Celtic Knot Trivets

Celtic knots are wonderful symbols of Irish art and heritage. You can find them in tapestries, jewelry and illuminated manuscripts, like The Book of Kells.  I decided to introduce my students to Celtic knots during our clay unit and have them each create a variation of their own.

After a little research on the internet, most students were able to find a favorite knot to print and use for source material. They needed to change it in some way which required a little playing around. Clay coils are so easy to make that a few mistakes and restarts doesn't feel like a big deal. Some students did a complete design from their imagination, while others linked together some simple, tried-and-true designs.

We talked about form and function being a part of good design. These fired clay pieces are going to be used as trivets, protecting tables and counter tops from hot pots and pans. There is no reason for useful, every day things to be beautiful, and hopefully my students are developing the cultural awareness and skills they need to make their environments more atheistically pleasing.

Coil Pots

A thousand years before I moved to the south, there were Native Americans here making amazing pottery with the same Georgia clay, and the same coil methods that we use today. I taught my art students the styles and techniques used by the Mississipian and Creek nations, beginning with the shapes of their vessels.

I needed to make drawings with puffy paint for my blind students who couldn't see the slide show.

They each sketched their own variation of pot, using the correct terms for the parts: neck, lip, shoulders, foot, and handles. Some students tried to replicate what they felt in my drawings, using wiki sticks.

Then the students made coils "or snake like shapes from clay by rolling their hands on top of the clay and moving each hand and finger further apart to evenly stretch it.The bottom coil rolled up like a spiral and was smoothed out top and bottom. In the end, I didn't want the coils to show at all. 

The Ocmulgee Indian Mounds is a National Monument in our town. It has videos showing how the coils were smoothed and used to create walls. Then wooden carvings were pressed into the sides of the pots to create pattern. I required my students to use a repeated texture too.

There is a school wide media fair coming up, during which each teacher will show case how their students learned about the people and history of the state. We will showcase some of our pots in the bisque fired state so that they look more authentic. Once the show is over, we will glaze and fire the pots again. Maybe, they will be ready just in time for Christmas. Who wouldn't want an ancient style, modern twist, home made, coil pot! 

Dot painting

The Aborigines of Australia are such an amazing people, and most of my students had never heard of them before this week. We started Monday with a documentary to help them understand the significance behind some Aboriginal customs and ancient art. Accordingly, we began our own dot paintings.

The Aborigines have symbols that communicate meaning in their art. A single arch symbolizes a person, concentric circles are a symbol for water hole, diagonal lines represent rain, and arrows can be spears or emus. Acrylic dot paintings became popular in 1960's, but dots are used to create ancient rock art as well.

A lot of students chose to use black or another dark color as a background to provide contrast for the lighter colors. We dipped unused pencil erasers into house paint to make the dots.

The student who made this painting has prosthetic eyes. The latex paint dots and puddles were somewhat tactile. When she felt her painting the next day she said, "Oooooo. This is really nice!"

Because these paintings didn't take very long, we continued making dot paintings with dot makers and puff paint. This project was a really fun way to bridge ancient and contemporary non-objective art.

Clay Heads

Having never made a life sized clay head myself, I was a little apprehensive about assigning it to my students. But with the thanks of YouTube and a little playing around, I managed to get the courage. I had students start with with a ball of newspaper, with a little newspaper roll or empty paper towel roll attached to the bottom. Then we made slabs of clay to wrap around the bottom for a solid neck and then  more for the head.

A line of symmetry helps provide guides for where the eyes, nose, and mouth should go.

Then, clay is added and shaped in those areas. The hair is the crowning touch. Even students with cognitive impairments can pinch and place little pieces of clay, or roll coils for braids and dread locks.

Once it looks finished, we slice the top of the head off with a wire cutter, to remove the newspaper. One problem we found was that the clay was still too soft. I was taking some of the students on a multiple-day field trip, so I was trying to fit a week-long assignment into 3 days. A few of the heads started to collapse. It's better for the clay to be almost leather hard before taking this step.

We smoothed out the inside and then slipped and scored to rejoin the top of the noggin.

Then we bisque fired the pieces. 

Some of the heads were painted with acrylics and a few of them sold at a silent auction fund raiser. Others were glazed. I think the students really enjoyed this project and I love that little their personality comes through with each face.Students glazed or painted their pieces

Romare Bearden Lesson Plan

The idea of collage and school assignments has always left a bad taste in my mouth. My experience has been seeing poster boards divided into food groups by elementary school students with poorly cut magazine pictures sloppily glued into poor compositions.

Introducing art students to the Harlem Renaissance master, Romare Bearden, increases the chance that some decent looking images come out of a collage assignment.  I had my students look at many of his works, like the poster above, (The Dove, 1964) and talk about how crowded his urban images were compared to the rural counterparts.

We talk about not just stealing the face of a recognizable celebrity but also creating an original face or figure through morphing several people into one. If they play it too safe, I tell them that it hasn't reached the Bearden level of "wonkiness" yet. It helps to give numbers; for example, each face should be made up of at least three different photographs. The student piece to the right began with water color. Bearden often painted paper to incorporate to his collage pieces.

Symbolism is important to communicate meaning in literature, music and art. Bearden often used a train in his artwork. This is a symbol for the Underground Railroad, as well as northern migration of African Americans in general. Trains also provided decent jobs and upward mobility for many African Americans in our country's history. Two of my students chose to use lighthouses (see below) as their symbols of things that enlighten or bring one into life's safe harbors.

Romare Bearden was truly a Renaissance man; he worked in many mediums of art, including literature and music. He spent a lot of time at jazz clubs, and was acquainted with some of the greats, like Duke Ellington. Bearden would sometimes draw the music he loved so much, with lines and marks. I love when music directly ties into art lessons. My students enjoyed listening to some big band jazz while they worked. The music helped them stay engaged in their projects.

Paul Klee Water Color lesson

One of my college professors described a Paul Klee watercolor as "perfect." That may have been the only time I have ever heard a work of art being described as such, and it really made an impact on me. Paul Klee was a Swiss/German artist who was part of the Blue Rider Group of painters and later became a teacher at the famous Bauhaus School. In 1937, when Hitler had his famous "Degenerate Art" exhibit, Klee was included on the list of artists to be ridiculed. He fled Nazi Germany to Switzerland where he painted the remainder of his days. He was an accomplished musician, a lover of nature, a master draftsman and teacher. His effort to reduce things to the very essence and provide balance and harmony, is something I really admire. I also have a nephew whose middle name is Klee. What's not to love?

I began Klee week in my classroom with a documentary on the life of the artist. I discussed, with my students, the various styles his work took over the years and the variety of media he used. Next we focused on a few water color paintings and looked at the things they had in common: the vertical and horizontal lines, arrows, color harmony.

Each student created their own compositions, some using grids, others using symbols, some using horizontal lines broken up by a few vertical lines, or arrows.

For those with no vision, I would follow their directions and draw lines on the watercolor paper using Elmer's glue.

For some of the low vision students, I would reinforce the lines they drew themselves with hot glue to help them stay within the shape boundaries. My low vision students tended to mix the cakes of color, muting the clean, bright colors, which turned out to be a bonus. I love the earthy tones they created. While no one will probably ever describe my students' work as "perfect," I think there is beauty in the imperfection, and I'm glad Paul Klee's work could inspire them to make something of their own.

Relief Printing for Kids: Yarn Stamps

To me, printmaking is more than just an art standard to teach, it is a passion of mine. I have a couple of degrees in it so it feels like a big part of my identity. My yarn stamp lesson was a fun and easy way to introduce the students I love to the medium I love, just like I was introducing two good friends who I knew were going to get along really well. 

The following technique is great for young children and students like mine, who have multiple disabilities. Each student picked a shape, letter or symbol to make. They folded a rectangle cardboard in three parts so that the middle part was less than a third and the two sides would bend back and be pinched together to become the handle. We used masking tape to keep them together. 

I like thick yarn for this project. It absorbs the paint and stands out far enough to keep the paint from the cardboard. Cut a piece of yarn and glue it to the bottom of the stamp in the desired design. If you want to make a letter, make sure it is a mirrored version of itself. For example the letter "K" would turn left instead of right. Symmetrical letters such as "O", "M" and "T" will work easily, but it never hurts to look at the stamp in a mirror to make sure it will print correctly.

Once the yarn is dried, you just pour tempura or acrylic paint in a shallow plate and begin dipping and stamping. 

 Think about the whole image. Repetition and rhythm are principles of design. Try out a couple of  different colors.

My students are visually impaired, so we did some of our prints on recycled braille paper. For other prints, we added sand while the paint we'd stamped was still wet. The tactile element is so important for my students, but I wish I had used colored glue instead of paint for the stamping. Unfortunately, a lot of the sand fell off after the paint dried.