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: Typography

I have a special place in my heart for typography; remembering back to my first design class in university, and having my eyes opened up to the intricacies of lettering. Once you start noticing typefaces and details of letterforms, you can never go back! I wanted to introduce my students to these visual components of lettering, and again I gave them three choices for exploration, you can find the project details here

Type Frottage

The first choice was to create a frottage of different words and lettering students could find on objects around the house. In making my example, I discovered there are SO many different examples of type on the items we use everyday! I love introducing my classes to the word frottage because it sounds so much more sophisticated than the crayon texture rubbings we do in kindergarten!

Created or Found Lettering

For this option, I was inspired by a favourite project of mine from university days where we took photographs of found type in the world. I have seen many other art teachers also trying this with students while they are learning at home! I had my students choose an entire word to spell out with different objects they could find around their house, though I did have one student make the whole alphabet!

Illustrated Type

This option is dedicated to all of my creative thinkers and those who love to draw! Students had to choose a word to illustrate, combining the letters of the word with the shape of the object. I found steps that broke down the task into more manageable steps, though it was still a bit tricky for the students that chose to do it.

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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From Our Sketchbooks: Finish the Picture

This is a sketchbook assignment my middle school students have been working on over the past few weeks.

I printed out a variety of colouring pages and cut them up. Each student chose a section and glued it into their sketchbook as inspiration for a sketchbook drawing. They did not see the original big picture, but had to use their own creative ideas to draw and fill the rest of the page. Finished drawings were outlined with black marker.

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  I realized this assignment is an analogy for life- While God can see the overall big picture of our lives, all of its pathways, and how our dreams, decisions and life experiences intersect; we only see it piece by piece. Often He gives us only as much as we can handle for the next step. This is something I have been reflecting on recently in this season of overseas life as I gear up for changes ahead!

Dear Miss Twa

I have returned to this assignment after a few years. I always enjoy learning new things about my students. They are such a diverse group of TCKs; representing a mosaic of cultural backgrounds, languages and experiences. I had them write artist statements in the form of a letter to explain the symbolism within the finished pieces.

This one, for me, seems to best illustrate the Third Culture Kid experience; in both the division and blending together of two identities.

Figures in Imagined Environments

I still have not grown tired of this project, even after four years and looking at the 70+ sculptures from this quarter! This is such a fun unit to teach, enjoyed by many (if not most) of my students; and I continually have new ideas of how to reinvent it each time.

This year I had my students draw a background to add meaning to their sculpture. We thought about what pose each figure was conveying, where we might see this pose being made and where we could imagine displaying the finished sculpture to add to its meaning.

The sky was the limit! I watched the ideas take off with the addition of props to enhance a pose, and the development of imagined environments through drawing.

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see past figure sculpture projects here and here

The Tortoise and the Hare

I forgot to post this project we did last spring in 3rd grade. I taught the same project my first year at the school (see here and here); and finally decided to revisit it, giving my students the opportunity to work with plasticine.

We read Aesop’s fable the Tortoise and the Hare aloud. I asked the students to choose a scene from the story to draw, thinking of how they imagined the characters and scenery (including the background, middle ground and foreground) to look. I gave them images of the animals to look at for ideas, but encouraged them to work in their own style.

After drawing a chosen scene and adding colour, we looked at the illustrator Barbara Reid and some of her children’s book illustrations. She has some great tutorial videos on Youtube in which she shows how she puts together an image. We used these videos to guide the building of our illustrations. Students began building with a thin layer of sky and ground before moving forwards, building characters with thin, flat shapes. The final step was adding details and texture.

Despite illustrating similar scenes from the same story, each piece of work has its own unique style and imaginative details.

 

Progress and Plasticine

I have finally moved back upstairs to my classroom. Let’s just say that in two days, I have made a lot of progress in order to teach in this space. I have used every spare minute in between my classes to organize and put away supplies. There is still quite a lot of progress to be made, and I will be very ready for summer once this is all over!

Here are Grade 2’s finished plasticine pictures for the story “The tortoise and the hare.” I had misplaced them, but knew they had to be somewhere amidst all the furniture. It was a relief to find them all undamaged and accounted for following the chaos. They really are quite impressive coming from second graders!

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Plasticine Pictures

I introduced my Grade 2-3 classes to the illustration work of Barbara Reid (if you do not know who she is, check out this website with some of her work and classroom resources). Together, as a class, we illustrated an Aesop’s fable. For this group, I chose: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. I read the story aloud to them, asked them to retell the details of the story and together we created a storyboard. Each student chose a scene from the story that they wanted to draw. We discussed setting and characters, and how artists use some creative license in adding extra details to a picture, details that may not be mentioned in the text. I showed them a video of Barbara Reid and how she plans out her pictures first on paper. The students created a drawing of their chosen scene and added colour. Next I showed them a video of how Barbara creates a plasticine picture, working first with the background, then moving to middle ground and finally the foreground, before adding characters and final detail and texture. We took a whole class to go over rules for working with plasticine and practiced making shapes with it before starting on our pictures. After finishing their pictures, I introduced them to artist statements. Each student wrote in response to three prompts: 1) describing the scene they chose to illustrate, 2) how they made their picture and the materials and tools they used, and 3) the part of their picture they liked the best and why.

I am really happy with the final results, I think they all had fun too.

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