Workshop 3: Overpainting

I think our third week of classes was a success. Once again, the community time went smoothly. I feel like everyone is much more relaxed now and it no longer feels like an awkward “get to know you” chore that we have to get out of the way.

This was my second week to teach. The girls had voted on overpainting and the fiber self-portrait out of my remaining lessons. Since I need selfies of the girls pre-printed for the fiber portraits, I went with overpainting for this week.

To prepare I went to thrift stores around town to search for amateur or kitsch paintings for the students to work on. However, even the thrift store paintings are out of my price range (at between $9-$20 a pop, I’m wondering if the frames are the part that’s valuable). Luckily, Dr. Baldus has a flat file full of poster prints in her supply.

 I chose a dark and gloomy Norman Rockwell poster with a crease down the middle for my example and demo piece. I figured if I could manage to do something with this print, it should be easy to show the girls how to work with posters that were better suited for the project. To be sure I understood what the students would be doing, I had gone through the entire process.

I also used the formative assessment strategy for my demo piece, which was to create a 3x3 grid of ideas for the overpainting. This is an assessment that forces the student to brainstorm before beginning a work and assesses their ability to create a fluency of ideas.

I don’t have a photo of my demo painting (which evolved into the title of ‘Happy Space Day!’), but I’ll add one to the blog later.

To begin the class, I waited until all the students were present before making announcements so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself. Because of the relaxed nature of the workshops, a few housekeeping items were getting overlooked and I could forsee them becoming a problem in the future. I tacked a written reminder on our board about first, putting names on everything they worked on, from sketches to final product and second, to leave all their work at the studio so that we, the instructors, had it for the final exhibition.

After that I referenced a written agenda for the day. I felt I needed to have something written down that reminded me what the order of events needed to be (do I demo first? Or do they pick their poster print first?) and also informed the students what they were going to be doing and in what order. Without this, I feel it would’ve been easy to forget a part of the lesson or for the girls to think it was acceptable to skip the matrix, for example.

After pointing out the agenda, I had the girls create a tea bag “splat” on a piece of paper. Then, in the interest of saving time, I handed out already dried tea splats and talked about Austin Kleon’s tea bag drawings.

I passed around my Ipad to show some images of his work, and then asked the students to create a drawing from their tea bag splat. While the students were working on their tea bag drawing, I handed the Ipad around again so they could look at images of David Irvine and Dave Pollot’s overpaintings.

During this time, I also had the students write a number down on a small piece of paper and put it into a box for later.


 The students' tea bag drawings:

After the tea bag drawings, I used the Rockwell print to demonstrate two ways of overpainting that I had worked out for this lesson. First, I demoed using tracing paper to layer new images on the poster and then coloring and blending on the tracing paper with markers. After that I demoed using acrylic paint to create new images on the prints and described how I achieved certain effects. I talked about color and value and discussed how to incorporate new imagery so that it didn’t just look as if it was slapped on top.
As Dr. Baldus was circulating in our workshop, she wondered if parts of shiny poster prints could be rubbed off with rubbing alcohol and a paper towel. We experimented and found that they could. So that was demoed as another alternative method for creating overpaintings.

After the demo we drew the students’ numbers (from before) to determine which order they would pick their prints in. This may not have been necessary, but I was worried two students may want the same print or that the more assertive students would get their first choice while the quieter students waited until last. There seemed to be enough prints available that there wasn’t any overlap or dissention this time. After that the students created their 3x3 matrix and then got to work. One student completed two overpaintings, some didn’t get done, but set theirs aside for later.

I was excited to see some experimentation and questioning. One student wanted to use her feet to create a footprint in the snow on her print, so she did. Another student wanted to know what a Nazi armband would look like, which was initially alarming, however I think the final result of this girl’s work was a satire of Nazis or an image that poked fun at them. Even if it hadn’t been we were instructed to not censor the students’ work, but rather to ask questions about their choices—a stance I agree with.  


I’m not sure I would change anything. I feel like it went fairly well. Maybe more access to internet so the students would have necessary source imagery right away, but they did pretty well with their phones and sharing. The lesson could be cleaner if students only used tracing paper and acrylic paint was not provided, but I feel some of the students were very interested and excited about using the paint.

The students really seemed to enjoy this lesson, and I certainly enjoyed watching them grapple with it. I think there was some hesitancy at first. Maybe similar to the anxious feeling an artist might have at “ruining” a pristine sketchbook. However, I think if this lesson was continued, the students would become more and more fluent and skilled at creating humorous or satirical images with this process.

Workshop 2: Tie-Dye Wall Hangings & Sketchbook Wrap-up

I was an observer for last week’s workshop and Caley was the instructor. Therefore, I felt much more relaxed from the very beginning. 

 

I think community time was a lot easier this week. Maybe it’s just because we were all at least passingly familiar with everyone else. I also feel that it was more relaxed because there was less to do during community time. The students were immediately involved in button making when they entered the room. Since there were not any get to know you introductions, pitches, ot voting, I felt like everyone was much more able to chat and work on the activity confident in what was going to come next.

I tried my hand, again, at getting a very quiet student in my group to open up. I feel I was slightly more successful this time. (We talked about books and her siblings.) I don’t think I imagined that this student was a little more animated during last week’s workshop.

I feel Caley did a great job with her teaching time. Her lesson involved using art to transform your space. So the students made tie-dye wall hangings. 

Her introductory activity tied in very well. The students “tie-dyed” using sharpies and rubbing alcohol on fabric. Something I had never done before. It was pretty fun. 

Caley also talked a bit about the symbolic meaning of color and different theories about how color may affect people’s emotions and perceptions. She encouraged the students to be purposeful in their color choices for their tie-dye project in order to evoke certain feelings or meaning.

Toward the end, while the students’ tie-dye hangings were soaking, I had a chance to help the students construct the sketchbooks that we had started during my lesson the week before.

I didn’t think I needed to go over in detail instructions for measuring and sewing. Partly because I thought verbally explaining some things would be enough, and for the other things, I thought I would be able to move around and help students as the next part came, or as they needed more help.

This was not well thought out on my part. I learned that, first of all, measuring and making straight lines is not a given skill for older students. My verbal instructions were something like “measure where the center line of your cover is and draw a line down. This will be your spine.” At least one student did not measure the center correctly, and one other had made a line that was slightly askew. Of course, this resulted in an uneven front and back when the cover and paper were folded in half. 

Measuring:

Drilling holes with awl:

Even for the girls that did measure correctly, there was some natural unevenness as the pages wouldn’t line up exactly (it happened for me, too). I explained that this was normal and that I had taken small batches of pages (10 or less) and had cut them until they were even a little at a time.

The students wanted to make their book even ALL AT ONCE however and unfortunately for them no scissors or cutting blade was quite sharp enough to hack that much paper at once. I do believe, though, that everyone was satisfied with their book by the end.

There were some minor problems with sewing as well. This mostly revolved around not following the instruction to leave a tail when they began sewing the spine. Those issues were resolved with a hot glue gun.

I meant the wrapping up of the sketchbook to be a filler time for Caley, but because I underestimated how long it would take the girls to finish their book, it took more time than I expected.

If I could do things differently, I would have saved that wrap up activity for one of my lessons with leftover time.

Overall, I think the workshop went very well and Caley did a great job. I’m excited to see what next week brings.        

Workshop 1: Marbling & Pareidolia

I was pretty stressed out for the first workshop. Not necessarily just because of the workshop, but also because of the busy-ness of life, currently.

I did find the idea of teaching older students unnerving. I had almost zero anxiety about the kids themselves for the elementary workshop in the Fall. I have a lot of experience being around kids in the 0-12 range. But much, much less experience interacting with adolescents and teenagers.

I found the community time to be a little awkward at first. Some students were much more outgoing than others. And of course, those students were easy to engage with and talk to. Others seemed very quiet and maybe withdrawn. I tried to engage of couple of these quiet youths, but often found that it was like trying to squeeze blood from a rock. They didn’t seem to want to give a foothold for further conversation. Or maybe they hadn’t developed the social skills for that yet. I know some adults who haven’t. Most of my attempts involved commenting on their exquisite corpse drawings, trying to extrapolate a few questions and answers from those drawings or other sketches they were working on and not getting very far.

           

I did hit my stride when I noticed a couple girls drawing some manga/anime style characters. I *do* have a pretty decent knowledge of anime and have watched a few different shows with my kids. So I was able to discuss some shows and characters and manga book series with relative intelligence. One girl had brought her personal sketchbook and began showing me example of her drawing. (Later on, during my workshop, another girl wanted to show me her charcoal drawings on her phone, too.)

By the time we gave our pitches, I was pretty pumped. I hope I didn’t step on anyone’s toes in my excitement. The topic I choose has always been near and dear to my own heart (symbolism in art…and in the world period). I wasn’t sure how well this topic would connect with a group of modern teenagers, but I figured I couldn’t be too far off base. This is a serious searching time for many kids. I remember reading a myriad of books about mythology, world religions, and symbolism when I was in high school.

I was glad to see that at a few students were on board and selected my and Caley’s workshop.

For our first lesson, my goals were to teach the students about the concept of pareidolia, the technique of marbling paper, and how to construct and bind their own sketchbook.

I started with passing around some Rorschach ink blot cards and asking the students to discuss what they saw. They could then check the back of the card and see if it what they saw was listed among any of the common responses. The back also contained an “interpretation” and I stressed that this was not an official test, but rather a game.

I showed the students common examples of pareidolia, tea bag drawings, and I also took a photo of the class and uploaded it to Google Dream to show an example of computer-generated pareidolia. (Tea bag drawing below by Austin Kleon.)

Then the girls used watercolor paint and paper to create their own inkblots.

After the students had each made an inkblot, I directed them to watch a marbling demonstration I was giving. After this some girls continued to make ink blots and chat while others used the marbling baths and marbled their sketchbook cover.

The working time went pretty well. I had one more girl than expected, but my partner Caley was very helpful and volunteered to cut some extra paper and covers for the sketchbooks. Since our working time was shortened we didn’t actually get to constructing the sketchbooks this time. I had worked out a way the girls could still construct the sketchbooks even while the covers were still damp. But the process of marbling took longer (taking turns) than I expected and also made a bigger mess than I had expected. 

(We had a whole drying rack full of marbled paper and covers. Then the papers started migrating to the floor.)

As you can see, they turned out pretty great!

If I were to make changes, I would probably break this lesson into two days, just because then there is a chance for the covers to dry and a chance to clean up the space before making the book. 

I had set up two marbling baths. I was expecting about four students, at most, due to the numbers we were given, so I figured four students taking turns with two baths wouldn’t be too difficult. But we ended up with six students, and some girls had to wait longer than others to marble. So, another change I might make would be to have prepared an extra marbling bath and also extra marbling solution. A ratio of 1 bath per 2 students seems about right. Also, the solution got pretty messy in the baths after many, many turns, so extra marbling solution to refill the baths with would be useful. 

I did have enough extra marbling solution to refill one bath once, but now I know to have more than that on hand for the future. 

While the girls were taking turns I handed out post it notes along with a list of my possible lessons for future workshops. Then I had the girls write their top three choices for lessons. I informed them I would use majority vote to pick the next two lessons I would teach. 

There was an overwhelming vote for overpainting (a lesson I didn’t even have my own example for, but only a print off of some other artists work) and the second place choice was for the fiber/sewing on canvas self-portrait. There were also votes for all the other lessons I had proposed, so I’m bummed we won’t get a chance to do those, but I’m really looking forward to seeing what my partner, Caley, comes up with and getting a chance to both teach and observe. 

New workshop--New media!

I was preparing last weekend for another teaching workshop this semester. This time I'll be working with middle and high school students instead of elementary students. So I thought it would be really fun to experiment with some new media. Things that I wasn't exposed to in high school.

I'll write a more exhaustive post about the process required for each of these later, but here are the experiments in no particular order:

Monoprinting (without a press):

 Paper marbling and sketchbook construction:

Dura-lar Collage:

Encaustic painting:

Sewing and Fiber art over photograph on canvas: