Teaching Artist Response  Ch.1 & 2

       I have been seriously thinking lately about if I want to continue to pursue illustration as my major of study. In contemplating that choice, a major wall I have come up against has been whether or not it would benefit me with my future professional goals as an educator. 

       I really liked what this chapter said about the difference between an art educator and a teaching artist. The teaching artist is one who is practicing her art form and thus can draw enthusiasm and inspiration from her current practice into the classroom. The Art educator is one who has a deep love and respect for art and shares and communicates that through their instructional art activities. While both types of educators have merit and something great to bring to the classroom, I feel more inspired by the job description of the former.                   

         I want to be creating while my students are. To be inspired in my own life by the things I'm learning and explore with them those things. This quote really hit me:

"If you articulate what matters to you in your discipline, you are both creating curriculum and thinking as an artist."

        I think I am afraid of not being good enough for illustration and serious art practice and so I have held back from it. I don't want to hold back from something because I am nervous or afraid of being successful or measuring up. I need to just go forward with what I care about regardless of the consequences.

         I also really appreciated this thought:

"Teaching and art-making also share another characteristic: they are largely about identifying what is essential in a given context. An artist's power resides partly in the ability to identify what is essential to an idea, vision, association or functional characteristic so that it can be communicated, embodied or designed in a medium. Similarly a teaching artist, or any good teacher, must identify what techniques, concepts and processes in a discipline are essential to teach in a given context so that students can better make original work that successfully applies and extends past practice and knowledge."

It is important not to overload students but to choose the essential concepts and skills you wish to give them and scaffold them from there on, so that they may have a greater chance of success. This quote also greatly stuck out to me:

"We also need to have an attitude of curiosity about both the areas with which we are familiar and areas we wish to know more about."

I think the teacher who is most effective is the teacher who is willing to explore and learn more. I feel that Dr Graham was always really good at doing this as an educator and that really helped me as a student get interested and invested in what was being taught, because it seemed not like a task he was assigning us but a project he was exploring with us. I want to do that as well with my students.

From CH.2 

       I loved the idea that your teaching is as unique as your art is. I think once agin this is why the principle form Ch.1 of being a teaching artist , is so important to me, the more I reflect on it. 

        It makes since that you can only pull as much out of a garden , as what you've panted- that time you put into your artwork , becomes the seeds you plant and which you can one day harvest in your classroom. This is also why it is important to be continually learning and evaluating my work as an artist. 

        I loved discussions we had in class this year, and presentations form other students. So many of the possibilities we saw in art were informed by our knowledge of what other artists were currently doing. Especially in relation to the evening for educators we planned.

       I want as an educator to bring my work into the classroom and have the classroom influence my work. SO that its a collaboration type of learning rather than just a textbook distance type of learning. I hope me and my students explore together the possibilities found in art.

Nature Curriculum prototype: Natural paint.


For my prototype I made paint out of a red and yellow soft rock (maybe sandstone?) That I  gathered from the desert.

Recipe:
crushed rock (for pigment)
1 egg yolk (to act as a binder)
1/4 teaspoon water

1) crush your rock in to a fine powder in a bowl, using a stick or some straight tool.
2) If you are crushing multiple rock colors, mix the colors you want  by mixing the powders together. 3)Set powder aside.
4) Separate egg yolk form the egg white.
5) Place egg yolk and 1/4 tsp. water in a clear bowl. Mix together well.
6) Mix in rock pigment powder. mix well.
7) Paint!
8) To preserve the paint, keep refrigerated.

Natural Container

Natural Container

 I love avocados, and was interested in how peels, are natures most primitive container- holding within them food, and nutrients. I think it is so interesting how they container grows with the thing it contains. We normally make a container to protect and hold something precious, but the fruit and nut acknowledges from conception that what it holds is precious and plans accordingly.

I wanted to pay homage to our naturally grown containers.

Exploring Nature Curriculum Sketch

Unit Idea: Students will learn to engage with nature through using man made, and raw materials.

Lesson 1 : Viewing nature within a frame.

Objective: Have students look critically at how nature is depicted in art.

Assessment:   Two Art critiques as a class: one working critique in a small group with 3-4 students,  while the work is in progress, and one final critique one on one with the instructor when the work is completed. An artist statement will be typed and displayed next to the work , on the class online gallery and in a student show at the end of the unit.

 Questions: What qualifies as nature? What qualifies as man-made? Why do we film, paint and record nature? What is the value of bringing inside a piece of work depicting outside?  Are humans afraid of nature? Should nature be feared?

 
 Activity: Have students research a nature artist from this list:

Ansel Adams , Claude Monet, Andy Goldsworthy, Kitty Lange Kielland, Mark Dion, Thomas Doughty, Andrea Lira, Polly Morgan, Sara Goldschmied, Elonora Chiari.

Choose a favorite work that the researched artist has produced and try to imitate it using only materials found in the classroom.(art supplies, recycling, etc)

Lesson 2 :  Nature Sketch

Objective: Have students examine the nature that surrounds their school, and learn to depict it, accurately.

Resources: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/the-remarkable-notebook-of-a-19th-century-naturalist

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/the-remarkable-notebook-of-a-19th-century-naturalist

http://www.epsi.net/graphic/historic.html

Assessment:  Art critiques as a class: one working critique in a small group with 3-4 students,  while the work is in progress, and one final critique one on one with the instructor when the work is completed. An artist statement will be typed and displayed next to the work , on the class online gallery and in a student show at the end of the unit. 

Questions: What can studying something up close teach about its purpose or design? Why were most naturalists also artists in the post renaissance age? Does observational drawing also serve a scientific purpose?

Activity: Students will research naturalist scientists and their field journals form the 17th-20th centuries, and examine the type of observational drawing skills used to depict and communicate knowledge about nature and species to the world. Students will then go outside and gather a piece of nature from their surroundings (a flower, a piece of bark, a leaf, etc.) and make a detailed scientific observational drawing of the piece.

Lesson 3 :  Drawing WITH nature

Objective:  Students will learn to use natural materials to make their art supplies: paint, paper, and mark making tools.

Assessment: Students will do a one page write up on the method they used to make their materials, and will demonstrate their materials to the class.

Questions: How are art supplies made today? How did people make art supplies before modern technology? When did art materials become less natural or more synthetic? Is there a difference in creating with modern art materials? With more natural materials?

Activity: Students will be divided into 5 different groups and using internet research, as well as personal innovation, produce 1 of 4 listed art materials:

-paper/ canvas/ drawing board

- paint

-glue

-mark making tools

(if students would like to make a material not listed above they must ok it with the teacher)

Students will demonstrate in a group presentation, how they made their material, and how it is used.

Lesson 4 :  Landscape Painting- Plein Air

Objective: Students will learn the basics of Plein Air painting.

Assessment: Students will do a half page write up on their experience with painting outside vs. inside. There will be an in-class critique of their work.

Questions: Why is light important to calculate, when painting outside? How is painting outside different than painting inside?

Activity:

Plein Air paint.