It's Conference Time in NH! FALL 2017 NHAEA Newsletter & Conference Info

Hello again! It's Fall Conference time here in NH!

I have been going to the New Hampshire Art Educators' Association (NHAEA) Fall Conference since 2011 and really love it. It's a great opportunity to connect with other educators in the state and they always offer so many wonderful sessions.

I am the newsletter editor for the NHAEA and here's the Fall Newsletter which has the conference information. This year's conference theme is "Champions of Constructive Change." I know some of my followers live too far away to attend, but if you live near Southern NH (the conference is in Manchester, NH), think about attending! Also, check out the newsletter and see what we are up to in NH!

Enjoy!

Spring 2017 NHAEA Newsletter

Hello!

It's been eight months since my last post!!! YIPES! I cannot begin to express how bad I feel about that! I am generally bad about blogging over the summer (with four kids and a countless number of neighbor kids over, I just can't find the time!). I actually LOVE blogging and this is something I do for "me" so I thought it was high time I got back to it!

WHEW! I have missed you all! So, let's get caught up! First, I'd like to post the other New Hampshire Art Educators' Association newsletters I created in the past year (my last post was about that, so it's as good a place as any to start, I think!).

So, here is the SPRING 2017 NHAEA Newsletter I am editor of. The info is a bit outdated NOW, but it is great to have it archived on here and for y'all to see what we are up to in NH. Some highlights include: Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards 2017, Youth Art Month (YAM) celebrations from around the state, and our NHAEA Annual Member Reception held at the Currier Museum of Art!

Enjoy!!

Getting Involved: My work with the NHAEA

Hello!

You know it's been crazy 'round here! I'm in my first year of teaching in a public school and my focus has been embracing my first year of teaching and learning as much as I can about my job. That means saying "NO" and not overextending myself (because I have four kids as well, so I'm pretty much overextended at the get go). Saying "no" is hard for me--I'm THAT person. You know, they one who steps up and does the thing that needs doing, brings the snacks, starts the committee, etc. But not this year (Um, and it is killing me a bit, but it is also nice to focus on my work and kiddos and hubby). SO if you are wondering why the blog is sssssllllllooowww to be updated, that's why. There's only 24 hours in a day people. :-)

HOWEVER, one commitment I did say "yes" to last year, was being the newsletter editor for our state's  chapter of the National Art Educators' Association. The New Hampshire Art Educators' Association (NHAEA) publishes a paper newsletter three times a year and as editor, I am responsible for that and attending board meetings monthly. As a graphic designer and blogger, I have always felt that communication is key to a thriving group and since the art teachers of the NHAEA are spread out all over NH, the newsletters help to strengthen our community of educators and help us to learn from one another.

HOW THIS HAS HELPED ME: I'm not going to lie, being involved with the NHAEA has been a bonus for me as well. I started going to NHAEA events while I was a grad student and was able to:

• Meet lots of art educators--hey, we don't get out much and sometimes we are the only art teacher in our school--it's nice to connect with others like us!
• Get LOTS of ideas that I incorporated into my studies and my after-school and substitute teaching gigs and now into my own lessons in middle school
• Network and hear about long-term substitute teaching positions and more permanent art education positions
• Get support when I was worried I wouldn't find a job
• Find friends to travel with when I went to my first national conference
• Meet one of my student teaching mentors through the organization

I decided to step up and become the newsletter editor because the position was open (the former editor was looking to move on to bigger and better things) and I had a background in graphic design. I LOVE graphic design--it is my art--the way I express myself. I thought three newsletters per year would be a doable commitment for me and it actually isn't that bad--the deadlines are far less strict than the graphic design world. And....I love it. I miss doing design work and laying out the newsletters is actually fun for me. The NHAEA newsletters aren't going to win any design awards but I try not to stress over the minutia and have fun.

I've attached the newest newsletter for you to check out. It's the smallest issue of the year, but it's still got some great stuff in there--there is a lesson on Mixed Media Idioms by our NH Art Educator of the Year, Mary Ann Lessard and you can see what the NHAEA is up to.

I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to get involved with your local chapter of the NAEA. It's good for you and good for them (the organization) and for your students!

NH Art Educator's Fall Conference 2016!!

The New Hampshire Art Educators Association's (NHAEA) Fall Conference is one that I look forward to every year--"Clear the calendar! My Conference is coming up!!!" I love to connect with old friends, meet new friends, enjoy a lunch that is made for me and that I don't have to clean up after (hey, I do have four kids!), and get my artsy-ness on!! I purposely sign up for hands-on art making workshop choices. While I love me some lecture on art education theory, I don't get to make art as much as I would like, and art school was a-ways back in time, so any chance I have to create and learn new things I can take back to my classroom, I am game!

Interacting with the art at the Currier Museum...

This year's conference was fabulous and inspiring! It was held at the New Hampshire Institute of Art (NHIA) in Manchester, NH. Keynote speaker NH Artist/Illustrator/Author Marty Kelly spoke about his artistic process and how his multiple "failures" have been useful to his creative process. He urged us as educators to create a "culture of failure" in our classrooms where it is OK to make mistakes and take chances (leading students to further growth, risk-taking, exploration). He suggests that failure is part of the learning process and is essential to learning and growth. He encouraged us to change our attitude about failure as well as our students' attitudes about it as well. He explained that if we are afraid to fail we will be afraid to imagine, innovate, explore, and try. Having a classroom culture where failure is accepted and seen as an opportunity for discussion and growth also allows students to begin to accept advice and criticism and use what is right for them. He says that failure is a "pit stop along the road to success." 

Keynote Speaker: Author and Illustrator Marty Kelly
Photo courtesy: NHAEA website (www.NHAEA.org).

This is particularly useful to me as much of what we do in the middle school art room is moving away from product-focused, cookie cutter art to process-focused, student-centered work where the students are encouraged to problem-solve, explore and make the piece their own. This is a tough transition for some and some students struggle when they do not have a teacher-model to "copy" and are asked to try and explore and adapt. I've often have students come up and ask, "Is this an A? Am I done?" The first couple of times this happened I was floored, now I counter with: "I don't know, are you done? Take a look at the project objectives and talk to one of the other students in class to see if they have suggestions for further improvement (or to see if your piece is "saying" what you want it to say)." To me, this part of the creative process is a gradual release as the students' confidence and skill-level increases, ultimately preparing them for the independence and self motivation that high school will require. 

Session 1: Reinterpreting With Recylables. I went on a mini field trip to the Currier Museum of Art and saw the Mount Washington show that just opened. Mount Washington is the highest mountain in New Hampshire and is known throughout the world for its crazy weather. We went downstairs to classroom and Linn Krikorian taught us how we can use the art and artifacts within the Currier's collection as well as from life and other disciplines and have students reimagine them using recycled materials. Resources were shared for places to get interesting recyclables and for using this idea across the curriculum. Then Megan McIntyre discussed how art can be used to facilitate other ideas across the curriculum such as Science, Math, etc. This is particularly pertinent to me in my art room as I strive to develop lessons that are individualized and cross-curricular in nature. This lesson idea (and its spin-off ideas) will be helpful to me as I encourage the students to observe and reinterpret art and artifacts in class but make them their own. 

My take on a Robert Indiana from the Currier's collection.

Session 2: Structures to Sculpture (Bookmaking) This was a wonderful hands-on session led by Erin Sweeney, professor at NHIA (and her student helper Karen) taught us about a number of book-making techniques and led an open discussion amongst the creative educators present as to how we are currently using these structures within our classrooms and how we could potentially use them even more. Connections to other courses were discussed as well as connections to STEM/STEAM. While the pieces we made weren't complete (just the "bones" of the books and not fully developed within), the examples took the 2D linear idea of "book" and transformed it into 3D sculptural forms (easily!!) that could be used in our teaching in a number of ways (assessment, reflection, student mini portfolios, the documentation of a unit or the transformation of an idea, etc.). This was a VERY relevant workshop in that it allows a student to move from 2D to 3D in a seamless and accessible way while allowing them to reflect on a process or subject matter and use the 3D model-making techniques that we strive to teach them in class. This will definitely be applied to my future 7th and 8th grade classes next trimester! 

Busily working at the Structures To Sculpture Session led by Erin Sweeney.
Photo courtesy: NHAEA website (www.NHAEA.org).

After our sessions, we met back in the mail hall for closing remarks, a raffle (nope, didn't win anything this year), and a wine a cheese reception sponsored by NHIA. I went away physically tired, but rejuvenated and with so many great ideas that I can bring back to my students!

And here are some other images from the Currier workshop--the art of my classmates. ENJOY!

Foam Reduction Shoe Prints With Grade 5

Before I got all caught up graduatin' and getting an art teacherin' job, I posted a WHOLE BUNCH about the long-term art sub gig I had at Fairgrounds Elementary School in Nashua. If you didn't see the posts, I did a series of them by grade level (Kinder and grades 1-4). I also taught grade 5 while I was there and did some fabulous projects with them. I thought that I'd break those projects out into individual posts, though, since they require a bit more detail to explain, etc. Here goes...

Sassy boots! This print was done on white paper.
First printing: red ink, second print: black ink.
The yellow you see is a piece of paper I matted the print on,
the red is the mat board.

The first day I met the fifth graders, I decided to do a simple winter-themed foam printmaking project with them to catch their attention and size 'em up. I had them create snowman images on foam and them print with one color (white) onto their choice of background paper--you can see this post here.

This print was done on white paper.
First printing: blue ink, second print: black ink.
The yellow you see is a piece of paper I matted the print on,
the red is the mat board.

It went so well, that I thought I would continue on with printmaking and do a 2-color printmaking project inspired by the “Killer Heels” exhibit currently at the Currier Museum of Art (actually, I don't think this is currently on exhibit anymore, but it WAS at the time).

This print was done on purple paper.
First printing: yellow ink, second print: blue ink.
The navy blue is the mat board.

Students created their own printing plate by using pencil to “carve” a picture of their shoe into a foam “plate.” Students then used brayers to apply ink to their plates and print 1 print. Week two, students added a ground line and background, chose a contrasting color of ink and reprinted their designs. These prints were mounted on mat board and displayed at the Currier Museum of Art during the New Hampshire Art Educator’s Association Annual Members Reception in March. 

All prints were mounted onto mat board to look fancy.
I think added little paper hinges to groups of three to four
and ribbon ties so that the pieces could be displayed accordion-style
or create triangular displays such as this
(I didn't know how they were going to be used exactly).

WOW! What place of honor--the buffet table,
right where everyone can see these fabulous prints--
although I think people were too busy looking at the awesome food
they were piling on their plates--YUM!

The final week, students worked as a class to create an assessment rubric that contained the important vocabulary words from the Shoe Reduction Print project. They also determined four attributes that should be found in their finished work. Now, having students create their own rubric was something I had only done with high school, but I really wanted the students to be able to see the value in their work and begin to see that assessment isn't something we teachers pull out of thin air. Was walking the students through the rubric creation difficult. Not really. Was it work to keep them focused? Yep. Did it take a lot of time? Nope--we had it done in about 15 minutes. Was it worth it (really)? You bet. They did a great job and I think it lent credibility to me, the art process and what they do in the art room. Creating rubrics with your students is also a great way to review vocabulary and objectives! Win/win! ENJOY!!

Here's the rubric the grade 5 students created.
Normally, I would type up my rubrics to look all fancy,
but I wanted the students to see that this was the one we
created as a class. Pretty good for a first try.

Detail of the top of the rubric--the vocab section.
They needed to think of three vocab words from the lesson
and decide as a class what a good definition would be. 

Detail of the bottom of the rubric--they needed to come up with
four objectives of the assignment. This was fun walking them through
being objective instead of saying "it looks cool!" I put #5 on there. :-)

Mind Blown: Teaching For Artistic Behavior

During the course of my most recent class at Plymouth State University, "Elementary Methods and Materials in Art Education" with Alexis Eynon, I needed to observe an Elementary school art room. I had the pleasure of observing two. 

The first was Claire Provencher's art room at McDonough Elementary school in Manchester, NH. I had met Claire a couple years back through the NHAEA and really liked how she structured her lessons and included art history. So, I asked to observe her room. However, right before I was scheduled to go in to observe, I was doing my research on her and her school (like a good observer does) and noticed that this year she completely changed the was she does things in her classroom! This year she has made the transition to the Choice-based Art Room or Teaching For Artistic Behavior.

Um...What?!?!

I hadn't heard of this, but I am so glad I was able to check it out! If you haven't heard of this before, I HIGHLY encourage you to check out the following links and books. This method of art education has been around for about 30 years and is very intriguing to me (and a bit scary)--students are now in charge of their learning and projects. The art teacher is a facilitator and art director--not the one in charge of every project. Students choose materials, subjects, and more.

Now wait! I know you have objections! I did too! I know you are thinking, well that won't work for me (or my students). But, I ask you to just check it out. It really is cool and doable! I was also able to observe Holly Rousseau, an art teacher at Highland Goffs Fall Elementary School in Manchester, using Choice-Based learning in her art room. It can be done! And, I think, is a valid way of teaching creative thinking and higher order thinking skills that definitely should be considered. I even wrote a Research Paper on it called "Choice-Based Art Education for the 21^st Century." I can send you a pdf of it if you'd like.

So check out these resources. They are VERY thought-provoking....

• Article: "Smoke and Mirrors: The Art Teacher as Magician" by Nan Hathaway (pdf)
This is the article that inspired Claire Provencher to look into TAB/Choice-based learning.

• Website:  Teaching For Artistic Behavior, Inc.
This website is a treasure-trove of information on TAB teaching/learning!

• Book: "Engaging Learners Through Artmaking: Choice-based Art Education in the Classroom," by Katherine Douglas and Diane B. Jaquith
A great read and has many testimonials about how this method of teaching/learning can be achieved in the art classroom.

• Book: "The Learner-Directed Classroom: Developing Creative Thinking Skills Through Art" by Diane Jaquith and Nan Hathaway
A compilation of articles from a variety of teachers who are using this approach in their art rooms from Elementary school through High School art rooms. Also a quick read and very accessible.

But as LeVar Burton used to say on Reading Rainbow "But you don't have to take my word for it!" Go observe a TAB/Choice-based art room near you! And let me know what you find!

"Drawing With Light" at the NHAEA Fall Conference 2013

It's that time of the year again! Fall colors and the NH Art Educator's Assoc. Fall Conference!

I love going to the conference and connecting with art teachers from all over the state! It's truly inspiring! And this year was no exception!

My morning session was "Using Photography in the Elementary Classroom." This session was led by Katie Poor, a teaching artist currently working at the Providence Children's Museum. She began by describing a lesson on cyanotypes that she teaches. Then she walked us through a very interesting lesson where she teaches children to "Draw With Light" using flashlights and digital cameras. She brought in some digital cameras of her own and we spent the remainder of the session experimenting with the technique.

She showed us a few examples--the most famous, I guess, would be Picasso from LIFE magazine in 1949. Check out the link to see all of the inspiring images...

We experimented by making shapes, squiggles, letters, drawing images (which are actually harder than it looks), and entire words...while we played, I think we all started thinking of ways this could be used across the curriculum.

My session partner and I experimented with using the white board and a dry erase marker to draw the idea first (either an image or a word) and then use the flashlight in our hand to "trace" the dry erase marker lines we had made on the board. You can see an example of this further in this post (the "art rocks" image) and a few more of our experiments on Katie's blog (link below). We were MUCH more successful doing our "drawings" this way versus trying to imagine an image and draw it freehand in front of us like Picasso did. After trying to draw freehand, I REALLY appreciated Picasso's drawing with light images!

To check out the photos from the session and see what we did, click on Katie's link:
http://photographerintheclassroom.tumblr.com
And just look for the most recent posts (there are two that contain our examples).

I was fortunate to bring my camera from home to the session (it was in my mobile art closet/minivan so I was able to grab it). I had Katie advise me on setting my aperture and shutter speed and, although my camera isn't as fancy as the ones she brought (her cameras allow for 30 seconds of exposure, but mine allows only 16 seconds), I was able to go home and have my children "Draw With Light" a bit.

This is such a fun lesson, I really think I'll need to get into a classroom and teach this soon!

Thanks, Katie, for the great idea!

This should say "art rocks" but my my camera only allows for
a shutter speed of 16 seconds--I bet I could have traced the whole
word if I had tried again (the more successful attempt is on Katie's blog).

3-year-old draws a circle

6-year-old tries for a square
(it's harder than it looks!)

6-year-old tries for a star

Mmmmmmm....Tasty Thiebaud Cakes!

I've had this project on the agenda for a couple of years since I saw it at my first NH Art Educator's Association State Conference. This project is from the Art History-inspired Lesson Planning Session I took with Claire Provencher, who is this year's President of the NHAEA.

Some of the tasty cakes in progress. This also shows the handout
I gave each student to make sure they knew all the elements I was expecting:
cake, cake stand, shadow on table.

I had originally planned one one-hour class for this project, but even my speediest student needed the project to continue into another session, so if you are limited on time, you can reduce the number of cakes from 9-ish to 5-ish, to make the project more manageable.

I started class by showing the students a slideshow about Wayne Thiebaud I had found online and I gave each table a handout which had an image of Thiebaud's cakes for reference as well as an example of the elements I was expecting them to have on their papers: cake made from construction paper, cake stand that had been traced on the background paper, then colored, and the shadow from the cake stand that had also been traced on the background paper and colored in.

I also implemented my "AT LEAST TWO COLORS" rule for every piece of this project. Students have to use at least two colors in their cakes, on the cake stand and on the shadows that fall onto the table. Oh, and no black in the shadows. This gets the children thinking about using richer color choices that are more natural and slows them down a bit. I really didn't want them to spend two minutes decorating cakes and throw some black shadows everywhere and call it a day.

I had the children use a combination of crayons (the regular kind) and craypas or oil pastels to decorated their cakes (Claire suggested using construction paper crayons originally, but I didn't have those). The children really enjoyed decorating their cakes, and I was pleasantly surprised by all of the different kinds of cakes they were able to create! I also showed some of the students how to make a half cake and a cake with a slice taken out of it.

Enjoy these tasty cakes!

Tasty Thiebaud Cakes

Supplies Needed:

• One 9"x12" piece of neutral-colored construction paper for a background (cream, white, light blue)
• About ten 3"x 4 1/2" pieces of construction paper, various colors
• Cake template cut from card stock
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Oil Pastels
• Crayons
• Glue stick
• Cake stand template cut from card stock, optional, children could just freehand it

Directions:

1. Trace and cut the cakes from the small pieces of construction paper. If you stack a couple pieces of construction paper, you can cut a couple cakes at once. Don't try to cut all 10 cakes at once with child scissors--your cakes will be messed up!

2. Decorate your cakes with the crayons and oil pastels. Add glazes, sprinkles, nuts, fruit, stripes, polka dots, hearts, etc. The sky's the limit! Use at least two colors on each cake to make them interesting. If you decide to add shadows to your cakes, make sure all of your shadows are going the same way (in the same direction). You can also make some of your cakes missing a slice or even make a half cake just like Thiebaud would do.

3. Once all of your cakes are done, glue them to the background paper.

4. Draw the cake stands below each of your cakes. I suggest drawing all the cake stands at once since they will probably overlap and you'll need to make some decision about which ones are on front and which are behind and that is much easier to do in the pencil phase.

5. Color in the cake stands and add shadows going in the same direction they appear on your cakes.

6. Add shadows from the cake stands onto the table. Again, make sure the shadows are going the same direction as all of your other shadows.

Mmmm-mmmmm!