1. how did you feel?
2. what did you learn?
3. how might you use/adapt this activity in your future classroom?

1. I am not a huge fan of drawing from observation but I know it is necessary in order to improve art skills. I was pretty relaxed during the observational drawings, focusing on the details, not really thinking just drawing. I was a bit confused on the analytical drawings. I tried to show the spiral of the shell and how it was structured. I liked drawing the shell, especially on the PINK PAPER.

2. I learned a bit about analytical drawing and was reminded about the importance of observational drawings in order to improve your skill set. I didn’t hate drawing it and learned how drawing from multiple angles and perspectives can be a quick way to get to know your object.

3. Drawing organic objects is a good first step in observational drawings. I do think that even me drawing on a colored piece of paper instead of white helped keep me interested so I would have students choose what color they want to work on. Drawing multiple angles is a good way to really understand the object. This would be a good first step in my lesson plan. Have the students bring in the object that has memory attached and draw it in multiple different ways to understand it better. This would lead to their personification project where they bring the object to life in an imaginary setting with personality.

1. how did you feel?
2. what did you learn?
3. how might you use/adapt this activity in your future classroom?

1. I really enjoyed working together with other classmates to collage this piece. I also loved the large scale of the work. I would hang this artwork in my room. I love it. I liked seeing everyones collage and how different each groups was. It was also cool to see the variety of papers that we made in earlier classes being reused in interesting ways. Our artwork came out looking a bit chaotic in the best way.

2. I learned about working as a team. Our group worked awesome together. Everyone had different ideas that went together really well. We chose to use a black background because we thought it would make the bright colors pop. We chose to use bigger and smaller pieces of paper to create more depth and some plain colored paper to give the viewer some resting points.

3. I could definitely see myself using this project in my classroom. I love the idea of it being a group project just the way it was. Another idea I have to adapt this would be to give each group more direction by assigning each group an emotion they have to present using the variety of paper to collage with. Each group would try to portray their emotion through abstract shapes and colors and at the end, everyone would guess what emotion the other groups had. If ours was a part of this lesson, I’d say our project shows the emotion of excitement.

1. how did you feel?
2. what did you learn?
3. how might you use/adapt this activity in your future classroom?

I was really excited going into this project. I saw so many awesome objects that I had trouble choosing which to use, although I had my eye immediately on a special little toy 😉 but it is okay because I got excited about putting the table and chairs into a scene from my imagination. I had a lot of fun creating a scene. I was inspired by the colorful chairs and the ice cream sundae on the table. I thought it would be cute to paint two monsters eating together with a waiter in the foreground.

I learned about combining observation with imagination. This is super important and super helpful. This project also emphasized the importance of putting an object in a space, not just floating. Sometimes I get so focused on the main subject of the painting that I get so invested in all the details and forget to give it a home. Artwork is much more engaging with a background, middle ground, and foreground.

This would be a great project for students. It could even become a series. The students could bring in a few special or meaningful objects and first could paint them as a still life and then next transform the objects into a new and imaginative setting. It is a fun way to do observational studies because it is engaging and the students get to choose what they will be painting so it will be meaningful to them. I get bored of painting or drawing from life but if it is something meaningful to me and I get to put a twist on it, it is more exciting to me. I really enjoyed this painting process. It made you use your imagination and can be taken in lots of different creative ways.

I used the pickle plushie my housemate Amme got me for valentines because I LOVE HIM and I wanted to draw him. 🙂

observation pickle

memory pickle

brought to life pickle

lots of pickles

pickle in a setting

small pickle

big pickle

1. how did you feel?
2. what did you learn?
3. how might you use/adapt this activity in your future classroom?

1. We experimented with lines and color. We tried to see how many different lines we could make and what names we could come up with for each of them. This was interesting but my brain was a little dead so I couldn’t come up with different and unique names for each line. As someone who dreams of imaginary places all day long, this project was very easy for me. I created a world with cotton candy and truffula trees and meep driving a banana boat. It’s always fun to make art for arts sake and not put too much pressure on it. This project was all about that. We first discussed foreground, middle ground, and background and then how it is used in art, specifically landscapes. Then we made our own imaginary landscapes, starting with three thumbnail sketch ideas. I felt relaxed and happy while painting. A fun time.

2. I relearned the importance of focusing on foreground, middle ground, and background.  This is something I always need to be reminded about. I don’t paint landscapes often and this imaginary landscape was a good reminder that landscapes don’t always have to be realistic. I am not into painting realism lately so I have tended to steer clear of landscapes type paintings but this was really fun.

3. I would love to use this in my classroom. I’d have students think of happy place, either real or imaginative and paint the landscape. It will all be about relaxation and painting something that brings you joy.  This would help students feel more comfortable with painting and not worry about the outcome. They can paint their happy places while making sure that they are happy during the process.

1. how did you feel?
2. what did you learn?
3. how might you use/adapt this activity in your future classroom?

1. This was a very relaxing project. I really liked exploring with color. I liked using sponges to make patterns. It made me feel calm and happy. It took me back to when painting was about painting and having fun and not about the outcome. I loved putting the pattern on top of the background paper and going back and drawing on top of it with black and white. It was fun to choose the color. I chose pink, less because it worked with the colors in the pattern and more because I love pink and I thought I could make it look fun. After we did the patterns, we tried to see how many colors we can make. I liked this process as well. I had fun making patterns and overlapping and could have done a better job creating different colors.

2. I learned to enjoy the process and not worry about the final outcome. I learned about experimentation and losing control. I liked how we chose patterns in the end that didn’t necessarily have to ours. I think it makes the piece more interesting. I really liked this way of abstract painting and exploration.

3. This is a great project to discuss the color wheel in a classroom. It is also something that the kids will enjoy doing and it will create a lot of fun patterns to use throughout the year. It is also a good way to teach kids about sharing and working together and not worrying about which pattern was theirs.

My artwork is about combining my sense of humor and childish wonder into personal work. I like to work as large as possible with bright colors. My favorite medium to work with is acrylic paint and airbrush.