"I'm going to Australia...I'm going to the zoo..."

"To see the fuzzy wuzzy bear and the bouncing Kangaroo!"

That song has been in my head since the first day of the my art class at St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church.  I was fortunate to accept a job teaching a weekly art class to a local home school group. In my art class, I can have up to 30 students, ranging from ages 4-14.  It will be a challenge to differentiate the instruction to accommodate such a vast span of ages and abilities!  However, I am always up to the challenge.

My first day was actually October 7, 2010...however, I didn't decide to start a blog about the experience until today. So I will have to back track!  I will try to get updated as quickly as possible so that I can post either by weekly class or by project.

Day 1:
Our first project was a self portrait! I was super excited to start this project. I wanted to do a project that was really about the artist creating it, so I spent days racking my brain for a great project. One day it just came to me! I would have them create a self portrait on vellum using only contour lines, and then paste that self portrait over a magazine collage that symbolized different things about the artist. 

To start, we looked at self portraits and discussed what they were and why artists make them--A self portrait is simply a picture (or sculpture!)  an artist creates of him or herself,  it can be done in any medium, and there is a plethora of reasons as to why one would create such a thing, from the fact that you are always there for yourself, to wanting to express yourself, to it's just good practice.  I gave them an opportunity to create a 5 minute self portrait on their scrap paper without any instructions. After the 5 minutes were up, we talked about their self portraits. For the little ones, we reviewed what features and how many of each were on the face. We discussed their shapes. For the middle and older age groups, we talked about the placement and details. We all participated in drawing over our original drawings to make a more accurate picture, by drawing placement lines together and redrawing our features with more accurate shapes.  Next, I asked them what would have helped them draw their self portrait--someone said a photograph or mirror. I agreed; I explained the importance of looking at their subjects. We did a one minute blind contour--a continuous line drawing where you only look at your subject and not at your paper--to get used to looking at their subject (me, in this case) and not only at their paper. Then we got out the mirrors, and they set out to draw their self portraits. Once done, they traced their portrait onto vellum with a permanent marker.  Those who finished early started choosing pictures from magazines to represent themselves.

Day 2:


On day 2, we reviewed what they had learned and done the previous week, and then we discussed something new: collages! A collage is an assemblage of different pieces to create a new whole--in this case, it was ripping and cutting images from magazines to represent ourselves and gluing them to one sheet of oaktag. The word collage comes from the french word "coller" which means "To stick" or "to glue".

I explained how to glue their images down so that they overlapped. The students spent the class period searching for pictures and gluing them to their paper. As our final step, they glued down their vellum sheet on top of their collage, and then glued down letters from the magazines to spell out their names.  All in all, the students had a great time working on this project. I had a great time learning little things about them: how Nora likes make-up and girly things, how Emily loves horses, and how Simeon loves food!  We shared some laughs, and I got a good look at the talent this group really has in art!

 
After clean up, they had a little time to play till their parents came...and they spent the time playing a Ring-around-the-rosy kind of game called "I'm going to Australia." (Hence my title!)  I don't know if I'm ever going to get that song out of my head!