Collage – A collage (From the French: coller, to glue) is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. Use of this technique made its dramatic appearance among oil paintings in the early 20th century as an art form of groundbreaking novelty.An artistic collage work may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored or hand-made papers, portions of other artwork, photographs, and such, glued to a piece of paper or canvas. The term collage derives from the French “coller” meaning “glue“. This term was coined by both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the beginning of the 20th century when collage became a distinctive part of modern art.
Lesson Idea – Eric Carle Collage
Students will:
Gain appreciation for the work of Eric Carle – see book illustration as a career
Speculate about a work of art, what materials, techniques and skills were used -Study Carle’s work to determine how he did it.
Explore various water color techniques
Create a variety textural effects
Design and create a composition using the techniques of Eric Carle — demonstrate cutting and gluing skills
Clay – Clay is a special kind of earth which is made by the decomposition of rocks through the action of weathering.
Clay can be found anywhere but it is only useful for pottery if it has good “plasticity.” You can test this by seeing how stretchy a piece of clay is. If you can take a piece of clay, roll it into a coil and bend it into a ring without cracking and falling apart, chances are it will make good pots and sculptures.
Natural clay that we find outside usually needs to be cleaned and refined before it can be used. Any tiny rocks and lumps are removed and some additional materials, like sand are sometimes added to create the perfect workable clay that we buy from the pottery supply house.
Working With Clay:Clay artists throughout the ages have invented many ways to shape things out of clay.
PINCH – Use your fingers to pinch and poke a single lump of clay into any shape.
SLAB – Roll the clay into flat sheets (like a pie crust) to cut apart and assemble.
COIL - Roll out long snakes of clay and twist them into coils and shapes.
WHEEL – Spin clay on a potter’s wheel to form pots and vases.
Some Tools to Use When Working with Clay:
Your fingers
Rolling pins and canvas
Popsicle sticks and toothpicks
Cookie cutters
Plastic bags
A clay cutter (wire)
Sponges
Various carving tools, nuts and bolts, old toothbrushes and anything else you can get your hands on that will create texture in the clay
Clay Definitions:
Wedging: This is what you do to get all of the air bubbles out of your clay. Basically you roll the clay around on a flat surface “pushing” and “pulling” the clay so all of the air comes out. Clay right out of the box is already wedged … you don’t have to worry about air bubbles with new clay.
Kiln: This is a large, hot oven that is used to fire the clay. You need to fire your clay in a kiln in order for it to be permanent. A kiln can reach temperatures of 2500 degrees F. and higher. Your oven at home maybe reaches 500 degrees F.
Earthenware: This is the type of clay often used in schools. It comes in white or red and it is fired to a temperature of approximately 1000 degrees C. or 1830 degrees F.
Slip: This is liquid clay … clay with a lot of water added to it. It is used in ceramics (poured into molds). It is also sometimes used as a sort of glue to hold clay pieces together. You need to use slip to “fasten” pieces of clay together so that they don’t fall apart in the kiln. You see, clay shrinks as it dries so if you haven’t made sure that your clay pieces are firmly attached, they will separate in the kiln. It isn’t enough to simply “pile” one piece of clay on the next. Use watered down clay as your glue.
Leather-Hard: This is what we call clay that has dried for a few hours. It should feel slightly cool to the touch. Leather-hard clay is not dry enough for firing in a kiln … If a piece of clay is put into the kiln while it is still wet, it could explode. When water gets hot … it boils right? Well, your pottery piece will literally “blow up” if it contains water or moisture that boils when it gets hot in the kiln.
Greenware: When clay has dried and is ready to be fired in a kiln, it is referred to as greenware. Usually clay should air dry for about a week depending on the thickness of the piece.
Bisque: This is the first firing. Clay is usually fired in a kiln twice. Once at a lower temperature (the bisque firing). After a piece is bisqued, it can be glazed, painted or left as is. If the clay is glazed, it then goes in the kiln for a second firing.
Glaze: This is used to decorate clay that will hold liquid. It is essentially “liquid glass” or glass particles (mixed with colors or pigments) that have been ground down. Glaze melts at a high temperature and turns into the coatings that you see on a finished pottery piece.
Cone: The temperature that a kiln is set to depends on what type of clay you are firing. Some clay is referred to as cone 4 while some clay is referred to as cone 6. These are simply temperature gauges. An cone – designed to melt at a certain temperature – is used to gauge the temperature. Earthenware is usually fired to cone 06 – approximately 1000 degrees C. or 1832 degrees F. Your oven is only about 500 degrees F.
Lesson Idea – Ceramic Owls
Students will:
demonstrate clay slab formation techniques
show understanding of texture
become aware of different kinds of owls and their habits
Optional: Examine owl pellets to determine what the owl eats
Drawing – Drawing is a visual art which makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, chalk, pastels, markers, stylus, or various metals like silverpoint. An artist who practices or works in drawing may be referred to as a draftsman or draughtsman.
A small amount of material is released onto the two dimensional medium which leaves a visible mark – the process is similar to that of painting. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials such as cardboard, plastic, leather, canvas and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard, or indeed almost anything. The medium has also become popular as a means of public expression via graffiti art, because of the easy availability of permanent markers.
Drawing is one of the most important activities you and your students can do. Drawing not only provides the basis for other creative activities – like painting, sculpture and printmaking – but it also provides a direct link with reading, writing and especially mathematics. The connection between drawing and geometric shapes and measurements simply cannot be denied. And do you know what else? Drawing is the single most accessible form of art available. All you need (to begin with), is a pencil and a sheet of paper.
Lesson Idea: Blind Contour Drawing
When making a blind contour drawing, the eye is not watching the hand as it draws on the paper. The first contour drawings you do will look, well, funny. However, with practice, you will find that you will be able to accurately record an image on paper without looking at your hand as it draws! It is a great warm-up drawing activity for any age group
Painting – Painting, meant literally, is the practice of applying color to a surface (support) such as, e.g. paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer or concrete. However, when used in an artistic sense, the term “painting” means the use of this activity in combination with drawing, composition and other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner.
Painting is used as a mode of representing, documenting and expressing all the varied intents and subjects that are as numerous as there are practitioners of the craft. Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in a still life or landscape painting), photographic, abstract, be loaded with narrative content, symbolism, emotion or be political in nature. A large portion of the history of painting is dominated by spiritual motifs and ideas; sites of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to biblical scenes rendered on the interior walls and ceiling of The Sistine Chapel to depictions of the human body itself as a spiritual subject.
Lesson Ideas - 3-D Texture PaintingS
Students will learn about texture as they experiment and apply it on their artwork. They will learn about line, design, shape and the differences between two and three-dimensional art. Students will learn about impasto painting.
Printmaking – Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a print. Each piece is not a copy but an original since it is not a reproduction of another work of art and is technically known as an impression. Painting or drawing, on the other hand, create a unique original piece of artwork. Prints are created from a single original surface, known technically as a matrix. Common types of matrices include: plates of metal, usually copper or zinc for engraving or etching; stone, used for lithography; blocks of wood for woodcuts, linoleum for linocuts and fabric plates for screen-printing. But there are many other kinds, discussed below. Works printed from a single plate create an edition, in modern times usually each signed and numbered to form a limited edition. Prints may also be published in book form, as artist’s books. A single print could be the product of one or multiple techniques.
Lesson Idea – Snowflake Prints
Students will:
Understand the concept of printmaking
Understand and apply media, techniques, and processes
Reflect upon and assess the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others
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