Source: https://thsbarnettart.weebly.com/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 11:02:20+00:00

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For about a week and a half, Art 1 and Art 2 students learned about the Artistic Thinking Process (ATP)...inspire, design, create, reflect. The ATP is a process that artists go through. It starts with an idea (inspiration) and goes through research, sketching (design), creation, revision, and reflection. It is not a linear process and it changes along the way. Often an artist will hit bumps along the way. And, reflection is an ongoing part of the entire ATP.
These are some of the artworks the students created during our ATP bootcamp.
Beginning Ceramics students jumped right into clay by making texture tiles. They learned some basic skills and explored different ways of making texture. They hit some road bumps along the way, but that was all part of the plan to help them see things that could go wrong, then learn how to prevent that in the future. I am so excited about where these students will go with clay this year.
The 2018-19 school year in the #DuckArt studio is off to a band. We started the year learning how to make our own sketchbooks using the Coptic Stitch method. It wasn't easy, and many kids had a tough start. But, once they got going, they found a rhythm and created their own sketchbook. Our sketchbooks this year are going to be their everything for art class---a place for notes, a place for research, a place for sketches and reflections and explorations. I am super proud of how hard they worked, and I can't wait to see how they use them.
The final artwork of the semester was one that was to be based upon math and/or science. We spent the better part of a week watching videos to learn about artists who use math and science in their work and use them in both a traditional way and an out-of-the-box way. Students then created graphic organizers that started with the general subject of math or science, then was narrowed down to what area of that subject they were interested in, and ended with an artwork that could be inspired by their mind maps.
I loved watching my artists make connections between art and other subjects. And, the variety of directions they went in is pretty awesome. The artistic growth from this group of students so far this year has been amazing.
I have been wanting to have my art 2 students take their work to a deeper level–to really bring in their voices. So, this year, I decided it was the year to “bring it on”, so to speak. I decided to challenge my students with the tackling of social issues. They first started by defining some “common” words… opinion, social issue, society, commentary, and parody. I also asked them to consider why an artist would want to us social issues in their work. I asked them to watch either a video on Maxwell Rushton and his “Left Out” project or on Favianna Rodriguez, a Latina printmaker, and make connections between the what they watched and our unit idea of using social issues in art. The final part of their research was to find artworks that used social issues. And, they couldn’t show any that I showed them for our intro to the unit.To help my students get warmed up for creating their own artwork, I gave them a challenge. They had 2 choices. Choice one: talk to 5 different people about some “hot topic issues” of today, and create a sketch of a possible artwork based on their “favorite” opinion. Choice two: Pick a social issue that is hot today, create a slideshow of at least 5 different artworks around that issue (on either side), and present to the class.
The best part for me about this unit was how invested in their artwork the kids became. I didn’t have to prod the kids to get going. They quickly had a social issue they wanted to talk about and set off creating. I am so impressed with their work, and their voices.
Over the past week, Art 1 has been exploring acrylic and watercolor paints in our paint bootcamp. The bootcamp is culminating in a landscape painting of their choosing in either acrylic or watercolor, although a few have chosen to use both. This is one painting where I don't mind that they copy because the main purpose is using what we learned in the ways of techniques and color mixing. They started off strong and will finish up when we return from Thanksgiving break.
Last year when I went to the National Art Education Association National Conference in NYC, I went to a session that immediately spoke to me. In this session, the presenter, Anne Thulson, talked about an activity that she did with her young students. It was an exercise in what I call "an exploratory adventure in seeing the ordinary world".
I decided that my students needed to do this. As artists, we need to see the ordinary in a different light. The more we can see, the more ideas we can add to our creative bank account.
Once a month, I take my art 2 students on a walk outside of building. The students are armed with a bag containing a pencil, some modeling clay, some paper tags, a length of yarn, sidewalk chalk, and mini figures. They are then asked to "approach the city in an artistic way". This ranges anywhere from reimagining the city to inserting yourself in the city. Tracing the city to creating a mini-world in the city. As a way of recording what they do and see, students take pictures and upload them to seesaw, and social media learning app designed for teachers and students.
Over the past week and a half, art 2 students learned about the design process. The process consists of 4 stages: inspiration, design, creation, and reflection. It should be noted that the process is not linear, but one that allows the artist to go back and forth between stages if needed.
Each stage was looked at individually, so students could really spend a class period studying it and working through it. We spent a class period per stage, with exception for the create stage which lasted about 4 days, building upon what the student did in a previous stage.

References: Art 1
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