Eisner's 10 Lessons the Arts Teach

Tonight is our school's Open House. I feel one of my main goals this year is to better communicate how important art education is to their children's lives. The esteemed art education researcher Elliot Eisner created a powerful list of 10 lessons the arts teach. I want to share that here on my blog for my families and blog followers everywhere.

New Last Name, Entrance, and School Year

School starts up next week so I've been busy making changes to my room's layout, displays, entrance, and curriculum.  I also had a last name change this Summer. I was married in June and now my new last name is Nettels. I hope my students catch on quickly. I'm sure I'll still get some "Miss Nintzes".

I am sharing an image of my the art room's entryway. I designed it to exhibit my students' art work they give me outside of class. The past couple of years I've taped them to my cabinets but by about mid-year, my cabinet would have layers and layers of student work. It looked, well, unruly. 

I thought it would be great to create a showcase space in the hall to share their work and keep my cabinet nice and tidy. I have a passion for gardening so I created the "Art Garden Gallery" with salon style golden framed walls. I painted the gold frames with various sizes and shapes for a bit of variety.  I even re-purposed the paper flowers I made for my wedding for accents. I hope they kids enjoy it!

Thanks for reading!

Baron Batch inspired Reduction prints

 

Reduction Print is a multi-color print in which the separate colors printed from the same plate at different stages. 

Reduction printmaking with foam plates was a home-run! I want to thank Mr. Stoller at Thomas Elementary Art Blog for the informative and captivating post about relief printing with his 4th grade students. I knew my students needed to learn the foundations of printmaking as most of their only prior knowledge of printing was stamping and computer printing.  I also knew my kids like to be challenged and that they would appreciate a the task of reduction printing.

I began the lesson by introducing a contemporary artist as inspiration. I presented Baron Batch. A former NFL football player and artist. We focused on his "Free Art" street painting examples for our direct influences. I chose his "Elephant" painting as the prime example for animal portraiture.

These were student objectives through the process of creating authentic art inspired by Batch:

• I asked the students to look through wildlife magazines and choose a photograph of an animal.
• They had to sketch an animal portrait in their sketchbooks for my review
• They then drew a contour drawing of their chosen animal
• Then traced that drawing onto a foam plate 
• They had to print one color onto a piece of white printing paper
• The next class they added more details to their animals' faces and traced it onto their plate
• They cut away (reduction) their animal from the late and inked a 2nd different color 
• They lined up that foam piece and pressed to print
• Some students had time to choose one detail to cut away and print a 3rd color 
• They numbered their editions, wrote titles, and signed their work for our print exchange

Here are some of my Youtube tutorial videos I used for my classroom printing my "Electric Elk"

Here are some of their results.

 These kids were so engaged in the process of printmaking because it was new and they could judge their successes by the quality of their prints. They had choices along the way that allowed for their individual expression and exciting Baron Batch neon colors to use in their designs.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below. Thanks for stopping by!

David Jones Dream inspired Prints by 3rd grade

Wow, Summer has just been flying by! I have been busy recharging post wedding and school year. I have been doing a lot of mountain biking, gardening, baking, hiking, traveled to Alaska, rode my bike from Seattle to Portland, and have another bike tour in the works before we start the next school year.

I will be brief in my explanations but will be photo rich! If you have any questions about the processes, inspirations, or anything at all, please write a comment on this post and I'll be sure to respond.

I will say that one helpful tool to control the printmaking madness was using the Time Timer! Wow! This thing really saved me. I would always lose track of time before this I found this beauty. If you don't have one in your art room, I STRONGLY recommend getting one.

Ok...let us start with 3rd grade.  We studied the contemporary British printmaker, David Jones. We focused on Jones' work where he creates linoleum cuts inspired by dreams. We began by looking deeply at this series to share interpretations of each print.

"The Acrobat is Alarmed by an Insect", David Jones

We then shared examples of our own dreams. We then made sketches of a personal dream on drawing paper. Their sketches had to communicate dream imagery and show 2-d texture.

After that we transferred those drawings to a piece of foam plate to prepare for printing. I flipped this lesson on printmaking for these classes, you can view it on my Youtube channel.

I limited the color scheme to blue or black ink but they could print on colored printer paper.

 I even taught them about ghost printing (printing again without re-inking). They loved that!

We wrapped it up by writing stories about our prints, sharing those prints and our stories on my document camera, and doing a print exchange. We had a great time!

Thanks for stopping by!

National Board Certification: the journey begins...

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You read it correctly. I've begun the arduous journey of pursuing my National Board certification in Art Education. If you aren't sure what that means, it is the gold standard in my profession. I've been a certified art teacher for 9 years and I believe I am ready for this next step.

I will spend 4 days at "Jump Start" this August training in Snohomish, Washington. This professional development will get me off on the right foot. I'm really excited about going for it. It will take me 2 years to complete the 4 components. There are several art teachers in my district that are also pursuing board certification so I won't be alone.

I'll post some things here and there on this blog. I truly hope that by working towards this goal that I will become a better teacher and my students will benefit from all of my hard work.

Here we go!