ballz

Matthew Barney began his restraint drawing series in 1987 while attending Yale. The pieces examined his athleticism with resistance bands not allowing him to reach the canvas he attempted to draw on. When Aileen described this piece during class I found it interesting for several reasons:

• First, I think its a wonderfully simple yet impactful performance piece.
• Second, during  the critique for my ideas on what to do for the end of semester project, I was told  to restrain myself from getting carried away with materials.  The element of simplicity through out my collages has been one of their strong suits.  And although I fell in love with printmaking it need not be an element in my final. If it is, I need to figure out a structured way of adding prints with restraint and without creating clutter.
• And finally, restraint with children and students is necessary when it comes to materials in the art classroom. This idea has resurfaced over and over again in this class and definitely in this blog. It is not necessarily helpful to give students an endless supply of resources to "explore" because they don't use the materials in front of them creatively or to their full potential. 

and, I am serious that Matthew Barney's piece did make me consider all of these things.

Arturo Herrera, Get it Right (red)

During critique Aileen told me to check out Arturo Herrera because his work is similar to what I'm doing. In Get it Right (red), he experiments with shape and line; and sthe breaking down of both.  I too have been examining this idea in my collages and drawings.   Here are my latest two:

For our activity we experimented with creating spheres and different techniques to do so:

One station was with clay and using stop motion video:

The next was covering balls with clear packing tape and removing the tape with scissors to make a kind of tape mold:

  

And finally creating a big sphere using cardboard and bamboo:

This is the station I was at and it was interesting figuring out how to work together with 2 people.  Although, it kinda looks like an egg, I think we did ok :)

Only three more classes to go...

wrapping up

Last week we finished our section on printmaking.  In order to tie it all together we created folios that would house each of our printed examples which I explained in detail in my previous post.  The folios are a nice way to wrap up the section as a finished product as well as elevate the work to something that involves a little more care and attention.

As an art teacher, I plan on doing this.  I intend on having little shelves installed in the room for presentations and display so that students can see the work heightened and valued.  I hope to work alongside students in creating simple folio structures, but also understand that sometimes the bulk of the work will lie with me in order to create a cohesive and elevated body of student work.

Sometimes heightening the work can be produced through learning the proper procedures with specific processes.  For Example, Aileen had us finish our prints by properly signing the bottom of each with the format that established printmakers use.

A/P or 1/3, TITLE, SIGNATURE,  and DATE.  (In a crisply sharpened white pencil, after tearing the edges to make the paper look hand-made)

Even laying down black paper on a table like we did in our discussion about our graphic novels can easily heighten the final critique.

my graphic novel on a shelf

During our graphic novel crit we discussed how we could expand this idea with students and my favorite was the idea of creating pop outs.  I'd like if the entire book was black and white, but the pop outs were colorful.  I've always loved secret pretty details! like the stuffed heart I found inside my dog's teddybear after he tore it up.  

Because one of our prints was turned into stickers, we discussed Nancy Spero an artist who uses sticker art often.  Here is one of her pieces:

I heart Printz part deux.

This week we printed again!  If the week prior I was in lust, then this week I fell in love.  The processes are so fun, full of surprise and just make me feel like a kid again!

The room was set up in four stations with directions hanging next to each station:

The Paul Klee station,  is where you set up a plate with oil based ink, place a piece of paper on top and lightly sketch.  When you pick up the paper, the image has been transferred to the other side.  Here are two prints I made using this technique:

Here are my prints:

In this station we were to collaborate our corrugated animal prints.  Many of us ran out of time, so we plan on doing this next week.  But, I love this idea for the classroom and collaborating artworks together to make a larger cohesive piece with students.

We created callograph prints again this week, in the 4th station.  This time however, Aileen had us create the prints together as a class, and move forward together.  She talked us through each step.  For Example,  cut out a big shape, cut a hole in the shape, cut scary legs, cut 4 scary teeth...  She kept us on track with time, so as to keep us all at the same pace and make sure everyone completed each task.  This management style is necessary in the art room because many times it is easy to get really sucked into one aspect of the process that the project doesn't get completed. 

Here is my new callograph print:

Then we were to create a folio to store all of our prints in.  Great idea to have a finished product with all of the examples of techniques that we used.

Chelsea and Clare making folios

I didn't get to this step yet, but we when we wrap up this section next week I will make my folio.  

These processes have got me thinking about my own work and a possible final project for this class.  I think I will make a book of prints using different techniques.

   

I heart printz.

Last week Mary substitute taught our class.  She taught us a method of art called callograph printmaking, which uses a build up of paper like a collage to create an image.  

Here are some examples of collograph prints that I enjoy:

Annie's Owl

Michele Landsaat

This lesson can be easily translated into one with children, as it is a simple form of this wonderful discipline.

We were first given a theme of monsters and some books for reference:

We would transfer the image by covering it with washable printing ink, then laying a piece of black construction paper on top of it, and finally smoothing over the back with our hands or a small roller.

Adnan's totally awesome print :)

*She had perfect squares drawn on the table cloth, so the image and paper would line up perfectly. (Really good for children!)

Then we cut out our image and placed it face up on top of an already painted square of plexi.  This would create a two color print when we placed our construction paper on top and rubbed.

Lucinda cuttin out her monster...

I can't wait to use this process with students (and again with my personal work!)  It's fun and simple with beautiful results!

class's prints.

my prints:  sea creature monster thing.

We briefly looked at each others graphic novels, and from what I saw, they looked great. Everyone took a different approach, but similar in the sense that either pen or pencil was the only drawing utensil used.  This project only used card stock, folded paper, and pencil or pen.  (Very do-able with students especially with limited resources.)

And, this week staying on the sea creature theme, I made a collage of sharks using a book that Jake gave me called "The Book of Sharks." :)

It had some beautiful illustrations of these scary animals.  This piece is called "Sharks have hearts too."