Field Study

It's important for teachers to incorporate field studies in their classroom so students can actually see artwork made in the real world, because for some students, being in your art class is the only art they get to see.

With my students, I would take them to the Art Museum in Columbia, SC, so they can see the wonderful pieces they have in there.


I would also take them to an actual art studio.  In middle school, my art teacher took us to a local artists' studio in Greenville, SC that had 5 different artists that shared the space. It was a wonderful experience because we were split up into groups for each artist and was able to create something of our own with their help.


It's a festival every year in downtown Greenville, SC called Artisphere, where different artist all over the state come, and show off or sell their artwork.  There are also artist there that create artwork with people watching them on the sidewalks or in the streets. This is something I will definitely take my students to one a weekend trip.
This year it's May 13-15 if anyone wants to go!

File in the Classroom

I think teaching film in the art classroom is very important because people don't realize that it is considered an art form.  They think of drawing and painting when they think of art.  It's also important because who doesn't watch movies??  Teaching film helps them know the history, how films are made, etc.

I would start off by making sure they know the correct vocabulary and giving them a quiz on them to make sure they're paying attention like the parts of the film, which are the frame, shot, scene, and sequence.  Also the types of shots they use in the movies, like extreme long, long, medium, close up and extreme close up.  To test them with this, I would show different shots and have them say which type of shot it is.

For their project, I would have them work in a group and assign a year, starting from the year that movies were created and they have to do a presentation on how movies changed and developed that year.  

Special Needs and Gifted Students

When teaching, you will come across many types of students, like special needs or gifted students.  

With special needs students, usually these classes are the only ones they get to interact with their peers, not just other special needs students,  It is important to make them feel like they're apart of the class and make them comfortable to create their artwork since this is a way for them to express their thoughts and feelings.  In my classroom, I would let them work on the same projects as my other students but give them extra help and demonstration, if needed.  Since I know some of them wont be on the same pace as their peers, I would mainly grade them on participation, if I see that they are really wanting to participate in the art projects.

This is a really good website with advice and tips for teachers of how to effectively teach students with special needs : http://www.incredibleart.org/files/special.htm

For gifted students, they are more advanced than their peers when it comes to art, so they would need ,more challenging projects that require more from them than just the basics that normal students have to learn.  With these students, you could allow them to work with more mediums versus with normal students, they usually stick to drawing pencils and make watercolor paint.  They could incorporate charcoal, oil or wax painting, ink washes,  even include 3D art in their curriculum.  

Technology in the Classroom

Media Arts is an art form that has grown over time and now is used all the time.  Photoshop is a program that many of these artist use.  I think it is important for students to be exposed to this type of program in the art class. Although it's expensive, it is very beneficial and should be included in your school budget.

First, I would have a lesson on Photoshop with using the basic tools.  Once they learn these, I would allow them to play around with the program because there will be many students that have never heard of it or even used it, while some students will be experts with the program.

For their project, I would have them incorporate photography by taking pictures of themselves and doing the "Many Me" project using Photoshop.  I think this would be something they would highly enjoy, especially if this is their first time using the program.

Sometimes, there are some instances where the school can't afford Photoshop.  If this was the case for me, I would have my students create a series of gifs, moving images, because there are many free websites that you can use to create these like:

http://gifmaker.me

http://ezgif.com/maker

https://imgflip.com/images-to-gif

Photography

Photography is an important art form because people take pictures everyday  It is very important to teach your students about the different techniques to taking pictures!  With this, students can improve the quality of their pictures and also put more thought into how they take their pictures for now on.  Here are the four photography techniques:

Disturbance

• The frame is disturbed because of something in the photo that is out off along the edge of the rectangle.
• "A frame inside a frame"

  Promixity

• The distance between the camera and the subject
• Getting up close and personal!

Vantage Point

• Refers to where you are
• Below, above, outside, inside
• anywhere other than your eye level\

Place

• A clue of where you took the picture
• The background

It's also important for your students to know and understand the compositional rules:

Rule of Thirds

Golden Spiral

Golden Triangle

To create a lesson out of this, your students could take pictures showing the composition methods and the photojournalism techniques around your school or have them take pictures of things meaningful to them incorporating the techniques!

Letter to Parent and Student

Dear Parents and Students,

Welcome to Miss Johnson's Art Class! 

 I am so glad your child decided to take this art class.  A little about myself:  I am a graduate from the University of South Carolina, where I graduated with a BFA in Art Education.  I am from Greenville, South Carolina.  I have been teaching at this school for ( ) years and I am excited to get to know your student as well as them getting to know me.

Art is a very vital subject that students need, along with their other subjects, in order to be successful.  When your child walks in my room, I want each and every one of them to feel like an artist!  At our school, we offer several different art classes, including Art 1, which includes drawing, 3D, color theory, etc, along with Ceramics, and Media Arts, and AP art for the gifted and talented that they can receive college credit for!

Throughout the school year, their will be many opportunities for your student to display and show off their art work, including the annual art show that is hosted by our school.  We also have NAHS, National Art Honor Society, an organization your student can join if they want to continue with art and display their art work in art shows around the state and nationally. 

I am looking forward to meeting you and your student and working with them so that they feel like artists!  I also want to thank you supporting your child throughout their art experience!  If you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to call or email me.

Thank you!

Sydney Johnson

Room 003

XXX-XXX-XXXX

sydneyjj@email.sc.edu

Color Theory

This is my favorite lesson!  For this lesson, students must first learn and understand the basic colors that you can mix to make other colors.  Primary colors are red, yellow and blue.  The secondary colors are orange, green and purple and these are created by mixing the primary colors..  The tertiary colors are formed by mixing the primary colors with the secondary colors and these are yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green and yellow-green.

The students will first create a color wheel demonstrating their understanding of correctly mixing colors.

Once they understand how to mix the colors, they will then be taught how to shade and tint these colors with an achromatic scale

and a monochromatic scale.

For their project, they will demonstrate their understanding of color theory with shades and tints in creating a monochromatic self portrait!  I will take photos of each student and using Photoshop, change the photo into black and white so that they can see the different tints and shades of their picture.  We will then grid the picture on 1":1" ratio.  They will draw their picture on a larger piece of paper on a 2":2" ratio.

Here are also some examples of my classmates!

This is a really fun and cool lesson that your students will love!

Colored Pencil Shading

Shading with colored pencils is much more difficult and takes longer to do than shading with regular drawing pencils.  To start this out, I would provide worksheets to my students so they can practice blending .  They would do this with the basic colors of the rainbow, going in order starting with red, and blend each color to the next, after i demonstrate on how to do this.

They would also practice blending on these worksheets, as you see above\ with the circles, where they will pick a color for each circle and blend on top with a different colors to see how certain colors work together and what colors don't.

For their project, I would bring in fruit, either real or plastic, for them to use as a still like,and draw and shade it.  They will not be allowed to use a black colored pencils.  I will have these put away so the students wont have access to them.  This project is simple because the main focus is for your students to understand color pencil shading since this is a hard technique for some students.

Ceramics

Ceramics

Pinch Pots

Students will learn the basic vocabulary and methods to pot making using the pinching technique.  Students will create a spirit rattle made up of two pinch pots to show they understand the technique.  The lesson will teach students about their spirit animal if they didn't already know about theirs or what a spirit animal is. They will also be introduced to the different kinds of glazes and be able to glaze their pots to be placed in the kilm for firing.

Essential Question:
How do I effectively create a spirit rattle using technique and designs based on what I learned in class?

Key Concept: 
Knowing how to make a pinch pot using basic ceramic forming techniques.

Unit Objectives:

• Produce a spirit rattle that demonstrates your understanding of how to correctly join together pinch pots
• Design the rattle inspired by your spirit animal.

Coil Building

Students will learn how to build pots using the coil method.  They will also be incorporating some of the elements and principles of design like form, shape, line, balance, and color.  Once they've created their pots, they will then incorporate designs and textures into the pot and glaze them for firing.

Essential Question:

How do I effectively create a pot using the coil building method?

How does the level of craftsmanship effect the outcome of my coil pot?

Key Concept:

Knowing how to create a pot using basic coil building techniques.

Unit Objectives:

• Produce a pot that demonstrates your understanding of using the coil building method that meets size requirements.
• Incorporate texture and design on the exterior of the pot.