Winter Freeze: Keith Haring Pop Art

This is from when we studied Keith Haring! Had a really fun time getting the kids to focus on Movement!

Have you ever done a lesson on Keith Haring? Share it below! 

Winter Freeze: Graffiti Group Productions

Winter Freeze! I'm taking a break from posting twice a week since I'm heading back to Malawi, Africa for the next two weeks! In fact as this is posted I'll have already been there for three days! (I just love how I can blog ahead of time and schedule the post to happen, don't you?)

Anywho, as you know from the past few posts I've made my classes were studying the art of graffiti. In our studies we've found that when a group of graffiti artists come together and collaborate the final work of art is called a PRODUCTION. 

To connect to our campus goals I used our slogan for PRIDE (added the Dream part for the last table) and had the kids brainstorm with their group, search definitions to gain a deeper understanding of the words and also create a bubble map to brainstorm ideas for images and symbols that can relate to their topic.

The slide I used to introduce the project and the corresponding words for each group.

Example from my DREAM TEAM!

Loved this encouragement production, look at those dripping graffiti hands!

Determination is a dragon in disguise!

My Vice Principal came in to do my formal observation during this lesson and in his notes mentioned that he loved the connection to the campus goals for our students. I am beaming! If feels so nice to be recognized for the work that I put in as an educator!

Speaking of campus goals, how do you connect your art studio goals with the goals of your school?

Thursday Think Tank: Student Suggestions for Quick Draw Challenge

If you've been reading my blog for a while or been to my smARTteacher account you'll already know that I do a warm up called the Quick Draw Challenge. Its a great way to help my students focus and get settled before a lesson.  Since I'm in middle school now and I have these quick draws three times a week I've been running low ideas. So I asked my students to give suggestions for the quick draws and they've come up with some pretty awesome ones! I really love it now because I know that the kids are being active and participating in their creativity.

This comes from one of my students suggestions: You have an elephant maid, draw her doing your chores!

Here is a students response to the above prompt.

How do you get your students to focus at the beginning of class? 

Monday Mayhem: Found Graffiti

For a one day lesson last week we studied how graffiti artists use what is already located in the environment then change it or modify it to make a statement. So I thought it would be a great way for students to observe the environment and be slightly secretive about what we were doing! (I did get permission for our graffiti, our principal was really receptive to the idea!) So here is what we did!

Writing our ideas down.

Student attaching their graffiti and a QR code for those who were interested in seeing what we were doing.

Conference = Confidence.

Mrs. Shive = Mrs. Shine!

Mrs. Moss = Mrs. Boss

Plastic = Fantastic

This was a great way to see how creative the students could get with what was already available to them in our school.

What do you think about our graffiti? Any thoughts or tip? Let us know!

Monday Mayhem: Graffiti

The last few weeks we've been having discussions about graffiti in our classroom and how artists can legally create beautiful works of art for communities. We've also been learning about specific graffiti vocabulary like TAG, THROW UP, PIECE, BURNER and PRODUCTION. This video here by KQED Arts is a great informational video to show the class if you're interested! It's called KNOW YOUR GRAFFITI VOCAB.  We also talked about Keith Haring and Banksy, and we definitely discussed the issue of illegal vs. legal graffiti.

My students we tasked to create a "Tag" with their name or nickname and here are some images to show you what they came up with!

Using colored pencils to blend two or more colors together!

Add caption

These Keith Haring inspired collages were so easy to make the kids did a great job!

Do you teach graffiti to your students? What resources do you use and do you have any discussion techniques to share? Let me know below with a comment!

Thursday Think Tank: Instagram Art Connection

In Studio 139 we have an Instagram account which you can visit by clicking the link in the bar at the top of this page. I always visit other accounts when they like or follow our images to see what other art teachers and artists are doing and was happy to stumble upon this account for @erikrva who I will refer to as the Sticky Note King.

+ErikRva creates these awesome #stickyheadz as he calls them and after seeing another middle school post about his work, I just had to jump on the bandwagon!  This was a great activity for the students especially right before our Thanksgiving break.

Think about this: Artists get recognized for thinking outside the box,
doing something no one else does and doing it well.

I whipped up a quick power point slide and put a little bit of information about his work there and then we set to work ourselves. Here are some of the most outstanding creations!

This student drew the likeness of +ErikRva 

This was a really fun and quick activity, I still have kids asking me if we're going to do it again!  Not only that the Sticky Note King himself gave us a repost on his own Instagram and Facebook page! I'm so excited for my kids getting to connect with a cool artist! For more information check out his webpage HERE.

Have you made connections with artists via twitter, instagram, or email? How did your students get connected through technology? Tell me all about it or share a link!