The Mask Challenge

Keeping busy over summer break is pretty easy. There are SO may things I put off during the school year in anticipation of having time over the summer. Don't laugh-stuff IS getting DONE!

It is also fun to be challenged once in a while. And I gotta say I was feeling challenged when I received a message from one of my theater buddies. Myndee asked me to create masks, to match her costumes, for the 3 Cheshire Cats in the production of Dorothy in Wonderland. The world of The  Wizard of Oz collides with that of Alice in Wonderland.

 My inspiration-

Now it is quite obvious that Myndee reads my blog and saw my post on my 5th graders making masks. However, we lean more towards the decorative side with those. I stress with my students that the masks will be going up on a wall.  Sooooooo the challenge was how are these masks gonna stay on and be safe for the children to see out of them?

I noticed in the inspiration photo how the mask covers the top and sides of the head. Okay, so I covered the top and sides of the children's heads with Plast'rcraft, leaving the eye spaces open and covering only the top part of their faces. (Before starting I covered their heads and the top portion of their faces with plastic shopping bags.)

After they dried, I made the eye holes bigger using a small utility knife and scissors. I didn't like how rough it made the edges so I cut up tiny pieces of the Plast'rcraft and covered over those spots.
Cats have ears, I cut them out of poster board after making a pattern on paper.

Can you see the slits on the ears? I bent the edges to attach them to the mask with hot glue.

Then I covered the back of the ears first, let them dry and then did the front of the ears. I actually decided to use the ear pattern to cut out the Plast'rcraft so the ears would look neater.

 

Then I went back to the theater to make sure the masks fit and the eye holes were big enough. Oh AND to figure out whether or not the masks would stay on the their heads or if we needed a Plan B. 

 

Looking good! One girl was out, but I figured 2 out of 3 worked, so I could continue with them.

Let the painting begin!

 

Next the fur! Made with feather boas.

 

 

Masks are finished and totally lives up to the awesomeness of the costume!

Here is the cast photo showcasing all of Myndee's costumes. I know they had tons of help from parents doing the flats (the big background paintings) and other scenery. And of cause the director Miranda, who got all those children up there performing!

I am looking forward to the show this afternoon!

Have you had any artistic challenges this summer? Tell me about it, leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!!

Summer Institute on Contemporary Art

Summer Institute on Contemporary Art at Penn State or SICA was educational, motivating and full of fun. It was fun meeting people and I LOVE visiting museums. SICA took place on the campus of Penn State University in the Palmer Museum of Art and in the Patterson Building across the street.

 (The paw is a close up from the front stairs into the building.)

Summer Bargain!! The Institute was FREE! It lasted 4 1/2 days. They provided FREE breakfast AND lunch every DAY! And people coming from out of town, like myself, could apply for a lodging grant of up to $400! Thank you Andrew Schulz!

 

All I paid for was the airfare and a few dinners! Oh and $10 towards my lodging. WOW!

It was a very hectic week filled with articles to read- ONE night we had 50 PAGES to read!!

It was like being back in college taking a class! (Actually a few people were enrolled for credit.)

It was incredibly sophisticated and intellectually stimulating. I spend way to much time with little ones and really enjoyed donning my thinking cap! A BIG THANK YOU to the facilitators of the program, Dana Carlisle Kletchka and Booker Stephen Carpenter II.

 

And yes, there is a story behind Dr. Carpenter's staff picture of him drinking from a water fountain!

We were given canvas bags that we got to silk screen with the SICA logo and then decorate. Thank you Sue Uhlig!

   

   

We did meaningful activities in the galleries which I wrote about here  here AND here.

We also viewed a gallery with the following pieces of art.

 Compelled by Jules Olitski,  acrylic on canvas. Yes, this was very large!

 Untitled by Cleve Gray,  mixed media.

 Princeton by Esteban Vicente,  oil on canvas.

 The Rabbitt by Hans Hofmann,  oil on canvas. This was the smallest.

We were asked why did we think they were grouped together?  What united them? (Please leave a comment below as to what you think!) There was an interesting discussion that followed. Thinking about that will be very helpful the next time I do my postcard activity. In that activity students curated their own exhibit and explained it to me. I will now extend that activity so that students can hold similar discussions about each others choices.

We also attended an exhibit of visual journals displayed in the library. The journals belong to a retired professor, Brent Wilson, and span over 40 years and many different countries. Just fascinating-AND we actually got to skype with him one afternoon! I really need to have my students connecting with journals! The insights gained are endless..........

 

 

This was, overall, a wonderful opportunity for professional development! 

I would love to know what those of you reading this do over the summer to inspire the upcoming school year.  And since this was all about Contemporary Art I thought I would share this post with all of you from Art is Basic it is a round-up of elementary bloggers teaching about contemporary artists. (Includes one I did on Romere Britto.)

Thanks for reading!

Growing Ideas

Every teacher is different. Every teacher teaches differently. I'm not here to advocate one way or another. I have wanted to teach art since I was a little girl. My dream has come true and I have been teaching art for over 12 years in the same district.  I want art to make a difference in the life of each of my students. Becoming a member, attending and presenting at conferences in both my state and national art educator associations helps me to continue to learn and grow. Having the opportunity to attend summer institutes all over the country renews and encourages further growth.

Last month's journey to Pennsylvania and The Summer Institute on Contemporary Art (SICA), has planted some very interesting ideas currently growing in my head. One of which is the difference between Play Art vs. School Art.  You can find some info here.

I have done some research on teaching Play Based Art. And I find the concepts behind it pretty important for encouraging children to be more original and create more independently.

 The last activity I did for SICA was to:

I choose to explore the relationship between Play and School Art.  The two are complete opposites and I see them something like this:

For my assignment, on the left I have represented Play Art where the child was encouraged to explore and create art, based on ideas that were happening in their head, extremely original. On the right, I have represented School Art as the cookie cutter concept in an elementary art room. AND yes, sometimes that IS my art room.  Interesting? Right? So where does this leave me? I will seek to find a balance.......

Meanwhile, this is on the back of my project because we needed to title it and write an artist's statement.

I am looking forward to the new school year, in a new art room, in my newly renovated school.

AND USING NEW IDEAS!

Like I stated in my project-Time to change the game and PLAY!

Choosing a "Big Idea"

Last week was spent in Pennsylvania at an extremely interesting, out of state, in-service.

I spotted the above info on Facebook, thanks to somebody sharing it on the Art Teacher page. It never occurred to me that I would be the only one not connected to the state of Pennsylvania or Penn State. But, that was never an issue, EVERYONE was open, friendly and I was never made to feel like an outsider. I am now officially connected! Thank you Tina!

Soooooo at some point there were a few of us having a discussion about Big Ideas. And it turns out that my Big Ideas are different from their Big Ideas.  Confusing to say the least. At this point I really need to insert Phyllis Levine Brown's timely rant on Jurassic Jargon.

Anyway it turns out that the BIG difference is whether it's tangible or abstract. I learned a Big Idea is a life centered issue and NOT about art skills or techniques. (Dr. Christina Bain)
The first photo is what I found after doing a little research, the website is at the top. The second photo is from my district's website.

 

Sooooo it is the complete opposite of what I learned at my district............ Quite the dilemma.......
I am open to learning new things, so it is not an issue.

I will now present another one of the wonderful activities I learned last week.  We were instructed to pick out a piece of art work, figure out how to connect it to an assignment, then explain the why and what to our Admin. This is what I picked:

 

 The Big Idea is either Identity or Critical Thinking and Reflection. Depending on your district...

My assignment was for students to do a self portrait. But, obviously not your typical self portrait. They were to do a little thinking and reflecting about themselves to show the person who is looking at it something about their identity.  Us creative types can always get that jargon to fit!

Since I decided to do self portraits the first week back to school, I really like the twist of this one. I am planning to do a sample and will need to simplify for my 4th and 5th graders. I am going to approach it as a work of Contemporary Art. Which I learned a bunch of ways to classify thanks to Olivia Gude's  Postmodern Principles.  Olivia was a guest speaker and such an inspiration!

I will be using a mixed media approach and cut outs from magazines along with drawings and words that will give viewers some insight about me.  In describing this assignment to admin I will point out the higher order thinking involved in this project. And how important it is for students to be able to really think about who they are and what they want others to know about them.

I like the direction of this project because everyone's work will be different. And believe me that's a another blog post! Play vs School Art!  Next time!

Thanks for reading!!

You Know........

Three weeks of summer vacation is gone already! And they were crazy and very hectic! This is gonna be a short post as I am still processing all that went on last week at the Summer Institute on Contemporary Art at Penn State. 

One of the activities I found interesting, especially if you need to bring writing into the curriculum was the following:

On shelves around the room there were over a dozen prints displayed. We were directed to walk around and find a print to write about. We had a choice as to which direction to take the writing.
Our choices were:

 1-Write as if you were the child explaining your art.

2-Write as if you were interviewing the child.

3-Write an observation as the art is created.

I choose the first one. Titled Court Jester, from Femfolio by Miriam Schapiro. Courtesy of Palmer Museum of Art.

 I wrote the following-it was suggested if writing from the child's explanation to throw in a bunch of "you know....".

You know, I got a new paint set from Santa. You know, my parents always bring me back a doll when they travel. You know, I love my dolls and I made a picture with them. You know, I keep my dolls in a case, right? So I painted the case first. You know, my favorite doll is Raggedy Anne, I love her. You know, that doll is from Japan. You know, I decided to put myself in the middle of the picture. I'm wearing my favorite shirt.You know, that doll above the Japan doll, I named her Sally. On the other side that's Joseph, then Madeline. You know, that last doll on the bottom, I made it during a craft day at the store. You know, I had all these star stickers, so I put them all over my picture. You know, that makes it so colorful! You know, I got this jewelry/gem thingy from my grandma, I thought it would look great right in the middle towards the top of my picture. You know, I'm an ARTIST right?

This doesn't necessarily need to be done with the art from professional artists, you could have students work with each other and write from the different perspectives.

I promise to have more exciting details about my travels real soon!

Thanks for reading! 

R.I.P. Miriam Schapiro........

Highlights of My Trip to NY City

Where do I start? My trip to NY City was AMAZING! Extremely inspirational! Absolutely awesome!

This trip was dedicated sister time, and what a time it was! Tuesday afternoon was spent at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This place is BIG, over 400 galleries (and according to Phyllis Levine Brown BIG is an understatement). So I preplanned my visit through their website.

First up was the Van Gogh Irises and Roses exhibit. It was the first time these four paintings have been together since his death. And they are beautiful. The colors, the brushstrokes simply marvelous! Since no photos are allowed at special exhibits, I bought ............POSTCARDS!

   

Then I strolled through the French Impressionists, had to see the Fabergé Eggs and the Contemporary art. Also checked out the Costume Institute and saw the exhibit China: Through the Looking Glass. It's amazing to see how art inspires fashion.

Seriously glad I decided to focus on certain galleries or I would have been overwhelmed. My sister and I had lunch there and I picked up a cool t-shirt. And some MORE postcards.

On Wednesday we walked to Mood, the fabric store featured on Project Runway. Really couldn't do a trip to NY City without checking that place out. They have floors filled with shelves of fabric!

 

Then we made our way over to Broadway to see a matinee of Beautiful, which is a musical about the life of Carol King. We also saw an evening performance of Kinky Boots, which tells the story of a shoe company whose product is obsolete and how it found it's niche market making sexy boots for transvestites.

 

Thursday we took a train to the Bronx to visit the NY Botanical Gardens, where they are currently featuring Frida Kahlo's art and garden. Again, could only take pictures in certain areas. Did get some gorgeous photos of plants and flowers that I plan to use in future art lessons.

 

Friday we walked to The Museum of Modern Art . Again, I preplanned this visit. I knew what I wanted to see and where I wanted to go. However, looking at everything in between, took my breath away. Saw IN REAL LIFE many of the paintings that I have posters of, and have shared with my students!

   

Not to mention some artists that I want to learn more about, like Fernand Leger, Umberto Boccioni and Cy Twombly.

This trip has got me thinking about ways to incorporate my experience into meaningful art lessons for my students. I promise to share them sometime in the future!

Decided this blog post had to be just the highlights-I really kept busy. I plan to share more over the summer. Right now I have a 36 hour layover at home, before my next adventure starts tomorrow!

I will be attending a summer institute at Penn State about Contemporary Art. Will blog on that next week!

Thanks for reading!!