The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom

I use Davis Digital curriculum in my art room, and whenever textiles come up, I am frantically looking for unique ideas online. I don't have a "crafty" bone in my body. I was a painter and printmaker back in "ye olde college days".  We discussed textiles in "ye olde Art History class", but I never touched undertaking textile work (except for the major hemming failure back in '81 when even the neighbors heard my mom's frustration with my ineptness on a sewing machine). Textiles are beautiful works of art, but I have to beg, borrow, and steal to find hands -on textile work for my students to practice.

I like to use literature when I teach and when I ran into this Dick Blick Story Quilt Youtube video, I could instantly see how this could be done using textiles and stories. 

I actually went out and bought the materials myself(yikes, I know you can't all do that, but I only have a few kids in my fifth grade class). Next year, I will purchase the materials through my school as this is one of the lessons I will definitely be repeating. The results were beautiful, each child was able to tell a personal story, and I met the standards of teaching about textiles. Voila!

I first read my fifth grade class The Patchwork Path, by Betty Stroud. I never knew that quilt symbols were used as maps to help slaves follow the Underground Railroad - neither did my students. They loved the story.

We then discussed symbols and looked at quilts on my handy dandy Pinterest board.  I pointed out how SIMPLE symbols are..usually without much detail. My kids LOVE details.

The students got out their sketchbooks and began sketching out symbols that could tell a story about their own lives. We later had a demonstration on using the water soluble wax pastels (with water and without), and how to use patterns, repeat colors, and use further symbols in the framing of the quilt piece. 

The students loved the vibrant color, the ease of using these fabric pastels, and the choices they could make on subject matter.

We displayed the quilts on black paper, but it looked kind of lame, so next year, I will be putting a few stitches in each quilt piece and put it on a black fabric to hang.

I thought I had ended on a beautiful note with my textile curriculum objectives until I glanced at the next Kindergarten lesson..EEEEK! The running stitch! Visions of hems crowded my rational thinking until I remembered, “He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart.” ― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

I can learn anything for those cuties in my Kindergarten class. They pay in smiles.

Darth Vader, Campers, and Grotesques

We finally got a kiln at our school this year, it’s been on my wish list for the past 10 years, and we finally got one! (Gotta love meager art budgets.) The third and fourth grade student artists were about as excited as I was with the idea of working with clay, but we needed a vision, somewhere to begin our clay work; we needed ideas!

We started by talking about gargoyles and grotesques, how they were alike and the difference between them.  I then shared some images of them from the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. (Their favorite: the Darth Vader grotesque! Yes, there is a Darth Vader grotesque on the National Cathedral.) After that, we began our work on “thinking paper” and came up with as many ideas as we (gargoyle and grotesque designers) could and anticipated our next class together.

Well, today was the big day that we got to roll up our sleeves and get dirty. The all-important skill of joining clay was taught, after all these creations were going to have LOTS of add-ons. Everyone started making a pinch pot and our imagined, distorted, and peculiar creations began to take shape. Tongues sprouted, horns emerged, eyes multiplied, and warts even collected on the noses of some. My student artists were in their creative zone.

And right in the middle of the hubbub of it all, I heard a small little voice announce, “This clay smells like my camper.” It smelled of a memory.  The memory of the camper’s smell was probably the mildew and dust from being in storage all winter. As for this art teacher’s memory of that same smell? The mold, bacteria, and dust…, they stirred up the memory that I had just spent an hour elbow deep in allergens, and I didn’t take any Benadryl this morning.

“Achooo!”

Towering Giraffes

With all the attention that April the giraffe, at Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, NY, is getting, I thought it was a perfect time to join in on the fun by sharing this project that found my students going through the roof with excitement!

They were thrilled with the subject matter. I mean who doesn’t love giraffes? They stand tall and have big hearts – something we want all of our students to do too.

One of my objectives was to get my student artists to draw bigger than usual, this is no small feat because I have found that no matter what size paper you give some, they have a secret yearning to become postage stamp designers. To encourage this larger than life drawing we started on the white board and Smartboard in my classroom – a challenge to see who could draw the tallest giraffe. Then, I gave them tall, narrow, blue paper, and because of that we needed space that would allow us to work BIG. This meant the hallway, on our stomachs; stretching not only our arms to reach the top of the paper, but our ability to draw bigger than ever before. And blue because I think that starting off a project on color helps with the beginning of a background, which many students overlook.

I was seeing amazing things as I looked around. Even though the subject matter was the same, each giraffe took on a personality of his/her own. That’s an amazing thing about student artists, they all bring their fascinating personalities to their work, and whether they realize it or not, it shows!

Our giraffes were completed using chalk. Who doesn’t love chalk? Okay, many don’t, but the colors, the blending, the experience of nine-year-olds turning up their noses at the thought of it. What art teacher wouldn’t want that experience? Exactly!

Pam

Artist Dale Chihuly

Okay, I admit, I was seeing tons of Dale Chihuly lesson plans on Pinterest and not really that interested in studying him as an artist until... I actually looked at his work.  I mean seriously, can you say you don't want to do something just because so many people are doing it? His work is glass, light, color, environment, and size.  I am in love.

Kindergarten watched a YouTube video of the artist's apprentice blowing glass for Chihuly.

 "What happened to his eye?" "That's cool!" "Fire!" "Whoa!"

They were mesmerized by his large body of work, the FIRE the glass was put into, and the blowing of glass itself.

"Don't try this at home, kids"

Using "Solo" like cups from Target and permanent markers, we created our own melted glass work. Students added patterns, colors, shapes, and designs to the clear glass cups.

I took them home(the cups, not the children) and put them in a 350 degree oven for 3 minutes. I put the unbaked cups on aluminum foil (bottoms up) and wrote their name in permanent markers by their cups on the foil. After they melted and cooled, I could then write their name on the cup without it shrinking.

I had to drill holes into two spots on each cup and then strung them up on plastic wire with beads to hold them in place. I decided a display would be pretty awesome in a window in our school hallway. Two tension rods later, I had a beautiful display that people still ask about!

Of course the kids are begging to take their "Chituly" glass home. When ready, I will cut theirs from the cords and send them on their way.

When we do our brain pop, they see the name Chihuly and all yell, "Chitoooley" and they remember fire and glass and color and size. Most importantly, they remember that they too are Chitooleys and that makes them proud.

 

Classroom Management in the Art Room

Art Classroom Management?? What's that?

Let me give you the one word that has changed my life in the Art Room...PROCEDURES

I read a couple of books recommended to me-

Classroom Management for Art, Music, and PE Teachers, by Michael Linsin (a very quickread)

The First Days of School, by Henry Wong

And then I decided what I thought would be reasonable in my elementary art classroom. I would want them to walk in quietly and sit down at our carpet space to be ready to learn. I would like them to stay on-task during their table time. I would like them to clean up and then get quiet for instructions. I want them to line up for their classroom teacher without talking.

I have tried small rewards in the past, but this time, I drilled them on procedures for the first three days of Art. Once we started our art time in class, I began giving them a point for following each of these procedures. The first class to get to 35 gets a trophy to keep in their room and a free recess during art time. They love it. When those kids file into the room without talking, sitting quietly on the carpet, I think, "These kids are ready to learn," and I share the visuals and objectives with them as they look and listen. Clean up is the hardest procedure and I believe next year, we will practice it the longest.  I plan on developing more procedures as the years go on.

For Kindergarten, the delay of reward is too long, so they get stickers here and there for following procedures.

I forgot to tell you the procedures I use as I see them walking down the hall to my classroom. I tip back a shot of coffee, tighten my running shoes, and pray.

What procedures have you found to be effective in your classroom?

Save the Brushes

I wandered into my art space today and something tragic caught my eye. A paintbrush that spent the night silently pleading for help that never came. A casualty of the battle between student and time lay alone, dried up, and forgotten at the bottom of a sink.

I have spent endless hours, throughout the years, teaching the basics of paintbrush care. These fundamentals are repeated each time the paints come out, and while some of my student artists can repeat word for word… “and remember don’t  just run water over the brush, but use a little finger power (and soap) to work that paint out of it, and make sure the water runs clear before you call it quits.” Others remain forgetful of how, even why, one would clean out a paintbrush.

If your budget is like mine, you’re willing to try anything to ‘SAVE THE PAINTBRUSHES!’ Fortunately, I have found that there are a few ways to resurrect those forgotten and ignored paintbrushes with some very common place  and economical items.

Murphy’s Oil Soap - is my number one go to for getting dried out pigment out of the bristles. Let the brush(es) soak for a day, and it not only helps get the dry paint off, it helps condition the bristles.

Isopropyl Alcohol – works if you have time to work with it and if you massage it with a little soap into the bristles. (It also helps with those unforeseen paint stains when a student walks into you with their paintbrush.)

Vinegar – warm it up a bit and let you brushes bask in the warmth of their little hot tub for a minute or two. It’ll loosen the paint and refresh those bristles in no time.

Pam