Kumquat Art

I took these pictures one rainy afternoon when I just happened to have a bowl full of kumquats. They show that art can be made out of anything.

The Dot

Last week, Willow shared Ish by Peter H. Reynolds. I wanted to share another of his books The Dot. In this book, he tells the story of Vashti, a girl who is very discouraged in her art class, something that I can relate to. The book opens with Vashti sitting in front of a blank piece of paper at the end of art class. Her teacher tells her to make a mark and in frustration, she slams her pencil to the paper to make a dot. Her very smart art teacher asks her to sign her artwork before she leaves. The next day, Vashti comes into class and sees her dot hanging on the wall in a very nice frame. She decides that she can make a better dot than that and pulls out her never-used set of watercolours and ends up making a whole series of dots. At the end, her class puts on an art show and her exhibition of dots is a huge hit. The book shows Vashti's exploration of art and different media.

I find this simple picture book very inspiring in that it shows that anything can be art and anyone can do art. As artists, we need to explore and find our passions. Everyone has something to say, it is just a matter of finding our voices.

Sunset and Sunrise Silhouettes

Here's my art project from last week (I'm kind of slow about loading pictures onto my computer).

I used watercolours to create the backgrounds and then cut the silhouettes from black paper. I created the 'sunset' background first and then decided I wanted to play with more colours and made the 'sunrise' background. I had more fun by far using the watercolours, so I think this is something I will explore more in the future. I didn't have as much fun with creating the silhouettes and hence wasn't overly creative with them. I think this project would be fun to do with an intermediate or primary class, broken into two sessions in order to allow the watercolours to dry before moving onto the next step. Rather than cutting black paper, I might allow students to use black paint to create the silhouettes.

The start of my journey...

As a student, I was definately a minority in my elementary school, art was NOT my favorite subject. In fact, I would say it was my least favorite subject. I was very creative, but I could never seem to transform my visions into works of art. No matter how much my teachers tried to encourage me, I could only see my weaknesses, not my strengths. I would compare my drawing abilities (or lack thereof) to the other students and always feel left out.

I never really considered art to be a "real" subject. When it became an elective in high school, I decided that I wouldn't bother art and art wouldn't bother me. However, I now see the value of art, especially visual arts, and I want to help develop an appreciation for it in my future students. I want to show my students that anyone can "do art". We may not all be artists, but we can all use art to express ourselves.

It is my goal for this semester to create a new art project each week. These won't be elaborate pieces of work, but rather simple projects that I would be able to do with a class of elementary students. I will endeavour to create projects that have meaning and allow for personal expression, but also include some craft-type projects. I will post pictures of all the projects in the hope that I can inspire others.