Ming Vase Designs

I am back teaching in Turkey for the semester after a long hiatus! I greatly missed this city and my students. It is a blessing to return, I feel refreshed and renewed for this next season. This semester, I am teaching elementary 3rd and 4th grade. I have not taught this group of kiddos for two years… they have grown up so much since then!

I have taught this project before, but as is true in teaching, you never teach the same thing twice! It HAS been a challenge starting out with these groups, who are split according to their language ability. One group of 3/4’s have higher, near-native English language proficiency, whereas the other, larger group of 3/4’s are English language learners (or ELLs).

Teaching ELLs in the art room has never been a huge challenge for me, as there are usually enough peer models around, and the nature of art class is very visual! Students usually do not have problems following along, even if they do not understand all of the directions for a project. I also have some background in teaching ELLs during my student teaching in Canada- I think integration of the content of art, alongside language is a perfect scenario for students to learn English!

I have found that since the two classes are grouped according to language ability, I am teaching them very differently. Keeping both groups on the same page (in terms of content) while making efforts to emphasize content language learning… this all takes a bit more thinking and additional planning!

I first showed the classes a video of how porcelain Ming vases are made, from start to finish. This sequencing is important, especially as we are moving onto clay for our next project!

We started off with looking at different vase shapes, discussing the forms and symmetry of the different designs. I demonstrated how to create a symmetrical vase shape on A4 paper – making a hot dog fold, drawing along the edge of the fold to create an outline and cutting it out so the two sides of the vase are the same.

• Step One- Fill in the silhouette shape with different values and shades of blue oil pastel
• Step Two- Paint overtop of the blue with a layer of white tempera paint mixed with soap (this is so the paint sticks better to the oily pastel layer)
• Step Three- Scratch a design through the layer of white paint and reveal the blue underneath

We spent some time looking at and discussing the different imagery used to decorate Ming vases. We talked about symbolism and possible big ideas that are being communicated through the work. We learned that the artisans use cobalt to draw onto the vases before they are fired, and only after coming out of the kiln do the designs turn out blue!

After planning in their sketchbooks, students began scratching their designs onto their vases. Finished designs were mounted onto black or brown paper. Another challenge I am facing now more than ever, is having students all on very different steps of a project. Early finishers had the opportunity to add a table surface and an indication of light and shadows on their vases. They drew in the shadows using graphite. I did not give them very much instruction on this, it was insightful to see how they all interpreted this differently on their own!

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  This student does not know it yet, but their creative addition helps connect this piece with our next project!

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  WOWWW!

4 Years of AP Art!

I am in a very reflective mood. This year, I taught my fourth group of AP artists. It is SO good for me as an educator to see how far I have come in my abilities to teach and mentor students at this level. I could not be more proud of these girls and the hard work they put in for the scores they received.

Throughout this year (and second semester in particular), I aimed to make the class really special, and to cultivate a collaborative learning environment beneficial for both me and my students. I knew this might be my last time teaching the class for a while!

I thought I would share a few of my favourite projects over the years- the AP art program is going through some big changes this next year, so I may not have the chance to use these again!

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  3 Tone Still Life: Metal & Eggs

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  Kara Walker inspired Illustration of a Social Issue

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  Projection Self Portrait

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  Geometric Value Study

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  Multicoloured Reduction Lino Print

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  Scratchboard

Let Your Light Shine

We travelled to a country further east around Christmas time. It is not a country that celebrates Christmas, but this became a good topic of conversation in my classroom. In China, they DO celebrate New Year, which is more similar to what is celebrated here in Turkey.

First and Second Grade:

We looked at the Chinese lanterns used in decoration at New Year. First we practiced drawing different types of lanterns in a step by step guided drawing, and later worked independently to create our own composition of lanterns. We discussed drawing to fill the whole space on the page, with bigger lanterns in the front and smaller ones behind.

I introduced my students to value and analogous colours so we could create lanterns that popped off the page. The goal was to get them to use a light, medium and dark version of a colour within one lantern.

After tracing over all of our pencil lines and colouring in each of our shapes, the students painted the background with blue tempera paint. The pastel resists the paint, so we needed to make sure all the white space was coloured in!

The final step was to create dots/strings of light with yellow and white in the background. Students printed these with the end of a paintbrush.

Fourth Grade:

We studied the art of sumi-e brush painting. First we practiced holding the bamboo brush and making different types of strokes. The next class, we put our practice to the test and painted compositions of bamboo. The students chose one word/fruit of the Spirit-love, joy, peace, hope, faith- to write vertically down one side of the paper. Our final class, I had the students design a signature chop (from foam) to sign their finished piece, and then mount the finished works on construction paper.

Fifth Grade:

Fifth graders looked at the art of porcelain Ming vases. We discussed the variety of different shapes and silhouettes. I demonstrated how to create a symmetrical vase drawing with two sides that mirrored each other. These pencil outlines were filled in with different shades of blue pastels. The next class, we painted over the pastel layer with white tempera, and made drawings of design ideas for our vases. During the final class, designs were scratched into the paint to reveal the blue layer underneath. Vases were cut out and mounted together in a composition on black paper.

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Artist Trading Cards

Wait, a first post of the school year already? Not really, this one is long awaited from last year’s very hurried end.

I began last year with a year long final project, one that has been trending on art teaching blogs out there: ARTIST TRADING CARDS.

The premise of the project was that throughout the year, students would be working on a collection of miniature, one of a kind, quality artworks which would be assessed and traded at the end of the year.

The artist trading card helped to solve a continuous problem I have in the art room, early finishers. If a student had finished their assignment early, they could work on a card- sometimes it was based on a prompt from me, other times it was their choice for the artwork. I also used the cards to practice ideas and techniques before starting bigger projects. Examples of these would be:

Do you recognize these from projects we did this year? Clay Creatures and Scratchboard

We also made cards to emulate well known artists and art styles. Seen here are portraits in the styles of Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Picasso

I especially enjoyed watching students experiment with new materials, taking what I introduced in projects and being creative with their own ideas. Here are a few more favourites:

The last element of the project, before each student handed in all of their cards made during the year, was to make a case. I had some clever and unique designs- including bands, envelopes, folders and boxes!

Introducing Scratchboard

Here they are, the long-awaited scratchboard drawings! Despite the fact that we practiced with white pencil with black paper, the process was still difficult. Perhaps I was a bit too ambitious to introduce the concept with middle schoolers, but some of them did get it! It was hard for them not to outline each of the shapes and instead separate shapes through the building up of values. This requires patience, and some of my students need stretched a bit in this area- to slow down, think and work more carefully. Here are a few of our finished accomplishments.

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