IGCSE + Online

This semester turned out to be a bit of a disappointment- I returned in January to find out I had a class of only two students. Then halfway through the preparations for our exam, we went online; only later to find out that the exams are cancelled altogether. To top it all off, this was my LAST chance to teach this class, which I love, due to our school no longer running the program.

Nonetheless, I was privileged to be a part of these students’ creative journeys and I am excited to see where it takes them in the future!

Making Art With Alternative Materials

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  Student work created with coffee, cocoa, mulberry leaf powder and nail polish!

As artists, we are constantly creating and coming up with new ideas. Facing limitations in terms of materials, especially during at-home learning, proves to be no barrier in continuing to make art! I expanded my own horizons in making my first YouTube tutorial to introduce my students to working with alternative materials, click here to check it out.

Bookbinding is typically one of my year end activities, in an attempt to recycle old drawings and paper from the semester. I saw artists all over the internet embarking on quarantine projects and thought it would be neat for us as well to create a collection of work from this time (not knowing that our at-home learning would last the entire fourth quarter!) After binding our own COVID Diaries, I gave the students two assignments per week, consisting of one sketchbook assignment (which they chose from a list) and one art challenge, which we started during our weekly class calls. Here are some of my favourite submissions:

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  Data Drawing

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  Coronavirus Inspired

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  View Out the Window

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  COVID Cartoon

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  Drawing to Music

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  Draw Your Daily Schedule

Choose Your Own Adventure: Drawing

Last week’s theme was drawing. Again, I gave students three choices of projects to choose from (you can see the powerpoint with instructions here) It seemed like the students really enjoyed drawing through a more playful process, and I received a LOT more entries than have been typical in these past few weeks. Here are a few of my favourites. You can see the others on our new Artsonia page.

Object Interaction Drawing

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Shadow Drawing

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Window Silhouette

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Zines

As a final assignment, I introduced my students to the world of zines

A zine is a handmade, small circulation self-published booklet of original or appropriated text and images. Zines are a product of a single person or a small group, and are easily reproduced into physical prints via a photocopier for distribution to a wider audience.

We started out with brainstorming a list of topics- zines can be made about anything! I asked them to consider what was important to them, what message they wanted to share with the world; as our zines would become the vehicle to get art into the wider community. Students then chose a topic from their lists and broke it down into subtopics, thinking how they would create content for an 8-page booklet.

Each student created a thumbnail plan in their sketchbook first before creating a master copy. I showed the students how to create an easy booklet from one sheet of A4 paper. Students explored combining drawing and handwriting with collaged imagery and text. We also discussed variation of line weight and value. Students traced over their final pages with black pen, some even added a mid tone gray with pencil to create a greater range of contrast for photocopying.

Alas, time always runs short at the end of the year. Although we discussed how we could distribute and share our finished works with the community, only a couple of students could finish and make copies for the public. Here are a few that we had out for our fringe festival at the end of May.

I really love this project as a final summation to the year- an opportunity for students to share their voice and own unique style developed over the course of a year.

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Beginnings

We are already into the fourth week of school and the busyness does not slow down! Hard to believe that on this day five years ago, I moved to Istanbul. What a wild adventure it has been!

I wanted to share some of the middle school projects from our first weeks. It has been two whole years since I taught middle school, so it will take some getting used to again. I am glad I keep a blog because I have a record to look back on of all the wonderful projects from years past.

The fifth and sixth graders About Me sculptures

We started off the year with making portfolios- I will have to remember to share some photos!

The new middle schoolers, the fifth and sixth graders made paper line sculptures. These are hanging up in the hallway across from the art room. Each line represents something about the artist; for example, an orange tab if you have been on a train, or a green spiral if you like ayran (a Turkish yogurt drink).

This project may look familiar, it is typically one that I do with kindergarten (see here and here) but I have learned that it works for many ages. Thank you to Cassie Stephens once again for the inspiration!

Fifth through eighth graders also made paper foldables for the elements of art; this was information I knew I wanted them to get down from the beginning!

Here are a few of the finished foldables. Each of the seven elements of art were to be written in an illustrative way; to add meaning to the element. Inside are definitions for each element and further drawn examples.

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Peruvian Arpilleras

I am so excited about this year’s final elementary pieces! I will be handing over the reins of elementary art to a new teacher next year, so these last moments with the students are precious.

We began this project looking at calendar images; describing the different parts of a landscape, including colours and textures. I had a few volunteers come up to the board to draw lines to show these different textures. Then we got busy painting (and stamping) paper to represent water, rocks, grass, flower fields…

A few lessons were spent painting paper before we had enough, I think we all enjoyed the process. Then we talked about assembling our landscapes in layers on a background paper. We talked about the different colours the sky could be (I ran out of the usual blue paper!) and what we could put in the foreground, middle ground and background. The students cut paper for each of these parts and glued down the pieces. I encouraged them to include additional shapes with paper- trees, rocks, clouds, sun…

A following lesson, we learned how to fold an origami house using two sizes of paper. To create a sense of perspective, we made larger houses to put in the foreground, and smaller ones for further back. We used pieces of foam behind to pop out these houses even more!

Once we had all of our main shapes, we added details. Out came the puffy paint (never thought I would go near this stuff, it has taken 5 years!) We practiced first on scrap paper, making dots, dashes, wavy and zigzag lines before moving onto embellish our landscapes.

The final step to make these arpilleras more textile-like: I had the students punch holes along two of the sides (some chose to go all the way around) and I demonstrated how to ‘sew’/wrap the edges in yarn to finish it off.

They are oh so lovely and colourful, and we learned many lessons along the way

 

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Credit for this idea goes to the amazing Cassie Stephens

 

Our Heroes

 

Here is another across elementary project that we just finished up on the theme of heroes… and I was lucky to secure enough bulletin board space to display them all! In class, we discussed what makes someone a hero and thought of examples of heroes we knew: people in our everyday lives, historical figures, athletes… Each student chose a personal hero and did some thinking on how to portray them. We learned how to draw portraits, having previously learned about drawing the figure in a pose.

This unit was my first experiment in TAB (Teaching for Artistic Behaviour) and allowing more student-driven choice, which I have not been brave enough for with younger ones. It went pretty well, I had stations set up around the room with different materials. We were already familiar with these materials from earlier this year, so they required only a few reminders before they jumping into choice.

One focus of the unit was developing carefulness, one of the intellectual virtues. Students had the opportunity to practice with different materials first, before making decisions for the final piece. The final results were varied- some students chose to stick with coloured pencils and markers, others branched out into painting, pastel and collage. It was rewarding to sit back and watch the artistic process, as they figured out how to solve problems and combine different media together to create a finished piece.

The sweetest moments were reading the artist statements students wrote to accompany their finished artworks.

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Art and the Olympics!

This year I wanted a theme for elementary art. In Canada (and in my family) we get really excited about the Olympics, particularly in the winter. Living in a country that is cold and snowy for the majority of the year… it is a necessity to take part in winter pastimes! This year’s Olympic Games also were exciting to talk about since they took place in Korea! The majority of my students are of Korean descent, though many have grown up here in Turkey.

We started with talking about what the games are- when they take place, how often, the teams from each country, different events for summer versus winter, the medals…

We looked at the visual symbols for the Olympics- the rings in conjunction with the logo designs for some of the past Games. I had both my high school classes and elementary classes make new logos.

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Next we worked on a sculpture. First grade designed medals, second and third grade worked on trophies depicting athlete action poses, and fourth and fifth grade designed and sewed mascot plushies!

Then the Art Olympic events! I used these events as opportunities to assess/review what the kids knew about the Elements of Art. We spent more time in first and second grade with the various activities, but all students across the grade levels were part of a team and could earn points.

Texture Hunt/Colour Pull Activity

Bootcamp: Shape, Space and Form

This week, we reviewed line and texture and learned about the element of shape. We looked for examples of shape in artwork and discussed the differences between geometric and organic, positive and negative shapes. Students then worked on a collage that incorporated both coloured and textured shapes. Finally, we explored how a flat shape can become a form if it is “popped”, bent, rolled, twisted, folded and attached to a surface. First and second created their own abstract paper sculptures with form and texture, while the older students created one form to add to a collaborative sculpture.

Fifth graders used their previous work as examples for each definition.

Patterns Continued

This month I taught my usual paper weaving project in kindergarten and first grade. There were many “I love art” exclamations throughout the learning process, which made these final weeks more enjoyable. Perhaps this comes from the tactile ‘over, under’ weaving rhythm… and the novelty of being able to do art on the carpet? We made painted paper first, and used a portion of this for our warp and weft patterns.

The finished woven pieces became placemats for a picnic meal collage. First graders continued with pattern and created a printed design around the edge their plates. We talked about cutting big, paper shapes to fill the space on the plates and adding smaller details afterwards. Some students had time to create utensils also.

Pop Up Gallery

Around this time of year, our staff room at school could use some cheering up, and I happen to have many beautiful prints to share… so I put together a gallery display of this year’s 1st through 5th grade printmaking projects. It makes me so happy to see it all displayed and to share these finished products with the school community.

2nd/3rd Grade

4th/5th Grade

1st Grade