Rationale: The theme of our unit was centered around community and identity in and outside of the classroom. During the unit we introduced projects that had students better understand and learn about community and identity through the art making process. Students used a variety of tools and techniques such as learning about relief in printmaking to create personalized stamp, an expressive portrait of their classmates through the use of color and mixed media, that was then assembled into a quilt and creating a pipe cleaner animal sculpture that best represented their identity.
Lesson 1 - Personal Stamps: In this lesson, the students will begin to use their sketchbook as a place to develop ideas with pencil, marker, and watercolor. After they develop their idea for the design of a stamp, they will create a rubber stamp with that design. This will allow students to explore the creation of an idea and its refinement using reflection. Using that stamp, they will mark their sketchbook and be given the chance to mark their classmates sketchbooks. This communal action will begin bridging us into more community based art.
Planning/ Ideation: Students were asked to draw three images of something they thought would be a personal logo that would represent them. The size of the rubber stamps was 5 in by 8 in and was passed around and traced by students into their sketchbooks. They had to draw in the traced space in order to begin creating images that would fit onto to the rubber stamp. Materials and Techniques: Pre-cut Rubber stamps, Tarp Cutting/carving tools for relief on rubber stamps Sketchbooks Examples of prints and subject matter MarkersColored pencils brayer ink tracing paper paper cut to the size of the rubber stamp 1 large rubber stamp for students to practice on Print making techniques such as learning to crave out negative space (relief) with cutting tools on a rubber stamp, inking up a rubber stamp using a brayer (to much vs. not enough ink), refining designs to fit in a specific space, printing by laying paper on top of stamp and pressing it down with a brayer or hands, learning about ghost printing and layering.
Art Expressive Features and Characteristics: Students created a personal stamp that best described their identity they expressed this not only through the personal imagery, but also through the marks they made with with their cutting tools. Some of the students were very meticulous and detail oriented and while cutting and smooth and detailed marks, their not large areas of white but lighter areas had less lines present than areas that were black. The other students cut their stamps with expressive and aggressive line work that with large areas gouged out and less detail with line but more with space. They also used different printed techniques to show show exploration and personal expression.
Art Community and Culture: Students were given examples of works of art by me and other printmaking artist that I exchanged prints with in a print exchange through my printmaking one class.
Lesson 2 - Quilted portrait: In this lesson, students will create stylized and thematic portraits and attach them into a cohesive piece. This will allow students to explore their personal interests, observe their classmates interests, and see how they fit together as a group. Using pen, watercolor, their personal stamp, and scissors, they will create images of things they like, attach them together by theme, and work together to finish a single artwork. This will allow them to develop craft with basic tools, reflect on the intent and purpose in the design in others work, and envision how community effort can create a greater artwork than individual effort.
Planning/ Ideation: After watching a demonstration on how to draw a portrait, students will pair up with each other and draw their partner’s face in their sketchbook with pencil. This thumbnail sketch should be 8’x10”, about the same size as the paper for their final portrait. When they are finished with their drawings, students will experiment with watercolor and oil pastel in their sketchbooks, using a warm and cool color scheme. Using their understanding of how the material works, they will experiment with wet and dry forms of mark-making to capture the emotive qualities of their partner’s identity.
Materials and Techniques: pipe cleaners watercolor sharpie sketchbooks 3 hole punch paint brushes Making sure that the portrait include all the parts of the face (eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, ears, neck, shoulders, and hair) with approximate symmetry, making sure the thumbnail sketch is drawn with graphite before other materials are explored, seeing if students could push or accentuate certain aspects of their partner’s portrait to capture the traits of their identity, experimenting with warm and cool color schemes of watercolor and oil pastel in the sketchbook, experiment with wet and dry forms of mark-making to capture the emotive qualities of their partner’s identity.
Tools Explored: Watercolor, multi media paper, sharpie, 3 hole punch, paint brushes, pipe cleaners
Art Expressive Features and Characteristics: Using watercolor paint, students had the option to paint their partner portrait with a warm color palette against a cool colored background, or a cool palette for the portrait against a warm palette background. They also used black marker to outline their portraits with consideration to line and texture. These requirements had students consider how color schemes, patterns, and expressive marks communicated their partner's personality.
Art Community and Culture: The teachers will bring pictures of Faith Ringgold and Dominic Beyeler’s work to show the students, either as a hard copy print or projected onto the SMARTBoard. The teacher will do a large portrait drawing to demonstrate how to draw face anatomy to the students. The students will also receive handouts of a portrait template that shows how to draw all of the features of the face on the vertical and horizontal axis lines.
Lesson 3- Pipe Cleaner Sculptures: In this project, the students will use pipe cleaners to make animals for a “zoo”. These stylized animals will be an attempt to take a two dimensional design from their sketchbooks and create a three dimensional sculpture. This will cause them to think about the way that lines work in space, how three dimensional artworks require a different planning processes than two dimensional artworks, and how abstract representation can be identified.
Planning/ Ideation: After talking about gesture and skeletal forms students will be practicing gesture drawing to create basic outlines of animal forms. Students will then chose an animal from one of their classroom books and draw its basic form like practiced in their gesture drawings.
Materials and Techniques: Sketchbook pipe cleaners paper markers colored pencils crayons The Pipe Cleaner sculptures had to be of an animal that was able to stand up on its own using pipe cleaners. The sculpture was the skeletal form of an animal and therefore needed to include the body, head, ears, wings legs, feet etc.
Tools Explored: Pipe cleaners
Art Expressive Features and Characteristics: Using pipe cleaners students were able to create skeletal form of an animal of their choice that was able to standup on its own. Before constructing with pipe cleaners students practiced creating basic animal forms in their sketch books by practicing gesture drawings from images of animals.
Art Community and Culture: The students will be presented with images of Ruth Jensen and Alexander Calder’s work on the SMART board at the beginning of class. Teachers will then present teachers examples of gesture drawings and pipe cleaner sculptures to the students and then practice gesture drawing with the students by providing them with a projected image of a cat that they will be given one minute to draw. The students will then use the books in their classroom to find an animal they would like to use for their sculpture and practice a one minute gesture drawing of that animal as a reference for their final product.
Prepared Grade Level Competencies
Observe and Learn to Comprehend Lesson 1 and 2: Make informed critical evaluations of visual and material culture, information and technologies
Lesson 3: Analyze, interpret, and make meaning of art and design critically using oral and written discourse
Envision and Critique to Reflect: Lesson 1 and 2: Recognize, demonstrate and debate philosophical arguments about the nature of the art and beauty (aesthetics). Recognize, demonstrate and debate the place of art and design in history and culture
Lesson 3: Use specific criteria to discuss and evaluate works of art, critique personal work and the work of others with informed criteria and recognize, articulate, and implement critical thinking in the visual arts by synthesizing, evaluating, and analyzing visual information
Invent and Discover to Create: Lesson 1, 2 and 3: Develop and build appropriate mastery and art-making skills using traditional and new technologies and an understanding of the characteristics and expressive features of art and design
Relate and Connect to Transfer: Lesson 1: Transfer the value of visual arts to lifelong learning and the human experience
Lesson 1, 2 and 3: Transfer the value of visual arts to lifelong learning. Identify, compare and interpret works of art derived from the historical and cultural settings, time periods, and cultural concepts. Identify, compare, and justify that the visual arts are a way to acknowledge, exhibit and learn about the diversity of peoples cultures and ideas.