Class #5

You don’t have to re-invent the wheel.  We began class with another old saying that holds true when teaching children and adolescents.  With that you should always be documenting and taking notes on how projects are working in class.  Similarly as an artist you should reflect on your own studio work and examine the possibilities of adapting your work into a project for children.

In speaking of how to plan and prepare for a class, Aileen introduced the idea of an emergent curriculum.  This is a way of planning lessons based on the interests of the students and of the teacher.  Aileen mentioned that Media and Materials utilized an emergent curriculum.  For example she began our first class with asking us as a group what materials we were interested in using and which we were not.  Also Aileen repeatedly stresses that our class syllabus is a living document; it is not static.  This again is a reflection of responding to the interests of the group.

We moved on to a lively group critique of sketchbook drawings.  We discussed each person's work, so much so Aileen brought to our attention the issue of using all our time talking.  While I feel I got some useful feedback and hope the same for my classmates, I see her point.  With that, some great topics and ideas were brought up such as:

• Storyboarding;  taking just one drawing and storyboarding sections of the drawing using a viewfinder

• Responding to wallpaper;  through your work, creating a situation or dialog with what's already there in repeat

• Tape art; why it's good for children and adults
• Marks; what's more important, the marks themselves or what they are depicting

Vincent Van Gogh, Harvest Landscape 1888

• Wegman's postcards: not the dogs, but his collages with found postcards

William Wegman, The Last Summer 2007

• Conscious naive drawing

• Synesthesia; a simultaneous combining of the senses, or with names, letters and colors, etc. (Lucinda mentioned she thought triangles=orange) 

Lastly we ended with the beginning of an accordion book project.  We made book cover paper with candles and watercolor, where you make a "secret" design first with the candle through drawing or rubbing, then brushing over the paper with watercolor revealing the wax drawing below.  The only other thing we as a class know about this project is that the theme has to do with the idea of Distopia--we await further instruction.  Don't let the cat out of the bag!