Grade 9 students have begun their graphic design unit and were asked to create a composition using only the letters of their name. They selected whether to use Photoshop or Illustrator. The purpose of the task was for them to become familiar with fonts, layout as well as some of the text editing tools. The task was done without any instruction on the teacher’s part, except for the information below.

Task: What Type Are You? (60mins)
Using Photoshop or Illustrator, create a document/composition using only the letters of your name.
-You should experiment with various fonts.
-You should experiment with size.
-You should experiment with rotation, overlapping and/or mirroring.
-You should experiment with kerning etc.
-You should limit your colour palette, but may use colour in any way you see fit.
-You should consider layout, spacing and/or white space.
-Your composition should have an attractive balance.
-You may use repetition.
-You may play with orientation.
-You may play with opacity.
View the images below or directly through Flickr here. During the next class, we will critique the work.

Following up from my previous post, I’ve also been trying to set up my units with an overarching task, which guides and pushes students to create their final product and overall guides the course of the unit. However, I and we (meaning the school), view their process work as equally as their finished end product or solution. Investigative and research work are documented and required to show their growth and knowledge. I try to apply it to the real world, but to be honest, I still need to refine and develop some. Here is a taste of a few that I have done so far:

Grade 8 Art Unit on Character Illustration Task: You work for Pixar! Pixar are about to develop an animated feature film based on Typography. You will be assigned a typeface.  Pixar requires you to personify your font into a human character. You will need to think both creatively and critically. You will need to research your font, gather resources for inspiration, develop several thumbnails for your character in a variety of styles and then decide on the final one.

Grade 8 Technology unit on MashUps Task: You will create a remix or mashup of your choice. You should recombine elements from published works in a new, thoughtful way. Your mashup may focus only on the visual, video or audio only, or both. Your product should correctly follow fair use policy and not infringe or plagiarise. You should consider where you will find or gather your source material and the technical tools required to complete the task. What technical skills do you think you will need to learn? You should also evaluate the purpose and character of your use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used and the effect of the use on the market for the original. Depending on your creation, your video should be no less than 30 seconds and no longer than is appropriate for its type (if you’re making a movie trailer, they generally run 60 seconds. Music videos tend to be the length of the song.)

Grade 7 Technology unit on Minecraft Task: You are a member of an engineering team in a virtual environment! Your team wishes to create a new development for a theme park. Each team is creating a themed street or area of the theme park. Each individual is responsible for creating a structure in that street/area. Your engineering team must negotiate with the rest of the class as to how to organise and unify all the group work together. You will need to work collaboratively and cooperatively. What roles, jobs, duties and responsibilities will this require? You will also need to investigate the Minecraft environment and record findings on how it works and possibly share your research and investigations onto a wiki (time permitting). Your structure will also require investigation into function, appearance and design. You will document your work and progress weekly in your Design Folder with notes and screenshots. Good luck!

Phew. Now that I can catch my breath, it’s time to dedicate some words to this blog. Actually, there isn’t a lot to say. I’ve been busy writing new units for an art and two technology classes. However, they are pretty good units, in my opinion. I’m willing to share to throw it out to you. Good? Bad? Crazy? etc.

I revamped a grade 10 unit on creative interpretation. This unit gives grade 10 students a taste of what to expect in IB art. The primary focus is on how to develop ideas. Students look into what creativity is and select a theme to visually represent. Here is how the unit is structured:

Unit Question: Where do good ideas come from?

Significant Concept: We are influenced and inspired by the world around us.

Another new unit is grade 7 technology. This unit is based on Minecraft, where the focus is on cooperation and entitled “Fair Game.” Students will be developing a theme park, where each group is in charge of an area and each individual in charge of a structure. All groups must negotiate with each other to come to an agreement as to what the park will look like and require. It’s an MYP technology unit and broken down like this:

Area Of Interaction - Environments: How do we behave and interact with each other in offline and online communities? Is there a difference? What are our roles, responsibilities and duties when working collaboratively? What part do we play and what are the interrelationships of different environments? In this unit, students will work together to make decisions based on creative thinking, communication, and collaboration. They will consider both their immediate classroom environment and their online environment in a gaming context.

Significant Concept: How we solve problems depends on the conditions of the environment and group dynamics.

Unit Question: What does cooperation and collaboration look like?

Finally, the last is another MYP technology unit on Mashups for grade 8. The unit is broken like this:

Area Of Interaction - Human Ingenuity: Media can be constructed and consumed. Recent advances in technology have led to the increased malleability of media like text, images, music, and video.  Advances in the speed and flexibility of communication are allowing people to make use of copyrighted content to build a culture of remixes and mashups, exercising reinterpretation and creativity in the process. Media can now be combined, retold and reinterpreted in many different ways.

Significant Concept: Everything is a remix.

Unit Question: Does copyright hinder or cultivate creativity?

I’m excited to teach these and will let you know the interesting things that pop up!

My grade 9s are currently working on observational drawing. We’ve looked at measuring proportions, value and gradation. Their next task was composition. As a new element to the unit, I got them to independently research “What makes an attractive composition?” during class. The next lesson they shared their findings in small groups and added to their list, with accompanying pictures to illustrate the terms and show correct understanding. Through their research, they discovered framing, balance, leading lines, contrast, rule of thirds, positive/negative space, cropping, amongst others. Obviously, this showcased their knowledge better and I was pleased. What worked even better was the next activity.

The following lesson students were asked to bring a camera. Students were required to apply their knowledge and take pictures within the art room. Most of the objects are mundane, but students were challenged to take close-up pictures applying the concepts they researched. Their drawing task will require this and it is an element they are evaluated on.

Students narrowed down their photos to approximately twenty and printed out contact sheets. Once printed, students teamed up to critique the photos. What I liked was hearing students use the correct terms and really analyse their photos. I’m surprised I’ve never thought of this before. Super simple! I think it will kill the questions I usually get asked every year: “Is this OK?” “Is this composition good?”

RIP. I did the activity along with the students. You can see some of the photos below.

I’ve just finished reading Art & Social Justice Education: Culture as Commons, edited by Therese Quinn, John Ploof & Lisa Hochtritt (site). The books premise is that art can contribute in a wide range of ways to the work of envisioning and creating a more just world. It’s an expensive purchase, but has some interesting ideas and links to contemporary artists. The book has 3 major themes:

1. The Commons: shared access to creative practice and art
2. Our Cultures: nurturing the ways we have developed to live in a community
3. Towards Futures: imagining & acting to change our world

Do check out some of these artists. Soon I’ll post part 2 on recognising and representing our cultures.

Following on from my previous post, I’m still thinking about a “remix” unit for an art class. I’m leaning more towards a still image approach, but am keeping an open mind. The video work of Christian Marclay (“Clocks” info, Telephones video) would be great, but complicated. I’m thinking more about how the combinations of items/images can create new meanings. How do we perceive appropriation? What and how can we “sample?” What and how can we transfer?

We live in such an overcrowded visual culture with advertising, the internet, social media, TV and numerous other experiences. What would be an artist’s intention to sample work? How is it easier or difficult to appropriate work? What are the physical acts involved in creation versus the digital? How are they separate and how can they overlap?

It’s a lot to consider and raises more questions, which I like. So, similar to the tech unit planned, I am leaning towards “How can existing works (images/items) be used to create something original?” as a unit question. With the concept I am thinking of including how context and the manner of appropriation is used (i.e. juxtaposition). Naturally, I still need to refine these areas.

Some activities and artists I would include are:

• An introduction on how artists transformed everyday items into art (Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Jeff Koons)
• A comparison between Warhol’s “Birmingham Race Riot“ (1964) and Kelly Walker’s “Black Star Press” (2006) and then perhaps further investigation with some of the work by Banksy
• Collage (Richard Hamilton’s “Just What Is It that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?“ and various collage activities involving images and text, including the work of Jacques de la Villeglé
• Image Transfer techniques
• The sculptural mashups of Brazilian artist Barrão
• JUNE 5 UPDATE: I forgot to mention Culture Jamming

So that’s where I’m at so far.  The title of the unit, “Image Transfer” or “Mashable”. Remember, everything is a remix and Steal Like An Artist.

If you have further ideas/resources for me, please do drop a comment below. I’d appreciate it.

My grade 6s just finished their portrait paintings. This is an MYP unit where students distinguished amongst the various functions of portraiture and created their own expressive portrait in paint to explore issues with identity, culture or emotion. The above picture outlines the unit. Click it for a larger view. If interested, you can see the week by week breakdown of what we did here. The slideshow of student work is embedded below, or you can go here.

I just completed my first MYP Grade 6 unit on portrait drawing. I taught the unit last year but tweaked it due to the MYP programme requirements. I am really pleased with how it went. The MYP is based around an Area of Interaction, a Unit Question and a Significant Concept. My biggest challenge is the unit question and I spend a lot of time on it, as I try not to mention “art” so it can be transferred to other subjects.

The unit focuses on some basic drawing skills and is very technical. It then dawned on me to simply make it “How does observing help us learn?” since that’s what we really trying to achieve. The unit starts off discussing this and we refer to it again and again throughout the unit. I must admit that including this has improved the unit and had the students more engaged than previous years. You can view their work in the embedded slideshow below or go directly to the Flickr set here for faster access. I included the students’ pre-assessment drawings and their summative drawing at the end of the unit. What a difference!

I am eager now to start the next one on portrait painting, which has the question “How do personal experiences shape our identity?”

I’m currently working on generating ideas for my doodle club here at school and remembered this fun activity by Carla Sonheim from her great book “Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun,” which I blogged on  July 13th, 2010 (you can check the hyperlinks on that previous post). It’s a very fun activity suitable in the elementary classroom but could also fit in as a warm-up activity in Middle School. The steps are as follows:

1. Draw an eye anywhere on your paper. Turn your paper 90 degrees clockwise.

2. Draw a second different eye, several times larger than the first eye. Turn your paper 90 degrees clockwise.

3. Draw a nose or snout. Turn your paper 90 degrees clockwise.

4. Draw a leg or paw. Turn your paper 90 degrees clockwise.

5. Draw a tail. Turn your paper 90 degrees clockwise.

6. Connect the elements together with straight and curved lines.

7. Finish with markers or coloured pencils.

Here’s my digital example:

If you have any other fun ideas for doodling, feel free to let me know.

The excellent Tuts+ Network have just made another welcome addition to their family in the form of Sessions. This is something I have been waiting for as some online tutorials for Photoshop/Illustrator etc. at times do not offer me enough steps to clearly understand.

Sessions are blocks of articles, interviews, tutorials and content on a particular creative subject.

Sessions are hosted around the Tuts+ network depending on where each article fits best. So for example web design posts might appear on Psdtuts+ or Nettuts+. This site is like a table of contents for each session.

The aim is to provide lots and lots of mini courses on different topics! That way you can get a variety of knowledge about the creative fields.

From here you might want to jump into our detailed Tuts+ sites to delve deeper into the technical aspects of creativity!

Their first project is right up my alley as I was planning on developing a similar unit for my grade 8 students next year on character development/illustration. Keep your eyes posted as they add different elements each day and projects in the future.

That is, if you teach stuff like this.