Hand Painted Paper Collage

Grades level 9-12

My hope in this assignment is to learn about my student as well as have them learn a little about themselves and each other. Through-out the semester I will be teaching the students how to critique art using “A Practical Guide to Supplement the Teaching of Secondary Art Methods” by: Laurel Lampela, a work book for art teachers. In this lesson students will first learn about collage and watch two short Youtube videos “The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Book Trailer” and “Amazing Collage Art by Derek Gores” Students will use Eric Carle’s technique to make hand painted papers which will become their pallet for their collages. Their collage will show an important time in their life. I choose the two videos to show how to make collage and why some artist’s make collage. I want students to see that collage isn’t just for younger children but that it can be deep and meaningful. Then when the collage is complete the student would write an artist statement about their piece and complete a critique for two other students. I don’t think the videos will pose any problems for students but critiquing may be difficult as it is a new type of writing, but a worksheet will walk them through the first few critiques. My hope is that providing visual and verbal “text” will help students that may need a visual or verbal boost. With the mix of creating and critiquing students will be able to see themselves as both artists and art critics. With the lesson left open the text are left open to interpretation. 

Sources:

HooplaHa. (n.d.). Amazing Collage Art by Derek Gores. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcxzeACY8JM

Kids, S. (n.d.). The Very Hungry Caterpillar-Book Trailer. Retrieved from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WELWxC0oQDY

Activity 1. Artist Statement

What is an artist statement?
An artist statement is a general introduction of your work as an artist. It is the what, how, and why of your work, from your own perspective. It helps you convey the deeper meaning or purpose of your work to the audience. The artist statement should be about you, not about the viewer. It should explain what YOU think about your work, not about how the viewer should interpret it.

Why you need an artist statement
An artist statement lets you convey the reasoning behind your work-- why you chose a particular subject matter, why you work in a certain medium. And further, a well-written statement shows the relationship of you to your artwork, and helps creates a connection with the viewer that will make your work more memorable.

An artist statement can:

• Clarify your own ideas about your work.
• Describe your work, in your own words.
• Be a base for a proposal for an exhibition or project.
• Fill a requirement for scholarships, grants/funding, teaching positions, or admission to school.
• Be a good source of info for art reviewers, journalists, reporters, etc.
• Introduce your work to the buying public.

How to write an artist statement 
Writing an artist statement is a chore for most artists. Following these steps will make it easier for you to decide what to write and how to write it.

Artist statement content

1. Ask yourself questions about your work:
   Why have I created the work and what is its history?
   What was my overall vision-- what am I trying to say in the work?
   How does my current work relate to my previous work?
   What influences my work?
   What is my inspiration for my piece?
   How does this work fit into a series or larger body of work?
2. Create a list of words and phrases that describe your chosen themes, your artistic values, creation process, and influences (i.e. experiences, dreams). Draw from your answers from the previous step.
3. Edit down your list of words and begin creating sentences using those words.
4. Combine the sentences into logical, flowing paragraphs.

Start writing:

1. Begin with an overview paragraph that makes a clear and concise statement about your work, and support that statement with your reasoning. This paragraph should be broad in scope. Specifics will come next.
2. Next, go into detail about how the issues or ideas mentioned in your opening paragraph are presented in your work (offer a specific example) and why you use the materials and tools that you do.
3. Point out themes in your work or discuss experiences that have influenced your work.
4. Finally, sum up the most important points made throughout previous paragraphs.

Activity  2. Student Critique (Describe, Analyze, and Interpret)

1.      What stands out the most when you first see it?

2.      Explain the reason you notice what you mention in number 1?

3.      As you keep looking, what else seems important?

4.      Why does what you mention in number 3 seem important?

5.      How has contrast been used?

6.      What leads your eye around from place to place?

7.      What tells you about the style used by this artist?

8.      What seems to be hiding in this composition?

9.      Why do you think this was partially hidden?

10.  Imagine the feelings and meanings this artwork represents?

11.  What titles could you give this artwork?

12.  What other things interest you about this piece?

Activity Sources:

Artist Statement. (n.d.). Retrieved from ArtStudy.org:

http://www.artstudy.org/art-and-design-careers/artist-statement.php

Bartel, M. (n.d.). An Art Teacher's Guide to Critique Artwork. Retrieved from Goshen.edu: http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/critique1.html

Artist/Writer Workshop

There are four steps that guide students through a systematic progression. This process includes visual as well as verbal learning and allows the student to go back and forth between the two as they need.
The first step is called Literature Share/Discussion where a chosen piece of literature is discussed. The literature is based on the topic you are currently learning about. For younger children a picture book is recommended. For example Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"
The point is to show the details in pictures is just as important as words in a story creating process.
After you have gone through your chosen literature you can go through a "dry run" as a class. Run through all the steps and ideas. Encouraging your students to work based on their learning style.
Begin your work session and allow students to write, draw, collage or jump between all three.
Once a students work is complete  both picture and story frame it in some way to finalize the work. Invite students to share their choice of their story, picture, or both. Keep track of who shares so that by the end of the semester everyone has had a chance to share.
With this method students find that they can move naturally and freely between words and pictures with ease.
Once a student sees themselves as a writer or artist they being reading like a writer and seeing like an artist.

Chapter 1

A young boy named David has trouble writing stories until one day the teacher has them make collages and write about the story they created. David becomes an amazing story maker after realizing that the words he needed for his stories that would disappear before he could write them now stayed in the pictures he had made. When he forgot something all he needed to do was look back at the pictures he had made.

Author of “The Power of Pictures” Beth Olshansky begins her book with this story about a visual learner stuck in a verbal learning world. She talks about her own experience as a child when her father asked who the “good students” were. Her father was referring to the students who were good in the 3r’s (reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic). What does that make the other students? The “bad students” were good in art like she was but did the other teachers know about their strength or just their weakness.

The great minds of the new age, from Einstein to Thomas Edison, were often ridiculed in school for not being verbal learners. Most had some form of dyslexia, in the broad term meaning a difficulty with words. These visual learners would start most of their ideas with a sketch and then write out the details, much like David.  

School systems were created for the verbal learner causing visual learners to fall behind and get picked on. This causes low self esteem in children due to the favoritism of the classroom. Government aid programs such as No Child Left Behind just make it harder for the educators to help because they are so overwhelmed by standardized tests; which is a fully verbal learning test. The system as a whole ignores student’s strength and beats up on their weakness.

Research shows nearly all children are visual and kinesthetic learners but when it comes to verbal learning only 2/3 of children make it leaving 1/3 at a disadvantage in the verbal heavy schools. These non verbal learners are often mislabeled as ADD or AD/HD due to the fact that they do not fit into our verbal learning world. Most educators, principals, test makers, and educational administrators are verbal learners. Visual learners almost never reach a position of educational change let alone one that would affect literacy.

Pictures were mans first language and they function as each of our first language when we reach the age where we can grasp a stick or crayon, and write in the mud or on the walls. Our instinct to alter what is put before us is so great that it can sometimes even hinder us when it is taken away to be replaced by a new language.  Instead of using pictures to learn writing we are told to abandon drawing all together this leave children stranded grasping to learn a hard new concept that some of them will understand and some will never fully get.

The student that doodles is telling you how he learns, but is punished by a system that is designed to favor verbal learners. This is how educators were taught to teach in a verbal manner. We need to change the system so that all students learn not just verbal learners.

There is a marriage between pictures and words. “I see what you mean”, is when words take on an almost visual nature and “A picture says a thousand words”, is meaning that a good visual representation can speak its scene.

When reading/writing parts make up the whole where as in pictures the image is viewed as a whole first and then broken down into parts that are added in to deepen the whole of the image.

To end today’s blog visual and verbal learning together expands our capacity to think in new ways.