Homeschool Co-op Art Class (5-7 year olds)

A lot of my friends homeschool their kids...and a group of them decided to do an unofficial homeschool co-op for the kids to get together and socialize and learn subjects like art and science and phys. ed. I don't have any kids, but I end up being one of the artsiest girls of the bunch and seem to have been dubbed the resident art expert. And I was asked if I could teach an art class for the co-op.

This week I was teaching the 5-7 year olds...10 of them. And I was teaching about color-mixing...with paint. 5-7 year olds x 10 + paint = messy disaster...right? Nope! Everything went so smoothly! I think one reason is because the kids didn't actually get to use paintbrushes (this time). I did 2 activities with them that had the paint pretty contained...

I took shoeboxes and taped a piece of paper inside...had the kids pick 2 colors of paint...squirted the paint in...add a few marbles...let the kid tilt and shake the box.

The second activity that we did was the classic "Ink Blot"/Rorchach Test project. I gave the kids pre-folded paper...asked them to pick 2 colors of paint...dripped somepaint on their paper...and had them fold it in half. Surprisingly enough, they liked this project even better than the marbles! When given a choice between doing one of the projects a second time, they all chose the "ink blot" project! (I would have thought they would pick the "marble roll"!)

All in all, the class was a rousing success! All the kids seemed to have a lot of fun.

I know you're not supposed to have favorites as a teacher, but this "ink blot" (shown above) was my absolute favorite out of all of them! Everyone unanimously thought it looked like a big pair of lips! There was another one I forgot to take a picture of where the kid used black and blue...he said the black part looked like a sheep head (which it did!), but I thought the blue part on top of the black sheep head part looked like a hot water bottle. So I said it looked like a sheep with a head cold! (Oh, I wish I'd thought to take a picture of it!)

The hardest part is finding a place for all the wet paint to dry!..and then having it dry in time for the kids to take them home. We globbed way too much paint on the paper for the "ink blots"...because the hole is so big on the caps of the bottles of tempera paint I have. I need to find some clear condiment bottles (like the hot-dog stand style ketchup bottles) so I can have a bit more control of how much paint comes out. (I should just make sure I don't store the red or yellow paint in the refrigerator!)

Leftover Class Paint & My Sketchbook

Teaching this homeschooler group art class has actually done wonders for my own painting as far as spontaneity (thank you Impressionists!).

After almost every class so far, I have sat down for about 5 minutes and "sketched" with the leftover paint in the kid's pallets before I wash them out. I gave them way too much paint the first time we painted and there was so much left over...and it kills me to wash so much paint down the drain! So, while I don't ever use up all of it, I figure I'd put it to some good use.

Impressionism Week 1:

Finishing it at home...

The original picture: (it's from Windows Vista's sample pictures)

Impressionism Week 2:

Post-Impressionism Week 1:

My version of Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night". I did this one last night to prepare for today's class...because this will be the kids' project today: to recreate "Starry Night".

Art Class Weeks 2 & 3: Impressionism

I know I skipped last week's Art Class update...but anyone close to me knows last week was a little crazy.

Last Monday I taught the kids about the Impressionists, focusing on Claude Monet (How could I do anyone else? "Monet" is almost synonomous with "Impressionist"!). After giving my shpiel, I had the kids pick out landscape pictures and then go to town with the paint. This past week, I had them finish up their pieces. Here are a few of them...

I love this kid's sunset.

I loved this kid's piece too. He nailed the Impressionistic feel of the brushstrokes. He seemed a bit embarassed when I told him how great I thought it was and told the other kids to take a look at it.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."

Next week...Post Impressionism and Vincent Van Gogh.

Teaching my first art class...

So...my mother commented that she'd been waiting all day to read a blog post about how my class went yesterday (she's my personal online stalker!...but better her than some creepy maniac)...so here it is.

I am teaching a class for a local homeschooling group called LEAH that meets once a week. Most classes are art/craft, music, foreign language, or phys ed/ sports related (if I was a kid, I'd definitely take the archery class!). My class is called "Art Styles and Movements"

"We will be learning about various art movements/styles and some of the artists that were a part of them. For each movement, students will create their own projects inspired by the artists who painted in that particular style. We will be covering Art Movements such as Impressionism, Cubism, and Realism, and artists such as Monet, Picasso, and DaVinci."

This week, my focus was on introductions and DaVinci. I focused mostly on DaVinci's sketches. The classroom assignment was to practice sketching their hand, and their homework every week is to bring in at least one sketch they've done (either from life or from a picture).

I told the kids about how drawing their hand was a good subject to practice sketching, since you always have your hand with you, and I told them about how my art teacher in high school told us that if you want to go to an art school for college, you have to have at least one hand study in your portfolio. I showed them a sketch I did for a painting I did back in high school for that portfolio class, and the finished painting...my "Surreal Hand Study in Blue". The kids said what everyone else says about the painting...that it looks "creepy" or like the dead rising (I also have gotten "people buried by an avalanche" before). I never had an intention for the piece to portray that kind of morbid or creepy feeling when I did it. I just wanted to do a hand study in a surrealistic style.

I have 12 students, ages 8-12. I went around the room and had the kids tell their name, why they took the class, and if they'd done any art before. The two main answers I got to the "why did you take this class?" question was either because "it sounded cool/I like art" or "My mom made me sign up for it." Okay...no pressure to make the class fun and interesting.

Next week we are going to be learning about Monet and Impressionism and working with paint and color...so it should be more interesting.

The Market, The Library and Art

After dropping my hubby off at work this morning (we're practicing for going down to one car) I took a trip to the farmer's maket in the parking lot at GreeceRidge Mall. I got a bag of green beans ($1), 3 cucumbers ($1), and a bag of carrots ($.75). All those veggies for only $2.75! A few weeks ago I got about 5 heads of Romaine lettuce for $.75 that lasted forever! I love the market! I also love finding other local farmers markets in the area besides the big one downtown that everyone goes to and can get annoyingly crowded. I've heard there's another one in the city that's not too far from me. There's one in Chili Center, and I heard about one today that's in Rush.

I also took an excusion to the library to get some books for research for the art class I'm teaching in the fall. I got some about Impressionism, Modern Art, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. I had to make myself go to the checkout counter before my arms fell off, because I just kept seeing more and more books I wanted to check out.

I spent the afternoon curled up on the couch, listening to my music and the rain, and being engrossed in art. I read a book about Matisse and used mini-post-its to flag pictures I could use for my class. I can't use all of the pieces because there's so much nudity... ~sigh~...a roadblock I've come across a couple times in researching almost every artist and art movement I want to use for this class. It doesn't phase me all that much (I just see it as part of art history), but I don't think it would be appopriate to show 8-12 year olds (I don't think their parents would look too kindly on it either). As an artist, I haven't ever done any nudes, and don't really desire to do any. The closest thing I've done is my series I did with women's backs

Also in preperation for the class, I decided to do different versions of one of my favorite painting I've done of CJ. The first one is done in the Impressionistic style, the second to resemble Picasso's abstract/cubist style, the third using the tequnique of cut paper that Matisse used in his latter years. It's funny...I remember being told in an art class once that Matisse used cut paper in his later years because he was going blind...but the book didn't say anything about that. Darn lying art teachers...(just kidding!)