbot hashtag would win a 3D printer. I decided to tweet and asked my students to retweet my tweet. 

We had a pretty good first day with around 200 tweets. In fact, we had more tweets that anyone. I started thinking, maybe we could win this thing. 

Then the next day, I saw that another school had passed us. The had over 250 retweets. I was like, on no you didn't! So again I asked the students to ask their friends to retweet...

We went from 200 to over 500 retweets in a day! Long story short, we won the printer! It came in a box a few days ago. This morning I decided to see if I could set it up. I did and it work! (See shark above).

Now the fun can really begin. Stay tuned to see what we build this semester.

A Look Back: 2015 Year In Review!

And now, a month by month look back at the Best of the Art of Apex 2015 Year in Review! 

January: Two SchoolArts Articles!

The February issue of SchoolArts Magazine features not one but two articles spotlighting the Art of Apex! The first article, titled Teaching Students to Think Like Artists was an in depth look at the grading and blogging policy being implemented in several of our art classes.The second article included a three page spread featuring four full color photographs of the art that donned the Apex halls and walls. See both articles here!

February: Text as an Element!
The first project for Art Three was to create an artwork the incorporated text as an element. This might seem like an easy task but for students who are image centric, this proves a difficult task. Check out some of the final versions here.

March: NAEA Convention New Orleans!
If you were looking for Sands and Purtee back in March you might have had to look in New Orleans. Both teachers attended and presented at the conference. Sands also wrote a few review articles for the Art of Education. Read all about our adventures here!

April: AOIT Meets 123D Creature!
I think every class that tries their hand at creating 3D has a lot of fun ad takes away some new skills but AOIT kids really get it! We took the AOIT Art One class to the Media Center and showed them a few tips and tricks to create in the world of 3D. The results were outstanding! Check out the 3D Creatures here!

May: Sugar Hill and the Wave in Bottle Cap Art 
Environmental artist Bryant Holsenbeck worked with our Art History class to recreate a work of art using recycled materials. This image was 10' x 16' large, and spread out over 8 tables. I use the past tense "was" when describing the mural because we only had one class period to complete it and when we were done, it was entirely dismantled. Check out our bottle cap art here!

June: Good Bye to the Art of Education
After two years and nearly 100 articles, Sands decided it was time to pass the torch to a new writer. Leaving AOE was a big decision so it couldn't be done without a big send off. Check out the three part series titles A Vision for Art Education!

July: The TAB Institute in Boston
Sands spent a week working with students at the TAB Institute at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. This one-week Teaching for Artistic Behavior course offered intensive inquiry into the practice of choice-based art education and students could earn graduate credit. Here is a look at some at the TAB Institute Summer 2015!

August: Back at School so Elements?
I thought having students take a look at the elements of art and how different artists emphasize different elements in their work would be a good place to start. Each student selected an element that they wanted to emphasize and created a piece that emphasizes it. Take a look here!

September: What's in your Locker?
For the first Art One project I thought it would be fun to take a look at space and how artists use the space that is available to them. At our school, the lockers are a space that is under utilized. To counter this, the locker project was born! Check out some of the lockers here!

October: Answering Essential Questions!
This was a new unit and it asked students to come up with a word and then form a question around the word. Once they had a question, they needed to decide how to respond to their own question artistically speaking. This was challenging but exciting at the same time. Check out this unit and some of the responses here!

November: Non Traditional Materials
For our last unit, Artists Incorporate Non Traditional Materials, the only limitation imposed was the request that they not use any fine art materials that could be purchased from an art supply company. They needed to find some other material in which to create their art. All other considerations were left up to the artists. View some of the works in progress here.

December: We Won a 3D Printer!
Makerbot had a contest. The school that had the most retweets of their hashtag would win a 3D printer. challenge accepted! Apex rose to the challenge and retweeted our tweet over 550 time! So yes, we won! What does the future hold for Apex Art? Wither certainty the ability to print in 3D!