About gloworm

teacher of young children, visual artist

Cut paper – art and science

Posted on December 28, 2015 by gloworm

Artist Rogan Brown

“We live in a world dominated by science,” Brown says. “Art needs to work hard to keep up or use the language and imagery of science for its own ends.”

Artist Rogan Brown’s paper sculptures are many times larger than the organisms that inspire them. Magic Circle Variation 5 is approximately 39 inches wide by 39 inches tall in its entirety. Brown has created multiple versions of Magic Circle, the shape of which alludes to a petri dish and a microscope lens.

Courtesy of Rogan Brown roganbrown.com

Is This Snowy Wonderland or The World Inside a Petri Dish?

By Meredith Rizzo

Do you remember cutting paper snowflakes in school? Artist Rogan Brown has elevated that simple seasonal art form and taken it to science class.

These large-scale paper sculptures may evoke snow, but actually trade on the forms of bacteria and other organisms. The patterns may feel familiar, but also a bit alien.

Click HERE to read the full, fascinating story from NPR.

NPR / PUBLIC HEALTH
Is This Snowy Wonderland Or The World Inside A Petri Dish? By Meredith Rizzo
December 25, 20155:26 AM ET

A cut paper snowflake . . .

Posted on December 14, 2015 by gloworm

a hopeful gesture of winter and fascinating work for children.

Missing Mickey

Posted on December 12, 2015 by gloworm

Mickey my golden retriever died peacefully last week. She was nearly 14. Many Park children and faculty knew Mickey, enjoyed her antics as a petty thief, and snuggled in her soft fur.

Possibilities

Posted on December 11, 2015 by gloworm

Stack and balance.

Take apart.

Put together in a new way.

Do this 3 times.

Stretch your thinking.

Explore possibilities.

Express your best idea.

Glue together with wood glue.

Voila!

Kindness cards

Posted on November 25, 2015 by gloworm

This short Thanksgiving week in art, children shared their artistic talents. They drew, colored and designed “Kindness Cards” for people who go to the Weinberg Housing and Resource Center seeking food and shelter. These two basic human needs are studied in third grade.

The children worked in a purposeful, heartfelt manner. When asked about how someone might feel receiving a handmade “Kindness Card,” children said, “cared for,” “like they are not all alone,” and “loved.”

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

Grades 1, 2 and 3

Open studio

Posted on November 21, 2015 by gloworm

During a week of independent choices, children expressed new ideas by revisiting art tools and materials used during the past 11 weeks of school.

: tempera painting

: paper collage

: arranging geometric shapes on the light box

: paper folding

Grades 1, 2, and 3

Portfolio page

Image

Make an artwork using pictures of your artwork!

Each child collaged a “portfolio page” with pictures taken in art during the first 10 weeks of school. The pages are wrapped and are coming home this week for you to see!

Grades 1, 2, 3

A peek . . .

Posted on November 13, 2015 by gloworm

. . . at some familiar things in the art room.

Where would you find these?

Match the words to the pictures.

art map book nook child size sink clay tools construction paper denim aprons flat files flowers geometric shape templates idea books lava light light box Ms. H.’s clay bear name tags paintbrushes pattern blocks Prismacolors recycled sun rocking chair rocks tempera paint tools and materials baskets unit blocks watercolors

10 lessons

Posted on October 26, 2015 by gloworm

“Art is literacy of the heart.”

– Elliot Eisner

Ten Lessons the Arts Teach

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution
and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.
One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving
purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.
The arts traffic in subtleties.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.
All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.
When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source
and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10. The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young
what adults believe is important.

SOURCE:

Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press.

Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper acknowledgment of its source and NAEA.

National Art Education Association

901 Prince Street, Alexandria, Virginia, 22314 USA

T: 800.299.8321/703.860.8000

F: 703.860.2960 (INTERNATIONAL: DIAL 011+1+NUMBER)

E: INFO@ARTEDUCATORS.ORG

Only One You / Nadie Como Tu

Posted on October 13, 2015 by gloworm

During art, we looked at many different kinds of lines and patterns in the book Only One You / Nadie Como Tu by Linda Kranz before exploring the technique of RESIST with oil pastels and paint.

Then, we drew lines, shapes and patterns with oil pastels on watercolor paper. Straight lines, curvy, zig-zag, loopy, dotted, dashed…

For the RESIST technique to be successful, our challenge was to discover:

How hard or soft do you have to push when you are drawing with oil pastels?

How thick or thin do the lines have to be?

When brushing paint on top of the drawings, how thick or thin does the paint have to be?

Which color combinations stand out the most?

Grades 1, 2, 3

Drawing on top of prints

Posted on October 8, 2015 by gloworm

The next art class our prints were dry. We envisioned new possibilities to complete them using drawing materials.

How would you add on or transform some of your prints?

We tested colored markers, drawing pencils, black drawing pens and Prismacolor pencils.

Which work well on black ink? Which drawing materials do you prefer? Why?

Grades 1, 2, 3

Printing

Posted on October 8, 2015 by gloworm

Art is a language. Artists show their thoughts, feelings and ideas in many different ways.

This artwork shows a technique called PRINTING.

There are many printmaking techniques to discover and we hope to explore several more this year.

We learned how to use and care for the following tools and materials:

Brayers
Ink trays
Printing paper
Printing ink
2″ squares of corrugated cardboard

Then, we playfully explored ways to make marks, lines and shapes with 2″ cardboard squares dipped in black printing ink.

What do you do with an idea?

Posted on September 22, 2015 by gloworm

We read What Do You Do With an Idea? Written by Kobi Yamada and illustrated by Mae Besom.

Then, with the art tools and materials shown above, children envisioned and expressed their ideas in many different ways.

“What do ideas become? Big things, brave things, smart things, silly things, good things. Things like stories, artwork, journeys, inventions, communities, products and cures. Everything you see around you was once an idea.”

Happy Friday…

Posted on September 18, 2015 by gloworm

The possibilities of paper

Posted on September 17, 2015 by gloworm

Bend it, fold it, twist it, roll it, cut it, curl it.

Tie it, tape it,

Connect it together!

About gloworm

Posted on September 15, 2015 by gloworm

Dear Friends,

This was first posted on gloworm in October 2012 and still holds true!

One of the purposes for the blog is to communicate with the Park School community about what’s happening in art in grades 1, 2 & 3. What we teach in art and why are centered around the “Studio Habits of Mind.”

To learn and grow as artists we encourage children to explore a wide variety of art tools and materials and to practice basic skills. Investigations in two and three-dimensional art media invite children to express their thoughts, feelings and ideas in new ways.

The 8 Studio Habits of Mind*

1. Observe – Look beyond the ordinary. Notice things that otherwise might not be seen.

2. Develop Craft – Learn how to use art tools and materials. Understand techniques. Care for tools, materials and the art room.

3. Envision – Picture mentally. Imagine possible next steps.

4. Express – Create works that convey an idea, a feeling, or a personal meaning.

5. Stretch and Explore – Reach beyond the familiar and explore playfully. Embrace opportunities to learn from mistakes and accidents.

6. Engage and Persist – Solve problems of personal importance. Develop focus and follow through on an idea.

7. Reflect – Question, think and talk with others about one’s work and working process. Evaluate one’s own work and working process.

8. Understand Art in the World – Learn about art history and current practice. Interact as an artist with other student artists.

*Adapted from Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education, Lois Hetland, Ellen Winner, Shirley Veenema, Kimberly M. Sheridan, David N. Perkins, Teachers College Press, 2007.

I hope you will follow “gloworm” this year! Either subscribe or bookmark mshesaltine.edublogs.org

Sincerely,

Nancye Hesaltine