Perfect fit.

Our school choir will be attending the massed school choir event later this year. One of the songs relates in some way to M.C.Escher (I'm not sure how but I can't wait to see!) Anyway our music specialist asked if I would introduce Escher to the children. So we have interrupted our normal programme to have a quick look at the beautiful intriguing work of Escher.

I have been showing the classes this video - it's not too long but really demonstrates what Escher was all about and how his work links to mathematics.

Although we have taken a bit of a detour by introducing another artist in the middle of a project it actually works really well, a perfect fit in our current programme. Most classes will be almost ready to start their printmaking project, which will be a simple tessellation of a square tile decorated with lines from our investigation of Paul Klee's work .

Printmaking can be a bit of a messy nightmare in a classroom studio with 28 to 32 kids in a class. SO I have come up with a system that uses printmaking stations and allows kids to focus carefully on the printmaking process without other children around them pressuring them for their turn or making a mess of the printmaking area.I majored in printmaking at uni and am the daughter of an artist who also did a lot af printmaking so I can be a bit fussy with how the printmaking is done! I've seen some teachers just let the kids 'go for it' but I'd rather they learn the process well and the importance of keeping the area clean etc.)

I set up printmaking stations and children go to these to print ( containing the mess to a couple of areas ) I have created a set of numbered cards, each child gets one and this tells them which printmaking station they will go to- red green or blue and the order in which they will go. Once a child has finished printmaking they return their card to me an I call out the next number ; green 4 your turn - a bit like waiting in line at the licensing place or medicare!

While children are waiting for their turn to print they go on with another activity. Sometimes this might be a written component reflecting on their own work so far or responding to an art work by an artist related to the topic we are covering. This time they will be creating their own 'Escheresque' tessellations.

Most children have been creating simple square tessellations where a segment is cut from one side of the square and slid across to the opposite side and taped in place to create a template. Here is video tutorial if you'd like to give it a go at home!

One year 7 boy who was intrigued by the tessellations and wanted to try something a little more challenging so we did a quick search and found this video tutorial on how to create rotational tessellations. It is a step by step how to for a computer and we were trying to do it without the programme using our ruler, pencil and a piece of card. So he and I worked together to try and figure it out - it was a bit tricky and he tried hard to make it work and is going to keep trying at home. It was quite challenging. (I'm glad to say I did manage to figure it out. ) I've included the video just in case you want to challenge yourself and have a go - maybe you have the programme it refers to!

PS.

Today at recess the boy I mentioned and his friend came to show me that they had figured out the rotating tessellation. 

Well done Alex and Amir!

New year, new ideas.

Well actually some extensions of old ideas. As an artist myself I like to carry and use visual diaries, I have different ones for different reasons, school, house designs, toy ideas or arty ones. The images here are some taken from my recent european holiday.

 

My 'list' of clothes I was going to pack.

 Some ideas for school activities that struck me as I walked through the Paul Klee exhibition at the Tate in London. Art journals are not always pretty and beautiful - sometimes they are notes scrawled quickly so an idea is not forgotten.(The x scrawled there as I was balancing the sketch book with a catalogue and my coat is actually an r! but it was only a quick note to me so it didn't have to be perfect!)

Sometimes I put a sketch book  down and then I am lured by  soft cream pages of a new crisp journal and I abandon the old one as I begin the new. However if I am stuck with out one I feel a bit panicky! Most artists will use a sketch book or note book of some kind to record ideas, make plans, list things they need or want to remember.

I have used visual diaries or journals in the art room for many years now but mostly with the older children. It is not to say that the younger ones didn't make plans or reflect on their work - of course they have, it is an important part of the creative process. Previously they have done this kind of thing on work sheets, scrap paper or good paper, these then often had no names or room numbers added and with large numbers of kids coming through the art room sometimes it is impossible to get them back to the children.
There had to be a better way!

SO this year every child from yr one to seven has bought in a scrap book which will become their visual diary, they will be used in different ways throughout the year but should be a place where students can jeep a record of their creative journey in the art studio.

Now comes the next problem -almost 500 identical scrap books stored in the art studio! That's going to be tricky as the children still haven't cottoned on to the need to put things where they belong... we are getting there. The answer is to create visual diary covers for the scrap books as our first activity.

We looked at the work of Kandinsky and discussed the way he uses shape or colours, our focus was either

designing artworks using shapes - for the junior years using wax resist with a different colour ink for each class,

using a specified shape and mixing a variety of colours - exploring how many different colours you can make while still keeping your colours bright and clear.

Washing your brush carefully between the use of colours and keeping the washing and mixing water as clear as possible, not washing your brush in mud!

And lastly colour mixing but with a focus on different colour families or colour theories on one art work that has been divided up into segments.

I have done something here I rarely do, but as the focus was on colour mixing and creating visual diaries that could be easily identified as part of a class set I felt OK with using a printed Internet colouring sheet for this activity!)

A place for pencils and every pencil in it's place.

 Part of the art curriculum relates to developing an understanding of the value of materials and equipment and how to care for them. When I first took over the role of art specialist here I was surprised how often I had to replace textas and pencils that had been lost or mistreated, at one stage I was going through 5 or 6 pairs of scissors a week, generally these are not considered consumables! As a result of this the children now bring a set of art room equipment to our studio- a pair of scissors, a couple of 2B pencils, a sharpie and an artline marker. 

The children are in charge of making sure they put their equipment away properly at the end of each lesson. The littlies pop their equipment into class pencil cases, one for scissors one for textas etc. This is an easier system for them to manage. The older kids have made their own pencil cases which follow them from class to class year to year. Each of the year 3 to 7 classes have a box with a clip on lid to contain all the pencil cases and keep them safe and sound from one week to the next.

 

 Apart from the textas which dry out reasonably quickly (we have "how to put the lid on textas lessons" in year one ) the equipment should last them for most of their time here at school- unless of course they forget to put it away or don't care for it properly. Here are 2 pencil cases that didn't make their way safely into the pencil case boxes. (I have smudged the names in 'paint' so as not to embarrass anyone.) 

Even though last week I had to have a bit of a blitz on pencil cases, after finding several left lying about over the past few lessons, I have noticed a huge improvement in how the kids care for their own and class equipment.

Last year I promised the year 2s (this years 3s) that they would get to make their own pencil cases this year and they remind me every other week about that promise. So this evening I went to spotlight and bought a fresh supply of coloured felt and some thin crochet thread to use for nice contrasting stitches and tomorrow I will begin with room 14.

I will keep you posted with examples of their needle work!