"Diversity Rocks" 6 x 6 acrylic on canvas

 

Each teacher at the South Shore Charter Public School teaches their content area (middle school Math in my case) and also teaches a project.  The projects are service learning-based, meaning the students learn skills necessary to fulfill a need of the local or greater community.  This year, my art project was asked if we would like to create a mural for the back wall of the school library with the theme "Celebrating Diversity".  My project students were enthused, and we embarked on a series of design discussions, division into teams, design sessions followed by group critique to refine their ideas.  The space measures 6 x 6 feet.  We decided to create the mural on canvas rather than the wall itself in case the library was ever reconfigured.  Our discussions resulted in a decision to show religious, racial, cultural, and global diversity.  The students arranged themselves into teams, and began working.  They chose a globe as the unifying element in the center of the mural. What did they learn?

Giving and receiving constructive criticism, scaling up, color mixing, perspective, vibrating color within a value range, teamwork, among other things. 

 This is the finished product.  The students are thrilled with their effort, as they should be.  The mural was assigned a new home behind the front desk in the entryway of the school where it is seen every day as the students enter.  See our process photos below.

 Thanks for looking.  You know I appreciate your comments

Adding hand prints to racial diversity quadrant

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painting flesh tones

global and gender diversity

 

scaling up the racial diversity quadrant

measuring where the central globe will fit

Day 612 "Lunch Break" pen & ink

This is such a busy time at school.  Students are catching up on missing work, studying for finals, and excited by the warm weather and promise of summer.  I am working hard to keep students engaged, to review learned materials, to challenge the interested students, and to grade all the work.  Today I stepped outside with my lunch, sat on a bench for a blissful fifteen minutes and drew the trees in the school's front yard and beyond.  You can't see it, but the yard to the right was filled with kindergarten students laughing and jumping and digging in the dirt with twigs while they navigated their recently created social mores.  It was peaceful, and a welcome break from the hectic inside atmosphere.  
This is my six hundred twelfth daily drawing.  As always, thank you for looking and for your interest.  

Day 577 "Back of the Room" pen and ink on sticky notes

Once a month our students have a half day and we use the afternoon as Professional development time.  It's amazing how tough it is to find time with all the staff or some of the staff together to collaborate.   We started with an all staff budget meeting, then broke into groups of 10 or so to discuss our school mission statement written 5 years ago, to compare it against our school today as it has grown and evolved.  I enjoyed my group of colleagues, staff from kindergarten up through high school; some content teachers, Learning Services, school counseling... very different and valuable points of view.  For our initial meeting,  I sat half way back, and had time for my daily drawing, but only found a pad of sticky notes in my pocket.... so I used them to draw the crowd in front of me.  I liked the overlapping body shapes in layers as the crowd moved forward.  
This is my five hundred seventy-seventh daily drawing.  Thank you for your continued interest and your comments.  I appreciate it all.

Daily Drawing 404 "Professional Development Day" pen & ink 3 x 5

 Today we had a full day of professional development at school while our students began a 4 day weekend.  It was a good day with my colleagues covering safety, formative assessments, grading, and providing a chance to spend a little social time with my co-workers, which is rare in our busy, busy days.  It's good for us to have time to talk about how to do the best for our students.  I had time for a few sketches during our faculty meeting this morning.  
This is my four hundred fourth daily drawing.  Thank you for your interest and attention. 

Day 247 "Less Hating Mo Living" 6 x 9 ink and pencil

Today we waited a little bit at the T-station to pick up our daughter.  We parked under the garage in the pick up area.  I decided to sketch the scene, all angles and geometry and structure and man-made materials. As I looked up, I saw the graffiti on the column next to us, "Less Hating, Mo Living", a good message for these days where it seems so many are quick to hate, and/or to promote hate.  
On the other side of the coin, I stopped by my school today for the first time since knee surgery 5 weeks ago.  I love the kids, and it was wonderful to see them today... lots of love going around.  
This is my two hundred forty-seventh daily drawing.  Thank you for continuing to look at the world through my eyes.  

Day 11 "Field Trip" pen & ink 9 x 6 #Inktober

Along with teaching math to the middle school students in our charter school, I also teach an art project for several hours a week.  Today we took a field trip to the North River Arts Society's Members show. Most of my students had never been to an art gallery before.  We talked about how to look at an art show, what the labels mean, what different media are represented in the show, what the ribbons indicate, who is eligible to be in the show and how artist choose their prices.    The students then spent time looking at all of the paintings, choosing their favorites, then using a three value scale to reproduce one of the paintings. Each of my students thoughtfully engaged with the work, had great questions, and all were respectful of the space and felt privileged to be there.  I rejoiced in their intensity, enthusiasm, curiosity, and joy.  What a great day!
This is my eleventh drawing for #Inktober 2017.  Thanks for looking.

Marshfield Fair observations - watercolor

Every student in our K-12 school creates two Exhibitions of Mastery each year.  Exhibitions of Mastery are long term projects that involve research and public presentation.  The students from our school are terrific public speakers as a result.  My arts project is collaborating with the Marshfield Fair (our local Agricultural Fair) this year, its 149th.  My students are going to work in groups to research some of the Fair's offerings for visitors, including horticulture, 4-H, vegetables, artisans, quilting, etc, and make educational displays that will be moved around the Fair during its 10 days in August, the goal being to inform and entice families to see all that the Fair has to offer during their visit.  We'll begin in earnest after vacation, but the students did some research this week and painted their choice of images.  I am impressed by their sense of design.   As always, the midway rides are a big draw.

Turtles - Four views and New England Wildlife Center

Along with teaching 7th, 8th, 9th grade math, I also teach four hours each week of what we call "project".  I call my project Global Graphics, which involves some art, some exploration, some community service, etc.  Project time at school is intended to be service learning, with the students getting behind an idea or project they want to learn from and explore.  We have done a variety of things so far this year, one of which has been to collaborate with the New England Wildlife Center for some lessons about animals; how to care for them, how to establish a baseline so you can know when they are deviating from that baseline and perhaps ill.  I asked my students to remember several of the animals we have encountered, and to paint one of the animals on the front of what will be a set of thank you cards for NEWC.  We met a red-tailed hawk, giant turtle, python, skink, more turtles, screech owl, goats, saw a bird undergoing surgery (including an oxygen mask and anesthesia), watched a swan swimming in a big bathtub as part of his rehab  as he recovered from lead poisoning, watched a bearded dragon receive a calcium and vitamin D injection, and even saw a baby bat in the "super quiet baby ward".   BTW, all those lead fishing weights that are lying on the bottom of ponds and streams are a threat to water fowl who ingest them as they scoop muck from the bottom.  Never occurred to me.

 New England Wildlife Center is a great place... so impressive, very generous with their time, and dedicated to caring for a huge variety of local animals. 

Bearded Dragon

 

Shape to Form and Fantastical Creatures

Along with teaching Math in our charter school, I teach an art project for three hours each week.  I wanted to teach my 7th and 8th graders how to start creating 3-dimensional illusions on their 2-dimensional paper... in other words, how to make form using light.  I showed the students this tutorial on converting shape to form.  They followed along, and withing a few minutes they had shaded six shapes into 3-D forms. Then I asked them to invent a creature using a combination of the shapes they had just made.  They needed to indicate a light source on their paper, and we discussed shading accordingly.  Last step - add a scene around their creature indicating size.  
My sample creature is to the left. 

Here are a couple of screen captures from the tutorial, and some of the students' shape creatures.
We had a blast, and the results were fascinating.  Even those very reluctant to risk making art had success.  I forgot to name my creature, any ideas?

Painting with Paper - Follow the values!

When my project students at South Shore Charter Public School arrived the other day, I handed each of them a small color copy of a painting.  I told them they could trade with each other if they wanted.  (Surprisingly, very little trading). Then they had to make a rectangle proportional to the small painting in their sketchbooks.  I then revealed several containers of colored paper, with and without pattern, lots of color, wide range of values, and told them they were going to "paint with paper".  I showed them an example from my blog from a while back when I recreated one of my own paintings in paper. 

 Initially, my kids were a bit stymied that we didn't have exactly the right colors, but then we talked about how value was more important than color, and magic started to happen..  I chose paintings by Matisse, Picasso, Fairfield Porter, Gaugin, and Carol Marine all for their accessibility, masses of color, and strong light to dark pattern.  Here are their results so far. 

I am so excited by what they are seeing, and how they are constructing their "paintings".. not to mention how well they are cooperating with one another.  Splendid day!

Drawing Aerobics - pencil, a stopwatch, and some fun

Sometimes my students at South Shore Charter Public School can be self-conscious about drawing, and feel intimidated around their peers or when facing challenging subject.  Today I introduced them to "drawing aerobics", an exercise I came up with a few years ago to break the ice, break the surface tension, get their juices flowing.  I added a couple of suspenseful twists today, and got great results.  This exercise works with adults and child students alike.

As they arrived in class, I told them to get their sketch books and to make 4 rectangles on each of three pages, all different shapes and sizes.  As they did so, I placed 5" x 8" pieces of card stock on the tables in front of each student and then doled out a variety of objects onto the card stock; mini-still life setups.  There was a piggy bank, a jar with dice in it, binder clips, a cream pitcher, some building blocks, a ceramic chicken, jar with brushes in it, a miniature trophy, etc. 

I explained to the students that I would roll a die, which would tell how many minutes they would draw, (maximum time allotted was 3 minutes) then we drew a card from a deck.  If it was black, they could draw anyway they wanted.  If it was red, they needed to crop the drawing.  Then.. drum roll, if they pulled a face card, it would be a no eraser round!  They gasped.  

We had a ball, and they took risks, pushed themselves, and realized that 3 minutes is a long, long time when you are drawing the essence, the essentials of the object in front of you.  They cropped their images in very interesting ways, excitement!  We had a lot of laughs.  I had a large stopwatch running on my smartboard, some music in the background, and they happily rotated after every round. 

Everyone left happy, and successful, and feeling pretty accomplished... a good day. 

Folk Tale Set - 8 feet by 9 feet acrylic on canvas

The completed set!

I work in a wonderful K-12 charter school where we find ways to collaborate between younger and older students on a regular basis. Along with teaching middle school math, I teach 4 hours of project-based learning each week.  My project is naturally an art project, and I have posted before about some of our lessons and activities.  One of the projects in our kindergarten is Folktales, where the students put on plays.  This year, they asked us to create a set for their play.

Three primed panels, ready to go.

We read the play, made a list of anything we thought should be included in the set, measured the wall, then had to sit on our ideas through snow day after snow day until we reconvened in project with only a few days left before the kindergarten's big day.  I love a deadline, and teach a week of theater camp each summer at our local art association so I am accustomed to short time frames.  (By the way, this summer we will be producing "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" during our summer art camp, so check the link above for dates and details).  

However, I have never had seventeen students painting an 8 x 9 foot tarp in the close quarters of my small classroom.  We divided the students into three teams, cut the tarp into three strips, listed the items to be included on the set, and divided them among the teams.  

They agreed that they would make some of the objects cross from one to another for continuity on the set, then they designed their pieces of the set, collaborating with the other teams.  I asked some students to stay after school one day so we could prime the tarps with tinted gesso... then off we went.  As you can see, they painted a house, barn, well, school bus, forest, firewood,  a variety of chickens, and even a teeny, tiny 6-inch chicken coop painted with a teeny tiny brush.  

 

Teeny Tiny Chicken Coop

I love watching these teams of students work together, figuring out color, placement, and how to dance around my room getting only a little paint on themselves and the floor.  Some students are very cautious, afraid to make a mistake.  I help them break that "surface tension" and they emerge proud and brave.  Some students dive right in, working group to group. Some are super-focused and can paint a teeny tiny chicken coop right in the middle of the panel while everyone else maneuvers around them.  What a blast.  The play was a huge success, and we're going to make our collaboration an annual, if not more frequent, event.  

File under "love my job".  Thanks for looking!

We Are All Meant to Shine - Marianne Williamson

The wall above the lockers outside my classroom has been quite stark, until now.  Although I teach middle school math, each classroom teacher at South Shore Charter Public School also runs a "project".  Last year was my first project year, coinciding with my first year with my own classroom.  Naturally, I chose to host  an art project.  Projects are student driven, with guidance from the teacher.  It took us a long time to decide what to create for the space above the lockers,  but by late last spring, we had created a banner with an excerpt from Marianne Williamson's famous quote often attributed to Nelson Mandela. The full text is to the right.  
My project worked on the scale, lettering, measuring, and design, then invited every student in our middle school to trace their hand print and decorate with a box of deliciously colored permanent markers.  As more handprints appeared, the students had to layer theirs "behind" the others, giving the banner a beautiful depth around the border.  I brought the banner home this summer to finish the border and piece together, with lots of help (and I use the term loosely) from Maggie and Fred. 
The banner now hangs in the hall for our students encouraging them to burst onto the scene, each in their own way.  My goal is to provide an environment where they feel safe and encouraged to do so.  

As always, thank you for looking.  I love your comments. 

Graduation Cap - Mixed Media

 Our daughter graduated from high school this weekend.  It has been a challenging few weeks, trying to finish up everything with my 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students as year end approaches.  Simultaneously planning a graduation party, organizing college orientation dates, and finishing up a graduate class didn't leave much time for thinking about the huge transition our family is hurtling towards, and absolutely no time for art.
Knowing that many of the students decorate their caps, I asked if I could decorate Katie's.  She loved the idea, so I took a map of Boston and its south shore where we live.  I attached it to the cap, and drew a cropped version of our school's logo, painting the negative space in a variety of blues, a la school colors.  I added some glitter and sequins, and she was good to go! 
As always, making art is a meditation, clears the head, and cues endorphins... just what I needed in this crazy, joyful, exciting week.

"Makeup Quiz" 6 x 6 oil

The Girls Just Wanna Paint challenge for October was "makeup".  Makeup.  I use it once in a while, but wanted a different take on the idea.  My October was filled with college applications, middle school math, and Red Sox proceeding through the fall to win the World Series.  I considered a "make up call", and realized I was a little too entrenched in the baseball games, and the late nights.  I opted for "makeup quiz", that time many of us have spent in a minimally populated room, trying not to rush, but feeling a little out of synch and out of rhythm.  These three are doing a great job concentrating... wonder how they fared? 

By the way, my classroom looks nothing like this sensory deprivation chamber; I have tables that fit two or a crowded three students.  My walls are covered with maps and posters, and visuals.  I love the space, albeit a little small.  Thanks for looking at my work, as always, love to hear from you.