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Student example of the scream. (I liked the idea of the pylons!)

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My Field Study this term involved looking at how students could explore stop motion photography to tell a story.  This is one of the videos, and it was made by a couple of my students who are ELL.  If I had just given them a piece of paper and told them to write a story, the would have been annoyed, more interested in distracting each other, and probably wouldn't have gotten any work completed.  Instead, they worked together, stayed focussed, and created an interesting story that shows off their sense of humour.  I am really proud of their accomplishment in this project, and I feel as though they learned something about storytelling as a result.

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Student Sample of Pop Art Piece. As a part of our famous art and artist theme in Art this term, we decided to play with some of the design elements that Andy Warhol played with. The students had a lot of fun playing with modern popular logos and symbols of their favorite products and video games.

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We spent some time as a class looking at the famous painting, "The Scream" by Edvard Munsch.  Together we looked at some of the design elements and then the students went ahead and made their own versions, some tongue-in-cheek and some not.

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This project was also so impressive! The constellations were made with hot glue so they would stand out on the board and you could touch and feel them. She also made dot-to-dot versions that kids could interact with and make.

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This is a project that one of my former students did this year in Grade 7 for her Ancient Greece project. She was studying the importance of the Agora in Greek culture, and she made a full model of an Agora marketplace. It was amazing with a ton of details! I was so impressed by it that I had to add it to this padlet; partly out of amazement and partly out of pride for the job she did! I was so impressed by all the little details

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Darkly looking at my tombstone
His eyes
powerfully down
"I'll have your heart and liver out."
I clung
with both hands
sick
fearful
Dare to live

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We are Maker Collectors!!! (Our "Media" Activity)

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We are Maker Collectors!!! (Our "Media" Activity)

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One of the best activities we did this term was the commercial we made for a product that no one needs.  As parents, we have noticed that the way our children are "sold" products has changed from the traditional advertisements that we saw as children.  Nowadays, children are engaged with consumerism through YouTube, and specifically videos that show toys being unboxed and played with by others.  Toy companies have catered to this phenomenon by creating hundreds of new toy lines in packaged in "Blind Bags," solid containers and "surprise" packaging.  I have watched my own children be "sold" on toys on these YouTube videos, and experienced them for myself.  So we opted to make a video that lampooned the videos, and the people that make them.

We really enjoyed making the toys and creating the video.  I think our favourite part was trying to replicate the childish, high pitched  voices.  Another favourite part of mine was showing the video to our kids, and seeing their reactions.  They were very intrigued by our product, and wanted the make their own Tubeez.  My daughters started making their own Tubeez and our collection has grown at home!

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Watch Blueberry Buzz and Purple Princess unbox Tubeezs.

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One of my favourite projects from this term has been the tinkering project.  I love the idea of taking something apart, with the purpose of creating something new.  I have always been interested in how others create art from found objects.  I remember watching a video of children in the Dominican Republic rummaging through landfills to make various instruments to play.  I was amazed by the ingenuity of the kids, and also interested in how they found the materials and made their instruments.   So when we were given the opportunity take items apart and remake something, I was really excited. I decided to take apart a Guitar Hero guitar controller.  I found many things that would be fun to remake into something else, and the collector in me has kept all of my parts for future projects and tinkering.  So I was a bit overwhelmed by all the cool parts and pieces I had.  I struggled a bit to come up with my final idea, but I remembered seeing some neat jewellery made out of old circuit boards on Pinterest.  So i looked up a few examples, and decided to go that road.  I had an old key broken key chain and decided to make a keychain.  My favourite part of the project was looking at all the circuit boards and deciding which parts of the circuit boards are worth using.  I loved the lines and the connections on the circuit board.  I also loved highlighting the chip.  I wanted to make my keychain look a little beaten, so I used my Dremel to mark up the back and have some of the copper patina show through on parts.  The Dremel was also useful for cutting the section of the circuit board and sanding the edges and sharp pieces.

I want to make more pieces out of circuit boards, so I plan on purchasing some copper tape and resin. The copper tape will allow me to give a nice soldered edge, and the resin will do a good job of preserving and giving shine to the jewellery. I have seen earrings, necklace pendants, pins, and rings. I'm also on the lookout for old circuit boards to cut up!

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My homemade Valentine Card for my wife!

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Pieces for my tinker build :)

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Traced a Pepsi picture for our Andy Warhol art Project at school.

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Electrical box in my neighborhood. I'm a sucker for cartoony stickers!

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Nature Photograph. Taken in my townhouse complex. I liked the light/dark of the sky and tree.

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Art inspiration boards at Arts Umbrella. I want to make these!

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Arts Umbrella

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Art process from Arts Umbrella

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Photograph from around the school.

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Photograph from around the school.

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Inside demo of my identity box. I chose the fooseball idea for the inside of my box, because when I think about when I am at my happiest, it is when I am having fun - enjoying life with friends or even when I'm alone. I like to challenge my brain with puzzles and games and I think it is the best way to enjoy my time. Also, I try my best to keep myself feeling young and happy, and a way that I can do that is with games and having fun with my family and friends.

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I made a homemade light table for tracing!

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This was a word bubble that we created from an activity in our first term. We watched and listened to Gord Downie's song and video, "The Path." We used a website to type words that we were thinking or hearing as the song played. This poem was the result of my impressions of the song. I really liked how I could emphasize certain words and ideas. I also tried to use colours to allude to the colours Chanie Wenjack would have seen and felt in his journey away from the residential school he was forced to attend.

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Our class had the opportunity to attend workshops at Arts Umbrella at Morgan Crossing. I found this on the wall in the art room, and took a photo for my own future reference. I really liked how it provokes us to look at budding artists from different lenses and strengths. This is different from assessing students as "Approaching Expectations" or "Meeting Expectations." It gets us to look at students based on how they approach the artistic process, not on the abilities they have to draw.

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I made a connection in this part of the readings on Aesthetics.  I wrote this down as I was reading about how creating aesthetic can be messy.  And I love this notion, because I see aesthetic as so organized and purposeful - but also I love how we need things to get messy in order to achieve that look.  There is a beauty in that idea. I also see that there is an equal amount aesthetic in the unorganized. My desk is a perfect example of a lot of disorganization, that to me, is aesthetically pleasing

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Exploring Conceptualism with my students

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Exploring Conceptualism with my students

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This week we started learning about different artists and art movements by looking at the art of Sol Lewitt.  He is considered a leader of the conceptualism movement, where artists share their ideas and plans for making art by creating plans or compositions.  Much in the same way that a composer will create sheet music for other musicians to play their songs, conceptual artists create plans and codes for other artists to recreate their works of art.  Lewitt painted in a minimalist style, and he often painted large murals that could fill up museum walls.  This makes the artwork a collaborative experience for any artists who want to recreate the art piece. Our students learned about Sol Lewitt and watched some videos of artists recreating his works. Then we worked on our own collaborative art piece. Each student had their own set of instructions about how to create the art. However, each students made their own interpretations of these instructions. They were also given some artistic freedom to add colour and other elements to their artwork, as long as it stayed within the guidelines. We turned each art piece into a collaborative mural by joining each artwork by the line connecting one side of the page to the other. It created a kind of a snake-like minimalist mural. I think we really enjoyed creating our artwork, and I am very excited by how our display has turned out!