Pop Art Printmaking

This lesson was a printmaking lesson focused on Pop Art. In this lesson I first taught about what pop art was and Andy Warhol’s contributions to Pop Art. We learned about color, pattern, balance and unity in Pop art and how it affects the way we see art. The lesson focused on how Pop Art takes everyday items and makes them extraordinary and also focused on the way  Pop Art questions people description  of art. We also covered the basic vocabulary of printmaking and how to do it. The project was to make a combination of four of the same print with different colors using a common logo or object they see everyday life as their design. They were supposed to include elements of color, pattern, balance and unity when creating their design. 

A possible extension activity for this project would be to explore our ideas of art, I would bring in many everyday objects along with some paintings. I would then have the students separate the items into art and not art then we would discuss why we found some items to be art while the other considered just an everyday object. We would then discuss the elements of art we see in the everyday object that could make it be considered art and how art is used in everyday life.

Coil Clay Pots

This lesson, created by Michael Alberts, introduced us to 3D sculpture with clay. We were inspired in this lesson by looking at old clay pots and what they were used for. He also told us about different clay preparing techniques such as kneading and rolling. We then made the bottom of our pots by cutting out a circle from our rolled out flat clay using a template. We then were told to make rolls to start our pot. We then were told to build our clay pots up by adding layer and layers of coils on top of each other. We then smoothed the inside of the pot to make a connected solid pot that would not come apart when picked up. We were also given the option to paint our pots if we wanted but told not to pain the inside of the pot if we planned to use it to drink or eat out of. This lesson might be a student’s first exposure to clay and was mad easily enough for a student to have success.

An extension activity of this lesson would be to explore into other use of clay throughout history. The lesson could start with exploring more about clay coil pots then move up to more modern pots and their uses. This lesson would expand students knowledge of ancient civilizations and their knowledge about clay and ways they can use it in their everyday life.

Loom Weaving

This lesson, created by Emily Miller, was learning about loom weaving, what it is, what it can be used for and how to do it. This lesson was primary about pattern and design. We were introduced to loom weaving via a video that showed loom weaving being done and how to do it. We were told to make a loom weave using many different materials and patterns, we were welcomed to experiment with our weaves. 

An extension activity would be to explore all the different patterns we see in everyday life. The students could do an science experiment and see how many different patterns they could find. After the class is done experimenting they could come together to join their results and talk about what made the different patterns.

Watercolor Blind Draw

This lesson, created by Brittany Madrigal, was a lesson to practice contour drawing and water color painting techniques. We were first told to draw our own hands blindly, she had us focus on all the lines in our hand and helped us through our blind drawing by telling us not to lift our pencil and to really focus on the object we were drawing. We were then taught different watercolor techniques, flat wash, wet on wet, dry brush and crayon resist. We then were told to blind draw a picture of a sunflower, then we were to draw random rectangles on our paper and to paint them in.

An extension activity for this lesson could be to have a science lesson about the different parts of the sunflower. Each part could be described in detail and could have particular attention to the different textures throughout the parts of the plant. Students could draw the plant and attempt to show the texture using the different water color they learned.

Harvey the Hippo

This lesson, created by Ryan McKissen, was a project to create a classroom book using 2D art concepts. In this lesson we were taught about three levels of 2D painting, the foreground, middle ground and background. The story was supposed to be about a hippo that is always getting himself into messy and awkward situation. Students were then given many different scrapbook paper to create an art piece that had both a foreground, middle ground and a background. The picture would have to tell a story about Harvey the hippo getting into a sticky situation.

 

An extension activity for this lesson could be to have the students create their own character to put into a story. This would work on their detail skills when coming up with a creative character and help them work on their writing skills. Then they could share their new stories with the class.