What I learned at NAEA14 part 1

I just spent four wonderful days at NAEA 14, here in my hometown of San Diego.  I attended a ton of sessions, including a pre-conference tour and a hands-on workshop. Here’s a peek at what I saw and learned.

Friday, March 28: Pre-Conference Tour of Art Program and Murals and Zamorano Fine Arts Academyzamorano mural tour NAEA14 Art teacher/art ed blogger Don Masse led this tour of his public elementary school’s remarkable art program. Zamarano Fine Arts Academy employs five (!) visual art educators for 1400 (!) students from transitional kindergarten-grade 5. The school has a clay program, photography, fashion design, and much more. Don’s 5th graders create an annual ‘legacy’ mural…in addition, we saw many other outdoor artworks, including painted windows. See lots more of Don’s contemporary-art inspired projects at his blog, shite brite zamorano.

 

Monday, March 31 Shadow Puppets workshop with Grace Hulse

I have wanted to teach a shadow puppet unit for years, but never really knew how. Grace Hulse’s workshop was a great intro. Her Baltimore second graders put on a shadow puppet play every year.

We cut black tagboard into interesting animal shapes. Ms. Hulse encouraged us to create openings in the puppets using craft knives and decorative punches. We taped lace doilies or colored vellum over the openings to add interest. We could create articulated limbs with small brads.

We also learned about inexpensive materials to make a small theater.

shadow puppets collageIf you want to learn more, Ms. Hulse highly recommends the book Worlds of Shadow: Teaching with Shadow Puppetry by David and Donna Wiesniewski (Note: you can get a good preview of this book on Amazon).

In addition, Ms. Hulse’s students created an iMovie trailer using photos of shadow puppet illustrations. Check out the Odyssey of Homer trailer on Vimeo.

Lucky you – Ms. Hulse has a public Prezi of her shadow puppet presentation.

More NAEA14 awesomeness coming up soon!

Enjoy!

Texture Collage

Want to introduce your students to texture? Try a texture collage project.

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Collage and Construction in Grades 1-4 by Lois Lord, 1970 edition.

I found great instructions in the book Collage and Construction in Grades 1-4 by master art teacher/author Lois Lord. You’ll need large paper for the background format, glue, stapler and scissors, plus ‘materials of contrasting texture’:

Rough textured materials include corrugated cardboard, burlap…used sandpaper, wood shavings, egg-crate dividers, excelsior, and orange, onion and potato sacks.

Contrasting soft -textured material include pieces of fabric such as velvet; scraps of fur; cotton; bits of sponge; and feathers…

Materials with smooth textures include shiny metallic papers bought or salvaged from Christmas wrappings, chewing gum, and other packets. 

Collage and Construction in Grades 1-4, p.10.

Lucky you – you get to actually watch Ms. Lord teach this collage lesson. Please enjoy ‘Collage: Exploring Texture’, filmed back in 1961.

http://vimeo.com/33304500

Not only to I love Ms. Lord’s teaching style, I love how she organized her collage supplies by texture and how she distributed the supplies. I wish she had been my teacher! Although this film was produced back in 1961, it is still inspiring.

You may have noticed Ms. Lord’s students used jars of liquid paste applied with a brush. It reminded me of this no-spill paint cup filled with glue at the collage station at San Diego’s New Children’s Museum.  The cups come with lids so you can cap them up at night. You will need to soak the brushes in water after use. (note: this may be a good use for the brushes that come with your pan watercolor sets). Want more glue options? Click here and here to see other glue cups in the classroom.

White glue in spill-proof paint cup at San Diego's New Children's Museum

White glue in spill-proof paint cup at San Diego’s New Children’s Museum.

Thanks to Wendy Apfel for sharing this excellent video on Vimeo.

Enjoy!


Happy Throwback Thursday! Stop by next Thursday to see what I’ve discovered in my vintage art education collection.

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