Day 1 of Contemporary Art Series Camp: Chuck Close Fingerprint Paintings

Chuck Close is one of my favorite Contemporary artists! I wanted to be able to show the summer session 2 kids artworks that varied in medium and technique so what better way to showcase these skills than by using Chuck Close's fingerprint portraits. My original idea was to have students create self-portraits of themselves and then using black ink, go back over different areas of their face using their fingerprints. Though, I think I was thinking way too big for a group of 4 - 8 year olds who all have completely different skill sets. So, instead, we opted to do more of an abstracted image of a flower and vase. 

Before we began the art lesson, I introduced the students to the artist of the day. I exclaimed to them who Chuck Close was and what kind of art he did. The kids seemed to enjoy looking at his finger print portraits. In fact, most couldn't even tell that it was a painting because it looked so much like a photograph! This is when we started talking about photo realism and how photo illusions come into play from this type of art style. The students even seemed to enjoy that the artist was still living and still creating artwork, despite his disability. To even help students remember this artist, I explained to them how Chuck Close created works that were very large in size so he would have to sit in front of his paintings and *CLOSELY* paint his artworks. Chuck Close painted CLOSE up. :-) 

The kids were excited to paint in the vase of flowers using simple colors. It was really easy for them to start this process since the shapes were very much abstracted and simple enough for them to paint in. 

Next, we gave the students a variety of colors and demonstrated how to appropriately dip in their pointer fingers into the paint and *DAB* their fingers all throughout their painting. This process was interesting to watch because you could tell which students were the more neat and meticulous ones and who were the messier ones. The boys seemed to be the more messy, in this case. Some students chose to create their fingerprint marks in a very fast manner using a lot of paint to the point where their fingerprints were hard to see. In these instances, we had to come over and demonstrate to them how to dip their fingers. 

Once we were done with our masterpieces, we examined our works. I explained to the students how the flower vase was hard to see up close because the fingerprints cast an unusual illusion up close. However, once students backed up from their works they could see a hint of the flower vase! This is what photo realism is all about. 

All in all, it was a good day to study Chuck Close!

Henri Matisse's "Purple Robe With Anemones"

I try really really really really really really hard not to let my biases get in the way of my lesson plans and what I am teaching in class. But with this lesson, that didn't seem to happen. :( 

I did not want to teach a lesson on Matisse. I, personally, don't care for Fauvism or Matisse and never did as a kid. Sure, the colors are pretty but, I preferred the vivacious brush marks of Impressionisms over the flatness of Fauvism. However, the art camp I am working for this summer had advertised that Matisse would be included in this Mini-Masters series this week so I reluctantly included this project.

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I am sure there are a lot of art teachers out there who can flawlessly teach Fauvism and Henri Matisse-inspired lessons in their classes, but I am not one of those educators.. at least not yet. :) My issue with teaching Fauvism to elementary school kids is that I personally believe that the only real thing that the students are learning from this art style is that these artists use bright colors and a lot of shapes. Of course, this wasn't all Fauvism was about. However, these are the main things that the kids are getting out of the lessons. Not to mention, recreating a work that already looks a bit childish will then create a mediocre project that students take home and don't really recall any true methods in creating that said art piece. Sure, it's fun to paint, but what are we really getting out of this project? 

Now, I know my above statement has a lot of my art historian criticism coming out, but I've witnessed these effects over and over again, not only through my internship this summer, but also in previous teaching positions I've held in the past. 

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I searched high and low for a lesson plan that would be something fun, creative, and different for the students to truly learn about Matisse and Fauvism. Eventually, I settled on re-creating his "Purple Robe With Anemones" using acrylic paint. Hello messy art day #2.

We started off the project as usual. I took over the beginning of the lesson by devoting 5-10 minutes talking about Matisse's life as an artist and discussing Fauvism with the students. We looked through about 5 different works of art that he created during his lifetime. I explained how Matisse (and other Fauves like him) used bright colors and also flat brushstrokes. I could see the look of wonderment on some students' faces as they stared at the paintings I projected on the screen. Some students were interested in his work, that's for sure. Others, however, were getting a bit antsy during this art history lesson. Though, one restless student was able to relate to Matisse by explaining how he had a dog named Henry at home who just so happened to be a Maltese breed. Hey, if there's any way a student can relate to the artist of the day by using their actual experiences, I'll take it.

After the art history lesson, the head teacher took over and began the actual art making process. Beforehand, she had drawn out the entire image of the lady in a purple robe using pencil. Because she thought that the details would be a lot for the kids to take on by themselves, she had also colored in using crayons the different areas of the canvas so that students knew which areas were certain colors. Looking back, I'm glad she had this idea because, had we not done this, the art lesson would've been messier and confusing for students, especially for the younger ones.

The head teacher began dividing up the lesson by doing each shape first and doing the next using different colors. This way, the students would be able to stay on the same page as everyone else while also giving us teachers the ability to walk around and examine each step.

Once students had filled in every inch of their canvas with the corresponding colors of paints, it was time to end the lesson. I had imagined the lesson would take an hour and in actuality, we went over by 15 minutes. And it wasn't hard to tell that the kids were getting tired and needed a break. Try telling a 5 year old to finish up a project and you're in for a rude (literally rude and bratty awakening).

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At the end of the day, the lesson seemed a bit mediocre for my taste. I loved how the students got a chance to work with acrylic paint and experiment different ways that they can use the paint brushes to fill in various forms in their works. But, the final product wasn't really their own work.

Take a look at this painting:

Beautiful, right? Fauvism-inspired, yes? But, did a 5 year old make this painting in it's entirety, though? Not so much....

Me and my fellow teaching artist were asked by our head art teacher to finish up the students' paintings while the kids were on a recess break. At first, the head art teacher asked me to simply outline the major shapes (the woman, the robe, the vase, the flowers, etc.) using black paint. Reluctantly, I agreed. She then asked me to clean up the shapes and "add definition" by going into the sold areas using the black paint. So, I added in a few lines here, some lines over there... I even outlined the children's designs in the background as well. Throughout all of this, I felt horrible. I felt guilty. As I stood over the rows of Matisse-inspired paintings each student had done, I just thought to myself, "everything looks the same."

And with this, I think I have begun to discover what my issue is with teaching summer art camps. More shall be explained later....

3 down, 2 more to go...

Gustav Klimt's "The Tree of Life"

After yesterday's successful project, I was eager to start on this new one. The original lesson plan I laid out for the teachers involved using metallic and gold markers on black paper with the kids drawing out the tree of life but the head teacher proposed a different approach, since we had an abundance of kids from different age ranges who lacked certain art skills. 

As soon as the head teacher brought out the canvases and acrylic paint I thought to myself, "uh oh...". I just envisioned paint getting everywhere, the canvases turning out messy, and kids using too much color and shapes in their trees.

Before kids got to camp, the head teacher and I drew out the trees on the canvases first with pencils. We both thought that it may be too hard for a lot of the students to draw out the swirls of the branches on their own. Next, we handed out the canvases to the students and instructed them to CAREFULLY paint in the tree (branches and all) with the dark brown paint. I thought that a lot of the students may have a hard time with this step since it required a lot of precision but, the kids proved me wrong....again! Many of the students took their time to fill in all of the branches and to paint in the trunk. There was even a student who was doing interesting mark making with her brush:

Our next step was to add in the orange (or gold, as a lot of kids remembered from the artist slideshow earlier in the day). This gold served as a background for the tree and would make it pop out even more, as I explained to the kids. This, by far, was the most challenging part for the students and if I could, I would go back and change up this step. 

Since there were small areas in between the branches that needed the gold, a lot of kids had a hard time precisely painting in the gold and to refrain from getting it all over the branches. Looking back, starting off this painting with a gold background first may be the one huge alteration I would make to this lesson. Though, luckily, my two other teachers helped the students who were struggling to paint in the smaller (harder) areas. 

After, we filled in the ground by using blue paint. This was easy for everyone in the classroom since that particular area was big enough for the students to fill in with paint. 

After we had every inch of our canvas filled in with color, the final (and most enjoyable) step was to go back into the tree using reds, yellows, whites, and greens to paint different shapes and forms inside the areas. During this step, I referred back to Klimt's artworks on the projector to give students inspiration for the shapes that they may want to do. This step was hard because many of the students wanted to fill in every inch of the tree with some sort of shape or they wanted to completely go over the brown with other colors. 

After an hour, which was about how long I predicted the lesson would take, I had to stop the project and just take the canvases away. It wasn't because the kids were being bad and not handling the materials properly, but they were getting soooo into it, that it got to a point where everyone in the class was over-working their projects and going overboard with the paint. Not to self: once the colors on the canvas turn muddy (and especially when and if the art doesn't call for muddy colors) end the project.

Overall, the end result with this project turned out fabulous. Even though,we had to use black paint and outline everything in the painting to clean them up a bit, I was happy with the overall results. In fact, the head teacher was so pleased with the final product, she decided to use the lesson in her next curriculum project for the kids during a new session. 

2 lessons down, 3 more to go!

Preparation: An Art Teacher's Scattered Brain

I'm not going to lie. Since it is summer vacation, I am not taking any classes, and I have been feeling those classic summer vibes, I initially started my summer internship with Monet & Me thinking that it would be a piece of cake. I was wrong. Even though I love the actual process of coming into class and teaching kids about art, I underestimated the preparation that goes into each class session. Here's how I prepared for this first class session:

Before I began anything, I met with the founder (and also head teacher) for my summer internship program, to discuss what roles I should take on for my internship position. We both agreed that I would be making the entire curriculum for both summer sessions. These sessions comprised of 5 artworks created during the 5 days (M-F) per session. Each day we would study an artist and create a piece inspired by said artist. Since my head teacher believes that the art historical component is just as important as the art-making promise (and I couldn't agree more) in a lesson, we made sure that each lesson plan featured about 10 minutes of teaching about the artist we would be studying. Granted, these kids are between the ages of 3 (...yikes!) - 10 years old so, we didn't necessarily expect them to already have an art historical background. But, we did understand that our clientele of mostly West Lake parents would greatly appreciate some educational component in each class session. In addition, the selection of artists/artworks was completely up to me. This was exciting, yet.. restricting, at times. For instance, since session I is a camp on Master Artists and their great art works, I was restricted to "most well-known artists" that just so happened to be Masters. I immediately thought of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Titian, etc. but then...wait: naked people. So, censorship was something to consider. Another restriction was that the parents and kids signed up for these summer camps hoping to recreate copies of Master Artworks that they could easily recognize and might be familiar with  already. So, the obvious artworks that came to mind were Claude Monet's "Lily Pads" series, and Edvard Munch's "The Scream," both of which are in the curriculum. This was also another thing to think about.

I started my investigation process like any other human being would: google search. In order to select well recognized artworks and artists, I had to first uncover who/what they were. I googled "master artists, master artworks, well-recognized art" and I came up with these 5 (white & male) artists......(shocking):

Winslow Homer ("The Fog Warning", Gustav Klimt ("Tree of Life"), Henri Matisse ("Girl in the Purple Robe"), Claude Monet ("Lily Pads"), and Edvard Munch ("The Scream").

Once I had my artists down, I started to research lesson plans who used these artists as inspiration for their art projects. Surprisingly, I used pinterest, a site that I don't normally go on, but one that I am familiar with as the plethora of girls I used to go to high school with have uploaded their pinterest boards onto facebook to show off their wedding inspirations. I was actually surprised at the variety of lesson plans available that matched up with my artists and the different techniques that I wanted each of my students to explore. Of course, I had to alter many of the lesson plans I found as some did not match my age group or I found them too crafty. I wanted my lesson plans to be as straight-forward as possible, but not dumbed-down for my smart kiddos.

The lesson plans I created took between 1 - 2 hours to format and research as they included a slideshow of artworks for each artist as well as a short artist bio. I figured, before we began the art project, the students needed to be familiar with the artist, the artwork we would be recreating, and a tidbit of information related to art history and vocabulary. The only trouble I had was that the slideshows and bios felt very academic and too much like school. After all, this is a summer camp so the kids should be having fun! But on the other hand, it would be helpful for the kids to match up the artworks with their respective artists. Not to mention, the parents might appreciate the educational aspects of these art projects.

The weekend before camp, I met with the two other art teachers who would be helping me during the camp sessions. Despite my initial hesitation, everyone felt that the artist bios and slideshows would be a great way for students to investigate the artist. Plus, it might be fun to look at art! It was also helpful for all three of us to get together and talk about the lesson plans and to make a schedule for the day. We all had no idea if we would be able to stick to this proposed schedule and we didn't know exactly how long each art lesson would take, so we all hoped for the best. Here's the schedule for the day:

8:30 Arrival

9:00-9:30 Craft Project

9:30 Bathroom

9:40 – 10:10 Playground  (Tag, Duck Duck, Yellow Light, Red Rover)

10:10 Snack Time

10:25-11:25 Art Lesson

11:25 Bathroom

11:35 Playground

11:50 – 12:15 Lunch/Mo

12:15 Three Dimensional Bamboo Project

12:35 Clean Up

12:50 Review 

So to wrap up, if this preparation process has taught me anything, it's that every art teacher needs to have some sort of organizational system and schedule (for her/himself) in order to get everything planned out in a timely manner. I wish I had sent over my lesson plans to the head teacher earlier than usual, but because my dad was in the hospital two weeks before classes began, I was a bit behind. Regardless, I was creating to-do lists left and right in addition to working two other summer jobs and planning out a thesis proposal. I also found it helpful to always communicate with my teachers, especially the head teacher, during this process. Even though it was scary and forced me to dive into curriculum head first, I had the responsibility of creating all of the lesson plans and to figure out how we would reach out to students. It was essentially up to me to create the entire curriculum so it was important that everyone was in the loop. Overall, I had complete freedom (within reason, of course) but I still wanted everyone else's input. In addition, it was important for everyone to know what I was doing instead of being kept in the dark. In the preparation process for effective art teaching, I have to kick out the scattered-brain artist out of own head for a while and force myself to be the organized teacher!