Artists in the Classroom

(Sometimes art takes over my life and it takes me a month to post something interesting.)

But this is interesting, I promise. This past semester, I took an art education class that met once a week, plus required us to teach an art class at an inner city school once a week. I actually had two classes (as did a couple other students), so every Friday, I ate a hearty brunch, hopped on the bus with tote bags full of projects, and taught kindergarteners how to make crayon resists and paint caterpillars and draw owls and make aliens. It was a blast and, while a lot of work, totally worth it. I always came back with wonderful stories, and was so excited by the enthusiasm of the kids who, before CIA started this program (ours was the first time running the class), didn't have art classes.

After the semester ended, we held an opening for our gallery show, featuring some of the amazing artwork these kids (kindergarten through 8th grad) produced. It was so much fun to set up and see what we did. Plus, some of the students and classroom teachers came to see their work hung up in a gallery. So fun! One of the benefits of teaching the little kids: you are always greeted with hugs. And I got plenty of them that night!

My classes made Very Hungry Caterpillars! They came out so cute!

We painted sheets of paper solid colors, then cut out the shapes later and collaged them.

The kids learned about mixing colors and making different brush strokes (which they really got into). 

And then they got to draw a background for their caterpillars. Did you see the one in the tree?!

Here's one of the gallery walls (we were still setting up so ignore the scraps everywhere!) featuring work from all ages.

 

Isn't that Superman collage awesome! It was made by 6th, 7th and 8th graders who each worked on a square.

There were these awesome spring themed mobiles made by 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders in classroom collaborations.

And on the far wall is some of the 1st graders' work.

We art teachers had our work in the show, too. (Sorry, crappy phone pictures now!) Here's work by Steve Basel and Martinez Garcias.

 

More work by teachers (Bobby Zamora, Tami Liss, and Anna Foti).

And the last section of teacher work. Do you see mine?

I included my silkscreened filmstrip 15 Frames of Mia, and two of my Scenarios/Narratives (I can't decide what to officially call them still! So sometimes they're Scenario #1 and #2, others Narrative #1 and #2.) I thought they went beautifully with more of Anna's work. These crosshatched Polaroids are amazing!

If all goes according to plan, I'll be in the art ed class again next semester, but instead of regular classes, I'll be doing animation workshops with a range of ages. I really do love working with kids.