Palm tree centerpiece

—Lesson Plan—

This one's for art students who are a little bit older. It's just a fun filler for lazy times.

The leaves are made the same way a snow flake is made. Just use tropical colors of construction paper.

The trunk is construction paper rolled into a narrow cone and cut flat on the bottom. I usually add a staple or two. Sometimes it can be a little challenging to get these things to stand up.

How to teach art

—Creativity—

Here's an analogy. I imagine that in culinary school there are two kinds of teachers. The first kind of teacher says, this is how you make a soufflé (that's the classic culinary school example, right—a soufflé?). So the first type of teacher says, you have to do it like this: steps 1, 2, 3. That's a soufflé. The greatest soufflé chef in the world is chef so-and-so from such-a-place and that is how he makes a soufflé. Do it like he does and put a little twist of your own on it. Keep doing it over and over until you realize that I am right.

The second type of teacher in culinary school says, this is what makes a soufflé a soufflé. Let me teach you what a soufflé is, how it works, why it works, and why people respond to it. Here are some similar dishes that aren't quite the same thing in most people's views. Now see what you can do with this knowledge. This teacher accepts that students will go far afield and rein themselves in eventually, with a complete understanding of what a soufflé is and can be, and what it isn't and can't be. They may even discover something the teacher didn't think about.

Notice the words I used in the first example center on you and me. This teacher says, you need to be like me and we need to be like him. This teacher says, yours needs to be like mine and ours need to be like his. But in the second example, the emphasis is on people and soufflés in general. The first is controlling and the second is free and student-centered.

You can guess which one I prefer. If, in teaching art, we are teaching a formula that gets you to "art," then art education will be pedantic, coercive, and not very lively. Such a teacher will be prescriptive, didactic, and authoritarian—though perhaps not overtly. Maybe that's the tradition.

But, if we provide open-ended tools for practicing art-making, instead of circumscribed rules for performing painting-painting, then we open the possibility of imaginative and rewarding creativity.

Illusion, novelty, and spectacle

—Creativity—

For a long time, now, I've had this concept that guides my work, and guides the way I look at other art. It has to do with three very common aspects of art, whether I find it to be good, bad, or mediocre art: illusion, novelty, and spectacle. These are three words that describe the way that art often works for a viewer. I think the terms are self-explanatory.

But I do need to explain why I focus on these three things. And the reason is that these are all qualities and purposes that can very easily ruin art for me. These are ways of working that can easily go too far. I can think of many powerful works that can be described with any or all of these terms, but the power of these qualities in good art is in the restraint the artist shows when using them.

Illusion, novelty, and spectacle are powerful forces. But in abundance, they lose strength. There must be more (or less) going on; a great work of art cannot be created with just these three designs. Illusion, novelty, and spectacle are manipulative forces. They surprise us, and excite us. They must, like ingredients in good cuisine, be used carefully, and with good judgment. They must be complemented with some other ingredients. They must be tempered. A good artist can make a spectacle out of something small and subtle. A good artist can do something novel, but make it timeless at the same time. A good artist can trick our eyes, but reward our senses with familiarity and our minds with grounded logic.

Often, when I see something I don't like, I can blame the artist for going overboard with one of these three qualities—or using them for their own sake, rather than as secret ingredients. Sometimes, when I see a work I like, I can attribute success to the artist for using these three qualities. But when I think about it, the artist is not being manipulative, but is instead sharing. The artist is not using trickery, or making a big noise, or taking the easy path of total absurdity. The artist is not going straight for our senses, but is getting to our senses through our hearts, minds, and souls.

Act, don't react

Here is another maxim that helps to guide me as an artist: Act, don't react.

Being an artist means constantly dealing with fears. Many of these fears are gifts from school, family, friends, and society. Or sometimes they are the fears of others who are directing us. But there's no reason to gripe about that. Knowing what has impacted our thinking gives us the power to dismiss those influences and replace fear-based thinking with empowered thinking. A good way to differentiate these two styles or modes of thinking is with the words "action" and "reaction."

ACTION		REACTION
A new activity that proactively initiates positive change		A response that attempts to reverse or eliminate an unpleasant emotion or seemingly urgent situation
Is about building opportunity for the future		Is about solving problems quickly
It makes a good situation evolve		It makes a bad situation go away, at least emotionally, and temporarily
It feels like more work, but it works more		It feels like less work, but it works less
The motivating emotion feels good		The motivating emotion feels bad
The action is positive, leading to more positive situations and ensuring long-term success		The reaction is either positive or negative; a positive reaction is short-lived, and a negative reaction leads to more unpleasantness
Realization of goals may take more time but it leads to long-term success—it takes longer but it lasts longer.		Resolution may come sooner, but it is only a short-term solution—it comes quicker but it goes quicker.
Emotion is reinforced as the goal advances		Emotion declines as the goal advances
Motivation continues after the goal is met resulting in long-term rewards		Motivation discontinues after the goal is met and is replaced with temporary relief
Motivating emotion drives you to another goal, as the goal is to increase positive emotions to drive us forward		Motivating emotion does not drive you to another goal as the goal is simply to make that emotion go away
Action is characterized by strong, clear, hard thought		Reaction is characterized by murky thinking
It is empowering		It is overpowering

Academic Drawing & Painting

Many modern artists of the twentieth century had strong technical training in painting and drawing before they turned to more abstract forms of art. If you go to a museum, you can often see traces of classical training in their abstractions.

Here are some academic drawings and paintings I did in art school.

Creative Redo

This is the introductory project I use for some of my children's classes. I have paper and media for the kids. Usually I have a variety of media that they can choose from: Paints, colored pencils, crayons, etcetera. I tell them to create a picture of anything they want. It should have several different elements in it. But not too many. Don't make it too complicated. In case you're thinking I'm not a very creative teacher, there is a point to this exercise and it has two parts. So don't overdo it in this part because it continues and don't try to show off and do anything too difficult. But it can be anything you want. You'll have about fifteen minutes for this first part.

At this point, some of the students may have been in class before, and I've given them a different assignment. But they are making noises indicating that they know what the newcomers are getting into and it's going to be cool. And they won't tell.

After the students have their drawings or paintings done, I have them push the work to the center of the table and get another piece of paper. On this paper, I tell them to make all kinds of colors. Different colors with mixing and blending and crosshatching and stippling. Anything that makes a new color. You can name these colors if you want to. We discuss different kinds of colors and how to make them. We talk about visual and physical mixing.

Now push the papers to the center of the table and get another paper. On this paper, make all different kinds of lines. Make a whole menagerie of different kinds of lines. A whole zoo of lines. You can name these lines if you want to. You can get ideas from each other, but share, don't steal.

Now, circle your three favorite lines. And, now, circle your three favorite colors.

Now, get another piece of paper. You are going to redo your drawing/painting using only your three favorite colors and three favorite lines. The students will ask how to do this when the colors are different from reality. I tell them to make choices about what color goes where, even if that's not the color you usually see on that object.

This is a great project because it challenges the students to do something they normally would not do. And they are using constraints that they, themselves (albeit unwittingly), created. We put all of the work up on the wall to look at and discuss. Sometimes they like the new piece better and sometimes they like the first one better. But they take away from this exercise the knowledge that there are other ways we can draw and paint aside from the conventional and obvious.

And that's a very good introduction to what they will be getting in my class.

The two giraffes below aren't radically different, but notice how vastly improved the color is in the second piece. This student mixed her own colors and chose them without any input from me. All I did was get the students trying something new. Now she can see the difference, and it's something she did all by herself, with just a little prompting and permission from me. She's also learned to attempt a composition a second time with variation. It seems like she anticipated where I was going with the lesson, because she chose colors that are similar to her original idea. Kids are smart.

 Sometimes I do this project just with pencil lines and shading.

Two-Handled Pots

I found three very rustic ceramic pots that had been in the classroom for ages, and whoever made them was long gone. So I kept them for drawing and built this exercise around them.

I show the pots to the students, walking around the room, and moving the pots so that they can see every angle. Then I put them away out of sight and have the students draw them from memory. Usually I tell them to pick one to draw.

The students always draw them the same way. First, they draw them face-on with a limited perspective. Second, they draw them with the handles on the left and right, instead of angled. Third, they always stylize the shapes to a more conventional vessel instead of the rustic one they saw.

I've only had one student ever draw one differently. He was the student who came to class with a stack of drawing books under his arm. He reminded me of myself when I was a first-year art student and I had a similar exercise.

We look at the results and I bring the pots out again. I tell them that it is perfectly logical and appropriate to draw the pots symmetrically. This is the easiest and most effective way to communicate the nature of the pot. But I have them compare their memories to the actual pots, and they see how often they substitute a stereotype of a pot for the distinctive pot I showed them. I then place the pots in the center of the table and encourage the students to draw them again from sight.

I encourage them to keep both drawings.

Eventually, I broke one of the pots when they were rattling around in my van. But I still have two of them and I might even make some more. Here's one student's results.

Three Ways of Drawing

For this lesson, I usually place a wooden bar stool on the table or up on a display cube for the students to draw. I give all the students pieces of drawing paper I've cut to size at about 6" x 10" or so. They will be doing three sketches (they can do as many of each kind as they want) and I demonstrate each as we come to it. I emphasize that this isn't a test or a competition and that the point isn't to end up with perfect, realistic drawings. They should try to be accurate, but not fixate on being perfect.

The first drawing they do is a positive shape sketch. They simply draw the stool as they see it and darken it. Here's a couple samples.

The second drawing is tough. I ask them just to draw the negative shapes only, without drawing the stool. When I demonstrate this one, I make sure to let them know not to worry too much about how it looks. Pay attention to shapes, proportions and relations between the open spaces. When the inside shapes are done, they can draw a line around the periphery to close it up into the shape of a stool. They can darken the negative shapes if they want. It will come out somewhat abstract, but there is a definite charm to these sketches.

 

The third, and final, drawing is a blind contour sketch. Art students are familiar with blind contours from life drawing classes, but often my beginning drawing classes are a first introduction. For this sketch, the students set their pencils on their papers and then look at the stool only, not their papers, as they draw. They can do it as a continuous line, or they can lift their pencils, but they can not look at their papers. This takes a little good-humored policing on the teacher's part. Again, I have to emphasize that this is not a test, and there's no trick to it. A blind contour drawing will look like a blind contour drawing.

When we are done, we talk about the experience. Very often, the students discover that it is with the blind contour that they get the proportions and shape of the stool most accurate. This project seems to work well when we do the drawings in the order I've indicated here. I ask them to pick their favorite of each type of sketch and we glue them as a triptych to one piece of paper or construction paper. They can do as many of these as they want if they did multiple sketches.

Group Painted Found Door

One day on my way to class, I saw someone had put a free door on the curb. Of course I grabbed it and threw it in my van.

The door was a great project, because the whole class sat around it and painted it. The students had to make sure they all shared the space, and they had to determine how to run their art up against the other art so that the whole door became one artwork. I was pleased by how well they worked together without any conflicts.

We displayed the door in an art show and in the classroom for the rest of the school year. Then we got rid of it when it was time to make some room.

Ink Transfer Shoe Drawings

Here's another ink transfer lesson plan.

This is a great lesson for a number of reasons. For one thing, shoes have a lot of information. We wear them on our feet all the time, but do we ever take time to really examine them? Also, the details on most shoes are very linear, making them a great subject for this project.

Drawing your shoes could be tedious, so I give the students a fun lesson to make it more enjoyable. One of the reasons I like a process that mechanically produces the art, like printmaking or ceramics, is that the end product is a surprise for the artist. It comes together all at once before the creator's eyes. In this regard, the process is responsible for finishing the project (to a certain degree) and the artist sees it fresh as soon as it is finished. With ink transfer, he or she can make adjustments easily, too.

I have the students remove their shoes. Now, I realize in some places this is not allowed for health reasons, for fire safety, or because it could be considered abusive. I never had any trouble with it, but you could get a bunch of shoes from Goodwill if it makes everyone more comfortable. It's one way to avoid the inevitable stinky feet jokes. One of my teachers brought a box of shoes to class and it turned into a major series of paintings for her. Shoes are fun!

Anyway, my kids used their own shoes, which is cool because they are paying more attention to something they have with them all day long and don't know much about. I generally have them place one shoe flat on the sole and the other turned on its side to expose the bottom. This can be challenging as an ink transfer. They could retrace their drawing if it doesn't work, but who wants to draw something this hard twice? So, take a look at my ink transfer lesson plan to see the process and make sure it works for them. Don't let them get too far if the transfer isn't happening.

Here are some results. I'm amazed, looking back on these, that they were done by children! I can't help wondering if the process makes it psychologically easier to draw them. Notice how most of them have a slight overlap. I must have made sure the students arranged them that way. For the older students, some foreshortening is in order. Note how a number of these students got the foreshortening!

Ink Transfers

Also called oil transfers (depending upon what medium you use), this was a favorite of Paul Klee. I saw a show of his yesterday at the Boston College and I was surprised that, in person, I could hardly tell the difference between his transfers and his lithographs—and I'm a printmaker.

I've mentioned before that I have a big stack of clear acrylic (Plexiglas) plates that I cut for the students. They are around 12" x 18" or so, with the edges rounded. We ink these up with brayers using speedball waterbased ink. It takes some practice to get the carpet of ink the right thickness. Listen for a whisper when you roll. Make sure you use an ink that doesn't dry too fast. This is one of those lessons that needs to be tested ahead of time.

You can use one or two sheets of paper, depending upon whether or not you want to keep the drawing or have a clean verso on your print. You have to press harder if you use two. Let's use one sheet for this example. The student lays the paper down softly on the plate. If, in touching the plate, a little ink stains the paper, that's a desired effect that adds to the final image, but tell the students not to press the paper down with their hands.

Then the student simply does their drawing. Try not to move the paper too much on the plate. If it does move, it won't matter for the process, but it could make smudges and also you want all the linear areas to hit good ink. Have your students lift the corners early on to make sure they have the pressure right and to adjust it as they go. When they are done with the drawing, they turn over the paper and see their drawing in ink. The magic is that the ink feels less drawn and more printed, and the touches of ink from the plate around the drawing add a rustic, accidental charm. The ink you use might resist watercolor. If it does, while wet or after it dries, you could work back into the drawing with a wash.

Make sure that you allow for your students to have another go to make adjustments based on what they discover. For example, many times they learn that something they wrote—like their name—got reversed. Watch as they try to figure out how to do it again and get their names the right way. You can tell them Picasso didn't care and has his name backwards on a lot of his prints.

Strangely, I think I recognize the student in the self-portrait on the top right. Isn't that interesting? Obviously I remember who did it, but in my mind, it looks like her, even as simple as it is.