Editor’s Letter: Groundwork

What is the bedrock of your curriculum? Upon what foundations do you build your art program? No doubt these questions are on your mind with the start of a new school year. You may want to start with themes or Big Ideas, review past concepts, media, or techniques, or introduce unexpected or novel ideas. No matter what you choose to do, you want to capture and sustain your students’ attention and engagement. The lessons we share this month are chosen with those goals in mind.

Tangled Shapes

After reading aloud the book Tangled by Anne Miranda (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2019), I introduce students to the work of printmaker Hetty Haxworth, who creates large prints that feature various geometric and organic shapes. Students then create a shape mobile inspired by the book and the artist. The lesson ends with students collaborating to combine their mobiles into one large, tangled shape mobile.

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Square Scavenger Hunt

In my elementary art studio, the first day of class happens over and over again every hour for the entire first week of school. And during that first week, my students are going over and over the rules and procedures in every space they visit. There’s so much to cover between room layout, handling various drills, creating social contracts, and assigning seats, so I love to get students engaged and smiling by having them create from the very start. One of my favorite lessons to get students creating and to cover important information is an art room scavenger hunt. This is our first class activity in second through fifth grades, and it ends with a beautiful collaborative mural for the hallways.

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A Proven Winner

My third-graders focus on the concept of organic and geometric shapes and the vocabulary associated with it throughout the year. Using a guessing game approach, we find the shapes in representational art, abstract art, and in our environment. The hook that made this project stand out was the experience of having Reggie Laurent as a visiting artist join us via Zoom.

Repurposed Repoussé

I saw a lesson in an art education magazine where the objective was to transfer patterned designs onto tooling foil, then extend those patterns from the foil onto a 2D black matted surface using colored pencils. Looking at my donated cigar boxes, an idea struck me—why couldn’t I create a similar project but in 3D form? Students could extend the patterns from their foil designs onto the top and four sides of their boxes. I felt this would create an even stronger 3D piece, and students would enjoy repurposing the boxes into keepsake containers.

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Finding One’s Strengths

The Strengths Assessment helps people become more self-aware, engaged, positive, and goal-focused. Studying my own strengths and having these discussions with students sparked an interest. After I asked students what they thought their strengths were, one student found a free version of the test. With that, I developed a Strengths lesson. Students’ goal for this lesson was to create an artwork showing a personal strength and how they can use it to help others.

Scribble Self-Portraits

I usually start the year with the elements of art in the introductory classes. What could be more fundamental than focusing on line for the first project of the year? I always attempt to draw out a level of sophistication and personal expression from my students, and I was somewhat stumped for a project using only line. That’s when I discovered the work of artist Adam Riches, who creates portraits using a ballpoint pen and scribbles. I decided that students would create a self-portrait using the concepts found in Riches’ work.

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Alter-Ego Books

What if there was a way to connect all of the beginning art exercises like perspective, value scale, and faces into a cohesive story? What if there was choice and depth from day one of your first art class? How can learning to draw be fun, original, driven by personal narrative, and still be rigorous? Presenting the Alter-Ego Altered Book curriculum!

What Is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the state of being fully aware, receptive, and focused on the senses within the present moment. It is also a form of meditation that can be practiced anywhere, anytime. Students who integrate mindfulness into their lives can increase their focus and become rooted in the present moment where the mind is settled and they feel calm. Mindfulness can also cultivate well-being. Students can combine expressive activities with mindfulness in the art room, which helps them better comprehend the advantages it brings to their daily lives.

Motionless Motion

Jan Kaláb is a Czech painter, sculptor, and street artist whose work is characterized by brilliant, often Day-Glo colors. Since he became a pioneer of street art in the Czech Republic in the 1990s, his work has evolved to include sculpture, traditional painting, and installation art. No matter the art form, vivid color, multilayered compositions, and illusionistic abstraction are at the core of Kaláb’s art. Kaláb calls the pulsating sensations created through his juxtaposition of brilliant colors “motionless motion.”

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