Sometimes You Just Have To...

Struggle

The above link provides an interesting article from NPR about how Eastern and Western cultures tackle learning.  It opens with a story explaining that other cultures instill a sense of struggle leading to greater accomplishments in their students.  With their system struggle is seen as an indicator of passion and persistence, while struggle in our system is seen as a lack of intelligence.  Many people in our culture believe intelligence to be an inherited gift, something that is already within us that must be tapped and used.  Other cultures see intelligence as earned through hard work and the ability to overcome difficulty.

I've always seen intelligence as defined by the latter understanding written above.  Struggle is in no means an indicator of the lack of intelligence.  I find that when one struggles for a project, test, or what-have-you the end result is usually more emotionally charged and meaningful.  The gratification of the finished work is also much more uplifting to the individual.  This was something accomplished through hard work and determination.  With the increasingly negative view of initial failure our society has become one that fears struggle out of a deeper fear of failure.  It is not a bad thing to fail, it is only a bad thing when you fail and do not learn from that failure.

Just Gonna Make That Happy Little Tree Move

A form of sequential art that I've never really explored as a teaching method is animation.  Which is surprising, as one of my college classes at the University of Michigan was about classic forms of animation.  These classic forms consisted of zoetropes (spinning cylinder), kineographs (flip books), and thaumatropes (those spinning bird in cage things).  Each of these would be a fantastic project to develop a lesson plan around.

The zoetrope uses a series a strips of sequential images that can be placed in a large spinning cylinder with a series of measured openings cut into it.  You spin the cylinder and look through the slits at a certain angle to watch the sequential strip move.  The speed of the image is controlled directly by the spinning speed of the barrel.  The most classic of these is the running horse zoetrope, created in 1834 by William George Horner when he created the very first zoetrope.

A classic zoetrope

The kineograph, or flip book as it is more commonly known, is one of the most basic forms of animation.  Sequential images presented in a book usually in wide paged format to give a good grip on the edge and flip the book to watch the images change and move.  Usually depending on how drastic the movement there is a certain speed in which you have to flip the book.  The first kineograph was created and patented in 1868 by John Barnes Linnett.

 An illustration of a kineograph

The thaumatrope is a piece of paper or canvas or other, usually small in scale, that has two separate images on each side.  There are ropes or string attached to the sides, or some other device used to twirl the paper, that is used to spin the images.  Each image is horizontally opposite the other so that when the images spin each can be seen in their current orientation.  As the thaumatrope is spun faster and faster the two images merge into a single one.  Easiest example would be a bird on one side and a cage on the other.  The thaumatrope's spinning generates a single image of a bird in a cage.

Thaumatrope of a dog chasing birds

 

Each of these classic styles of animation can be used to explore art, from craft creation to critical problem solving.  And hey, once you complete the assignment you have a fun piece of art that is interactive.

 

A Storm Has Come

So I'm a little late to reacting to this whole Art Prize thing, but being an artists myself with views on popular art in our modern age I thought I head on down and give it a look.  See what the popular pieces are and compare them to what I like.  I'll be back on Saturday with more for this post.

Well, that's a few days late, oh well.  I wasn't able to see as much of this years entries on the more fringe display areas of the city, but I was able to see a good amount within the "main" venues, the art within The Bob courtyard and the UICA.

As expected the art housed in The Bob courtyard was spectacle, large works of metal, craft, paint, and surprisingly illustration that went more for first glance impression than thought provoking meaning.  There was a large piece using a series of portraits that were hung at various heights and distances that all combined to make a larger work of art that was interesting.  As well as a medium size wood sculpture that at first glance seemed like a technically well thought out work, but then you got close and noticed the incredibly detailed carving work in the piece, making in actuality this  massive composition.  Also there was this giant and I mean GIANT 25 cent prize machine, which I loved just because I love that sort of stuff, also made a composition myself that was much smaller with the same statement involved.  It was fun to see what could have been had I the financial backing at the time.

The UICA had a good deal of smaller pieces, really they were more medium in scale, human sized and a little larger, that had deeper thought placed into them.  I liked this venue more, a better place to enjoy the pieces and not be too crowded by the citizen art viewer.  There was a collection of wood cut pieces and found object art that were all collected into this large hallway forming city of sorts.  This pieces intrigued me and if I had the money I would have bought one right there on the spot.  I enjoyed the work that much.

I wasn't able to see Elephant Drawings, the winner of this year, but I did see some other "Top 10" entries and I am glad that it won the popular vote.  Yes it is itself a spectacle piece, an 8 by 35 foot carbon pencil on paper drawing depicting a herd of elephants, a family of chimps/monkeys/gorillas, and other assorted creatures, but the piece was a year and a half of this artists life, and depicts such within the composition.  Several fantasy elements have been involved with the work and much of the imaginative additions having much deeper meaning.  I do enjoy when so called "drawings" win larger art competitions like this because the general populous views drawing and illustration as doodles and pre-work for "higher classed" forms of art.  With such victories the general reaction shifts more and more.  Below is an image of the winning piece.

"Elephants" by artist Adonna Khare

It's Just That Easy

I recently talked with a friend about practical applications of printmaking in a high school art education class room.  She told me how she was taught printmaking in high school in a very practical way; Rubber stamp carvings.  Now I was never taught printmaking in any of my art classes prior to college, but I do remember the idea being brought up to me at some point.  That idea being forgotten before the conversation with my friend.

So looking around I found a really fun lesson plan, fun AND thorough, that goes through an easy way to teach printmaking in the class room with rubber stamps.  Practical and effective, gotta love it.

Pretty neat first carvings by the author.

It Can All Be Done in Three Panels, Or Less

I've always wanted to incorporate the use of comics and graphic novels into teaching the arts.  I think utilizing creative writing and mixing it with illustration can produce some interesting lesson plans and fun creative problems to solve.  It's mainly about my love of comics and graphic novels and wishing to share them with more people but it's also about helping people understand how much the media needs to grow away from what has become the status quo of popular comics today.

Now to my surprise I discovered this website of a teacher who has been using comics as teaching aids in his art classes since 2002.  The teacher's name is Jeff Sharpe and he decided to combine his love for reading and creating comics with his love for teaching to help in his students' education.

The site, located here, has a plethora of tools and lessons to help a teacher wishing to explore comics with their students in the art classroom.

It is nice to see that someone with a passion for comics went out of their way to help spread teaching comics in the art classroom.

 

Caesar by Jeff Sharpe

I thought the comic shared on the site was fun.  

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

I've never been one for blogging.  Sharing one's private information with the faceless masses behind the fourth wall always seemed like a needless task to me.  This, however, seems right.  A place to share information not so much about private drivel (there may be some, at this point I am unsure) but about what I think is most important in the teaching of art.  

Will I be doing this simply for a grade in my Art Education class?  Perhaps, I've never acclimated well to that which is the Blogosphere outside of assigned posting.  I can promise one thing, though, I will welcome this more than previous attempts to record my thoughts and send them out to the masses.  Let's just see where this goes.