Lessons for visual art education – where it's about the process, not the product
Tag: art education
Description of the Unit – Students will learn about oil’s resistance to water both in nature and through the media of watercolor and crayon, and explore this resistance via playful experimentation and one finished composition.
Continue reading “Kindergarten – Simple Watercolor Resist”
Description of the Unit – Students will observe and discuss Joseph Cornell’s memory boxes, and, gathering their own personal objects, found objects and other materials, students will thoughtfully create their own memory boxes.
Description of the Unit – A simple yet delightful exploration of symmetry and color, students will create their very own bugs as seen under a “magnifying glass”.
Description of the Unit – Students will observe and discuss examples of aboriginal dot painting, from very early examples to the art produced by the culture in present day. Students will use what they learned about color, pattern and symbol in their observations to create their own dot paintings, expressing scenes from nature.
Description of the Unit – Students explore the fascinating shadow puppet art form from Indonesia known as Wayang Kulit. Students then create their own shadow puppets, taking particular care to carve patterns on the puppets’ costumes using negative space.
Description of the Unit – Students will explore the fascinating Mexican folk art known as Amate bark painting. Using their observations of the art form, students will crumple brown kraft paper (a part of this project they love) to give it a bark-like texture, and paint their own painting onto it in the same bold and bright colors as used by Mexican artisans of Amate.
Description of the Unit – Students will explore the centuries-old geometric patterns found in Islamic architecture. Students will use mathematical techniques as instructed in Eric Bourg’s marvelous book, Islamic Geometric Patterns, to re-create a variety of the patterns they have explored through their observations.
Description of the Unit – The Mola, a traditional cloth worn by the Kuna (from the tiny San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama), are quite brightly colored, in contrasting patterns of various shapes, and in the center depicting what is typically an animal, plant or person of special interest to the Kuna. Students will explore the tradition of Molas, noting the use of contrasting colors, abstract patterns as well as noting the contrasting organic shapes of the main subject to the mostly geometric shapes of the background patterns. Students will use their understanding of these elements to create their own interpretation of the Mola in colored construction paper.
Continue reading “4th Grade – The Mola of Panama”
Description of the Unit – Students will explore the ISO function on their digital cameras so as to understand how it affects exposure, practicing using it and all previously learned functions to take sharp, interesting nighttime photos.
Activity statement – ISO completes the basic triad of camera functions necessary to understand and manipulate your camera in order to get the shot you want. Our objectives are the following:
What is ISO? With analog cameras, ISO represented the film’s sensitivity to light, which was rated via a number, such as 400. The more sensitive the film to light, the higher it’s rating, or number; in photography it was also referred to as the film being “faster”. Film with low ISO was typically used in bright, daytime settings, and so of course the higher ISO’s were used if it was overcast, night, or a darker indoor scene. There was always a compromise, however, as the higher the sensitivity, the grainier the film—meaning the image would actually look grainy and lack sharpness. Additionally, with analog cameras, whatever film sensitivity you were using you would be stuck with until the roll of film was all used.
With digital cameras, one can adjust the ISO at any time. However, if one is not actually using film, why is there still ISO? Well, to the best of my knowledge, when digital cameras first came out manufacturers co-opted ISO to reflect the sensor’s performance level under given light circumstances, so as to give photographers the same options as one once had on analog cameras, when adjusting the aperture and shutter speed just weren’t enough. As with analog cameras, higher ISO’s also produce more noise, however camera technology has been decreasing this outcome over the years.
So, on a digital camera, if your setting is in low light, your preferred aperture and shutter speed might not allow enough light to reach the sensor, and therefore you would need to opt for a higher ISO.
Now that students have had a few weeks to learn about and practice using shutter speed and aperture, I invite them to use them, along with ISO adjustments, to take sharp nighttime images. The images may also involve the use of motion of some kind to blur light. Students should consider either using a tripod, or setting their cameras on a steady surface to reduce the possibility of blur due to handholding the camera.
I love shooting at night, so I give students examples of my own photos and talk to them about the settings I used, the experience I had while shooting each image and what I learned with each.
As always, in class we go on a photo walk to continue to play with our camera’s settings. The nighttime photos will be the assigned homework.
Goals – Students should…
Understand:
Know:
Be able to:
Resources and materials –
Students were assigned the nighttime photography over winter break, so were fortunate enough to take images celebrating the holidays and new year’s eve.
In the K-8 Art Studio with Anita Sagastegui 