Art Class: Surrealism in Watercolour

 

Watercolour is an unforgiving medium. Its transparency is beautiful but a mistake is clearly visible unlike the acrylic paint where you can go over it by applying a new layer. 

I prefer to let the students use acrylic paint but since I'm conducting art class in the classrooms, I'm changing the medium. A good thing is each class is equipped with a sink so at least they still can wash their supplies without making visits to the washrooms. 

I prepared paint on the plastic lid and allow them to dry before distributing them to the students. They would just need to fill the continer with water and start paint. To clean up, they will empty the container and allow the paint to dry the same way when they have just received them. I made a watercolour video and the students will be learning to apply the techniques to their drawings. We'll see how it goes.

Art Class: Land Art (2015)

Hi Teachers, today I'm visiting my old lesson and share why it was the first and my last time doing this. These photos were taken five years ago. 

When I first taught at my current school, the students had very strong preconceived notions of what Art is. I couldn't conduct any Art appreciation lessons because they would be more boisterous and make any teaching ineffective but I know that they like hands-on work. 

I decided to bring them out of the classroom for Art lessons and surprisingly they were much calmer and the space was more conducive. I tried to balance the lesson with sketching, some art appreciation on Land Art and hands-on which you can see in the photos below. I sort permission from my school to cut some leaves near the fence as the school garden was too clean to find any fallen leaves. I also took some plants from home as there weren't enough variety. 

The leaves were left on the fence (their canvas) after the class so that the students could build on what the other classes had done. They could also view their work during recess as it's a common area. Two weeks later, I returned to dispose the twine as the leaves were gone. So, I guessed the dried leaves had been blown into a drain which I did not realised if I weren't inform. Subsequently, I did not try this again as I didn't want people cleaning after me. How would you teach about Land Art if you were me? 

Reads: What the Art Teacher Reads

 

Hi Teachers! I managed to finish this new book during the term break. It was given to all participants as the workshop which we had signed up for was cancelled. So, I guess their budget was used to purchase the books instead😁

Dale Dougherty was thought to be the founder of Maker Faire in 2006. It is an event where people could make things using digital and analog tools. It then became a worldwide movement. Singapore has her first Maker Faire in 2012 while hackerspaces and other interest groups were operating in silos. 

Two years ago, the Art Club students participated in the Maker Faire. The participants were students from different schools and age groups. It was great exposure for the children to see different ideas and what the older students came up with. 

I had to re-read a chapter in the book as it touches on Heutagogy. I don't remember ever coming across this term or is it I wasn't paying attention in school?? The book grouped Heutagogy principles as Education 3.0. In other words, it seems to imply gearing towards self-directed learning. In this case, it ties in well with Maker Education which can be structured open inquiry. Information acquired is definitely multiple ways because it sees learners as connectors, creators and constructivists. Anyway, if you are new to this term, it doesn't mean we, teachers are, not practising it in class. 

Inquiry-based learning in the art classroom has been on-going for some years. It's the discipline most closely related to Maker Education. Students would strongly object if we didn't make something during art class. I remember vivdly once I spent the whole lesson doing Art appreciation and at the end of the class, a girl asked me why didn't we do any artwork! That said, it speaks volume about the importance of the foundation years on building learning experiences. 

Housekeeping: Keeping Markers Intact

I'm so happy that this markers hack works! I saw this artroom hack some time ago and I thought I should try it too. It's too silly to worry over the lost of markers' covers or duplicate colours in a set. Sometimes, you have the whole set dropped on the ground and the markers seem to have a mind of their own. They can roll under the children's giant Smiggle lunchbox or fall into their school bags. 

Despite all my tellings, you just have that set of markers that are not in place and you can spot them miles away but no time to fix. I removed all the unnecessary packagings and secure them with Duck Tape (not kidding, that's the brand). It's also easier to sanitise this way. The neon tapes are so brilliant and blinding no children can miss returning. 

Just a word of caution, you can't cut the tape with scissors as the adhesive is too strong. NO MORE MISSING MARKERS! YAYY! 

Art Class: Make Your Own Book

I have finally finished reading all these stories to my students! They made these books during Home-Based Learning. You can view this post about this lesson. Since we can't do an exchange of books to read, we look at everyone's drawings and sequence of stories by sharing under the visualiser.

Art Class: My Favourite Things

Jazz up the pen and paper drawing by providing children black papers and white pens. We decided on a theme, My Favourite Things, since everyone wanted to do something different. I did a sharing of all their work under the visualiser There was a boy who requested for the spelling of some types of dinosaurs and I replied that I don't know how to spell! Anyway, we looked it up on the search engine and he pointed out the correct words that he saw. Poring over their drawings is so enjoyable 😻

Art Class: Exquisite Corpse Drawing Game

Hi Teachers, my students are playing a drawing game in class. I've adapted the collaborative feature to individual work. The A3-sized drawing papers are cut lengthwise for this activity. Watch the video to find out more!