Hey, Where Are Purtee & Sands? NAEA15

Update!

If you were looking for just one word to describe New Orleans, “colorful” would certainly fit the bill. Add a few thousand art teachers to the mix, and the hue and saturation levels of the city were only enhanced. Just like the colors on the color wheel, the people, events and exhibits at the 2015 NAEA Convention blended together to make up a pretty spectacular whole. 

At The Art of Education, we broke the convention into different categories and assigned each a color. Whether you attended the convention or not, we’re hoping this article goes deep into some of the lesser-known aspects of this year’s event. Read the full article here!

Did you happen to catch Purtee and Sands presentation The Open Art Room: Choice Teaching for Upper Level Teaching? Were you looking to view the presentation online? Well, click here to view it online!

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The following was posted before the Convention...

Actually, they are on their way to New Orleans for the National Art Education Association's 2015 Conference. What's that you ask? Well, its a gathering of around 5,000 art teachers from all over the country. We all get togehter for three days worth of events and presentations. 

Speaking of presentation, not only are Purtee and Sands attending, the are also presenting. 

Our presentation, The Open Art Room: Choice Teaching for Upper level Teaching will be on Saturday at 12 Noon. If you're at the convention, you should consider stopping by! 

One last thing. During the conference, Sands is making the book, Project Flop: Good Lessons From A Bad Teacher available as a free download! That's right, if you have a Kindle just click this link and download Project Flop.

OK that's it for now but there is a lot more to come...

Experimentation and Exploration

In art education circles, it is not uncommon to assign students projects and expect they complete these tasks during a set period of time. Advocates for this method site "time on task" as a reason for the scheduling and there is truth in that. However, there is a part of the art making process that is ignored by this project-centric working.... experimentation and exploration.

I was discussing the concept of giving students time to workout ideas and struggle through the process of discovery with an art educational associate of mine. She mentioned another art educator who was also interested in this concept. she labeled it "incubation". OK, I'll run with that for now. Here are some works in the incubation stage.

Above: Cara started painting a representational work but became interested in the layering of the paint. She put her representational project aside and is currently exploring abstraction.

Above: This is a test of wire, joint compound and spray paint. This was only a test. I'm excited to see where she might take this.

This student has enjoys drawing anime characters but has never worked digitally. She is exploring digital painting.

He wanted to try wood burning and engraving.This is his first attempt. Up close, the texture is really interesting. I'm going to introduce him to the dremel today. See what he thinks.

Working with plaster and sand to create eerie portraits.

This is a sketch for a painting that will combine realism and zengtangles. Case in point, she struggled with this idea and this sketch for two weeks.

You don't even want to know :)

Did You Steal That Off Pinterest?

This month on the Art of Education, we address an important issue... should we copy projects we see on Pinterest?

Everyone likes Pinterest, but it has produced an art quandary in my life. I kicked off the new semester of my high school art class with a unit on text art. In short, I asked my students to create a work of art using only text. Most students came up with original ideas, but a few students found ideas on Pinterest and wanted to emulate the concepts. I’m sure you have seen the type of projects I’m referring to. Those one-hit wonder Pinterest projects like the melted crayons and string art.

Is there value in the process or are students copycats? Continue reading...


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Light Drawing Photography

In AOIT Art One we are taking a look at Photography as our new unit. Yesterday, we tried our hand at a little Forced Perspective. Today, we decided to give light drawing a try.

It's easier to say than to do. It takes a lot of trial and error to get an image that looks good. However, in it's simplest form, it is nothing more than a glow stick and a camera with a slow shutter speed.

Here are some of today's photos.

Art History Game Day!

Today was Art History Game Day! A day dedicated to playing Art History games designed, created and played by students in the Art History class.  

The games were designed, and today judged, on four main categories: Craftsmanship, Informative, Original, and Fun! Each student had a score card and once they played each game, they scored the game based on these four topics. 

Of course we grade using the Cat Scale. Games at the top of their game received a score of "No Cats". Games doing a good job received "One Cat". Games that were fair received "Some Cats" and games that needed some help got ' Many Cats'. Most games did well, receiving few or no cats!

Here's a glance at today's game day.....

Back to Making Art.. (I Think)

The last two weeks were basically spent at home. It's been snow and ice and ended up being 8 snow and ice days. This week it seems like we are back to work. What are they working on? I sort of have a general idea. There is a lot of activity. that's good. 

Like the large painting being worked on above. She has been methodically attacking that canvas. reminds me of watching J Pollock at work.

I'm pretty sure that bear had it coming. Actually, she is going to try out the Ross Bonfanti method of cement filled stuff animals. I'm actually pretty curious to see how this turns out.

He is working on a painting as part of the Artists Steal Unit. Recreating Napoleon Crossing the Alps crossed with the Old Spice guy.

It's a painting of butts as part of the Text Art Unit. Very 'cheeky'.

As part of the Artists Observe Unit, we had a discussion about how to draw eyelashes (eyelashes not shown).

The background for a painting.. She's not sure exactly how it will turn out but she does have a sketch.  Stand by...

And in similar fashion.. the background for a painting.. She's not sure exactly how it will turn out but she does have a sketch.  Stand by...