Today's Lesson: In our final meeting with Cooper Home, the students finished their clay pots and sculptures they constructed in the previous meeting. Today's focus was to decorate their final work using acrylic paints, crayons, pastels, or a combination of materials. The students were asked to consider painting and drawing techniques we covered in previous lessons earlier in the year. Students explored the possibilities of how to decorate their fired clay pots in this final meeting. Essential Understandings:
Artists and designers create art in a variety of forms to express ideas
Artists and designers mix media and processes to create an art work
Outcomes - Students will be able to
Create 3-D artwork that serves a function
Combine 2-D and 3-D artistic techniques onto one art work
Utilize 2-D materials in innovative and imaginative ways
Understand the possibilities and limitations with applying 2-D materials onto a 3-D surface
Skills:
Identify different ways to decorate/finalize a clay pot/sculpture
Creative problem solving
Complete documentation of this lesson can be found by clicking the image below!
Reflection: What worked well for this art experience? Why? In our final meeting with this group of students, I am happy to say that this class period overall went very well. I feel that we ended on a high note. I think that the biggest take away from this class was allowing students to make choices and take control of their art ideas. In our set up process, our group organized all of the materials onto one table in the back and let students pick and choose what materials they would use in finishing their pots. In the past, we would lay out materials in the middle of each table, but I think allowing students to pick and choose what to use was a good choice. I will definitely consider this method of organization in the future. Another thing that I thought went well about the class was that students took what they learned from mixing colors and painting in our second meeting and applied these techniques when painting their pots. The students were already somewhat familiar with painting, and as the teacher, I thought it was great to see them apply previous knowledge in this art experience. I will try to be aware of this when I begin my teaching practice and incorporate previous art techniques into current projects. What didn’t work well for this art experience? Why? One thing that stands out to me today that didn’t work very well was with one student melting crayons with a hairdryer and applying the wax to his project. There was an instance where he asked for my help in peeling the paper off some crayons. I gave him assistance with a couple of crayons, but other students wanted to ask me questions, so I had to leave him be. At another point in the class, the same student really wanted me to hold the hairdryer for him while he painted with the melted class. I was more than willing to help, but again, other students had questions they wanted to ask me. It was kind of tough for me to walk away from the student and help someone else. I just want to help all of my students to the best of my ability and I don’t want to leave anyone unattended and feel left out. I’m still learning how to balance myself between all of the students as efficiently as possible and not focusing too much attention onto one student. This is defiantly something I will note and work on as I progress further in the program and into my professional practice. What would you do differently? Why? In the future I would really like to have students glaze their projects of I were to do a lesson on ceramics. Since this was our last meeting with these students and we didn’t necessarily have time to fire their projects again, we had students paint and use crayons to finish their work. If I were to do another ceramics project with students, I will definitely account for the time in order for students to glaze their work. This way students would be able to play and experiment with other art materials, and also, glaze would allow for the students’ pots to hold liquid if they choose. We worked with the time we had with these students and I am very happy with how hard the students worked, this is just something to consider for my future as a teacher. One other thing that I would do differently would be include some sort of closing activity since this was the last class period. Today, we took a group photo with the students, but I think it would be really meaningful for the students and myself to have a short “goodbye” activity. I think in the future I would consider having students bringing in their art work from throughout the semester and holding a little gallery exhibition/walk in the classroom. I would like to look at and celebrate student work from the entire semester and appreciate their hard work as the last thing we do as a class. I would hope that the students would appreciate and be proud of the art that they made over the course of a semester.