Young Artists Workshop, Fall 2014
The Young Artists Workshop (YAW) is an enrichment program aimed at providing comprehensive sequential art education experiences that involve the production, evaluation, and appreciation of art. Emphasis is placed on learning about art and artists, analyzing art, and understanding its aesthetic, cultural and historical significance.
During the Fall 2014 semester, my partner teacher and I taught four lessons to the 10-12 age group. Our enduring idea was Expressions of My World and Me. The links below contain my lesson plans which include galleries of student examples created during the corresponding lesson.
Enduring Idea: Expressions of My World and Me
Unit Plans: SELF-EXPRESSION TOTEM POLES MY DREAM HOUSE
Rationale:
The theme ‘Expressions of My World and Me’ facilitates learning about oneself and expressing oneself through mediums such as printmaking, drawing, painting, and sculpture. This is important because it creates self-confidence in the students and pride in their artwork. Students can use these skills learned in Young Artist’s Workshop to express themselves and their emotions through art. We want students to love who they are and get excited to show that off in their work. In the totem pole lesson they learned about their personality and what symbols represent who they are. In the printmaking lesson they learned how to draw self-portraits in proper proportions. For the third lesson, they used their imagination to create their own dream home. In the fourth lesson, they learned about themselves inside and out and represented that in their artwork.
*Note- The lesson plans included here are just the ones written and taught by Jillian Keyes. Credit for the rationale description for this enduring idea goes to Allison Pitre, my partner teacher for this program.
The first lesson of mine is called Self- Expression Totem Poles. During this lesson, the students expressed themselves through the form of sculpture. They used objects, symbols, or animals that relate to their own lives to construct a totem pole. The students constructed their totem poles with Model Magic air-dry clay using 3-4 objects of their choosing that they created. The students painted the totem poles with acrylic paint. The artist used for this lesson was George Gulli Jr., a contemporary totem pole artist.
My second lesson is called My Dream House. During this lesson, the students designed and drew a house that represents who they are through their idea of where they would dream to live. The students drew their dream houses in graphite pencils. They then went over their graphite lines with variously sized black Sharpies. The artists used for this lesson were Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Antoni Gaudí. Their buildings were helpful examples to show a variety of architecture to the students.
Throughout the course of the program, the students were asked to create preliminary drawings in their own sketchbooks before they started working on their artworks. For some of the lessons, they also wrote descriptions of their artwork in their sketchbooks. Below is a gallery of my students' sketchbook drawings.
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