#artexplorers Archives - Funky Socks & Dragons

Figurative and non-figurative art. Teaching English through Art

March 30, 2024March 2, 2024 by Anka Zapart

‘Calm night’ that started as an apple, if I remember correctly…

I am happy. As a teacher of English and a teacher of Art – I am happy. I have my Art Explorers classes twice a week, there are two groups so every lesson is not only taught twice and every idea trialled and trialled again. I am happy because I am getting better at coming up with ideas and with combining all the elements and finding the links between the artist, the language and the technique. And I can see how my kids are reacting to it and becoming more familiar with the paintings and more confident as artists.

I have also realised that all of us, we are more involved in the process and we are enjoying it more. The final product is important, of course, but so is the journey. It is all very rewarding and I am just happy that it is a part of my weekly schedule.

The art

As usual, out of the three components, one had to be prioritised and, this time, it was the art itself. I wanted to give my students an opportunity to experience the process of creating a non-figurative art piece. We tried doing it a little bit in our Jackson Pollock lesson but there the lead was taken by the very specific technique. The outcomes, amazing as they are, were absolutely accidental, and only at the very end of the lesson, we gave our paintings their names.

This time, I wanted it to be fully conscious, purposeful and planned, from A to Z for the kids to understand how a figurative painting may become a non-figurative piece and the artist (aka US!) takes the responsibility for that.

In order to achieve it we did the following:

we decided what to paint. I suggested a fruit and veg still life since it was still our Fruit February but I allowed the kids to opt out of it if they really wanted to. Some did.
we made decisions about the composition and started to drip draw with the paints. I had a set of paints that I bought for the stained glass lessons but they turned out to be of a very bad quality, too watery, to liquidy and I could not use them for stained glass. They spent about five months in the drawer and last week I had already taken them out to bin them when the hoarder in me hesitated and decided to use them somehow. Since they were so good at dripping, dripping was what I chose to be their destiny. We used a technique we experimented with before, spread painting.
we drew the contours with drips of the paint (sharing the one set of paints, hooray to the social skills development!)
we photographed the ready picture
we used pieces of thick cardboard to spread the paint and a decision had to be made here to, regarding the movement (or movements) of the hand.
we gave the paintings a name. In most cases, it was a list of the items of the picture but some of the children came up with different names, not related to what the painting first was. Real artists, I am telling you!

As usual, the creation started with a quick modelling session during which I produced a painting of a watermelon and then turned it into a non-figurative item.

The artist

This was one of the lessons in which we did not have one superhero but a whole dinner party. I divided them into two groups to illustrate what figurative and non-figurative art is. Our definitions were very simply, in order to convey the message even to my youngest students. ‘Figurative’ was defined as ‘I can see real things’ and represented by a still-life by Cezanne, by Rene Magritte’s Son of Man, by an apply by Yayoi Kusama and a still-life by Ilya Mashkov. ‘Non-figurative’ was defined as ‘I can see shapes and colours’ and represented by a piece by Jackson Pollock, Kandinsky’s circles, Mark Rothko and Yves Klein that I have just discovered for myself.

I also brought two pictures that I created at home and I asked the students to guess what fruit I tried to paint by the colours that they could see or the shapes that were still visible, just to highlight the fact that the fruit might be only represented by a fruit, not necessarily by shape.

The language

The langauge in this lesson was, as in every lesson of this month – fruit and vegetables. Apart from that I wanted to play with the language and to reinforce the idea of looking at the world from a different perspective. In order to do that, we looked at a set of pictures of the everyday objects and fruit and vegetables, seen either under a microscope or in a close up. We did it as a guessing game, using the set of wordwall cards I put together. This was a lot of fun and I am definitely going to use this resource again!

Outcomes

It’s not going to be the first time I say it, here or in the real life, but this, indeed, was one of my favourite Art lessons ever. The rest you can see in the paintings my students created.

Happy teaching!

Jackson Pollock. How to survive a modern art lesson with kids. Teaching English through Art

March 30, 2024January 28, 2024 by Anka Zapart

The language

We continue to work on expressing our opinions and on justifying them. Since the Unusual Colours was a huge success with both groups, I decided to continue with a different set of visuals. We revised all the basic structures to express opinions, we looked at all the pictures in the set with the group and we said what we thought of them and why. As usual, it was great to see the growing confidence and the courage to express your preferences even if they are different from your friend’s or the group.

This time round I went more slowly, pausing after each picture, to share ideas. I was also trying to encourage the kids to produce a little bit more than just ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’, with questions such as ‘Why?’, ‘How does it make you feel about it?’, ‘What are you thinking about?’ etc.

The artist

Beginning October, my Art classes have been divided into two groups, the younger (pre-school and year 1) and the older (year 2 -4) and the decision to do so was a real game changer because I can adapt the level of the language and the Art input sessions to the age and the language level of the students. Each group has only one lesson a week but they are more meaningful, more focued and more child-friendly.

Because of the holidays and the calendar, the lesson with the older kids comes up first right now and it is also very important and handy. I can prepare for the more group with more advanced language skills, motor skills and with more life expience and do what I really want to do and then just adapt to what my younger kids are able to do. I really like it this way.

In our Jackson Pollock lesson, I introduced the artist of the day (name, country, favourite things) and the fact that he is, most likely, the most renowned modern artist today or, at least, the painter that most people associate with modern art.

Later on, we looked at five of his paintings, in different colours, with different titles, from ‘real’ names (‘Summer’) through ‘Number 5’, to the beautiful ‘Untitled’ and we talked about what we think about them and how they make us feel. In the end, we watched a clip from the video ‘How to paint like Jackson Pollock’ to show the students the real process. I also decided to include a short slot devoted to the main characteristics and I called it ‘What Jackson Pollock would tell us’.

The art

Well, this has to be the first thing to say out loud: Jackson Pollock is a serious logicstical challenge for an Art teacher. Especially if this Art teacher works with young kids and in a room that is a regular classroom which lends its square meters to all the creative activities and then goes back again to being ‘just a classroom’, used and shared with other students and teachers. To be prefectly honest, I am not sure I am entirely happy with how I dealt with it.

Things that need to be taken into consideration are as follows: the technique is a mess-generating one and it requires serious preparations. It is supposed to be done on the floor (which is refreshing and exciting) and the floor needs to be protected. So do the walls, the desks, the chairs and the kids’ clothes, because, surprise surprise, the paint spatter is a powerful force and you will find it in the most unexpected places.

The classroom was almost completely reorganised – the tables and the chairs were put aside, to make room on the floor. I perpared the working station for each of my students (an A3 piece of cardboard, on a much larger piece of newspaper, scotched to the floor) as well as the station with all the paints, brushes, water and tissues. Apart from that we had a semi-circle of chairs in front of the TV where we were to sit during the first, theoretical part of the lesson. We spent here around 20 minutes and later on, we moved to our work stations, to create.

The task was really simple – choose your favourite colours, think what idea you want to convey, take the water and the paints and start creating and experimenting with the technique. This part was great. The kids were trying out different hand movements, they were also observing each other and sharing ideas and opinions. The creativity was slow and a bit inhibited at the beginning but, as we moved on, the kids really got into it. Things were coming together. In the end, we talked about the possible titles for our paintings and how we felt during the entire process. This part was amazing. The paintings were left on shelves to dry overnight and some of my students came on the following day to pick up theirs and to take them home. They did enjoy and they did treasure their creations. Aims – met.

However, I have to admit – these preparations were not enough. The stations were too close to each other, the pieces protecting the floor were too small and, overall, the students’ clothes were not protected. We talked about being careful and respecting the other artists’ space, but I could have done better but mostly because I was lucky, with my older group of only seven students. I am to do the same lesson on Monday, with the younger group and I am working on adapting the ideas and the set-up or, also, entirely giving up on Jackson. I will also be adapting the number of resources used, giving up on the acrylic paints and the guache, because only the watercolours are relatively easy to wash and to clean.

The Pollock lesson – round two. Pre-K and year 1

There were a few things that I had to change for the lesson with the younger kids.

I took over a much bigger space on the floor, with the smaller pieces of cardboard (A4) on much bigger pieces of newspapers and with much bigger distance between them. I also marked the place on the floor where the kids were supposed to be sitting, to ensure that they are not facing each other but sitting back to back to minimise the paint spatter.
I also gave out the painting aprons that we apparently had at the school. However, I had my plan B – bin liners with holes for arms and head.
I was more selective as regards the types of paints, limiting them to watercolours only. Watercolours lend themselves to splashing and spattering, too if more water is added. Acrylic and guache paints are more thicker and more difficult to wash. What is more, a box of watercolours is a box of watercolours, with each child working on their own, at their station, without the need to get up, walk around and exchange jars with friends. Hence – fewer opportunities for stepping into splashes and dirty footprints around the room.
I am happy to say that it all worked very well!
Apart from that, I have to say that, somehow, my little students were somehow more open-minded and ready to dive into the modern art world. They were eager to discuss what they could see in the paintings I showed them and I really could not calm them down here. They wanted to talk and talk, although, because of their level of language, they could do it in English and in L1. They were also very eager to come up with titles for their own creations. These were really artistic discussions. I was really proud of them and some of these paintings are just precious!

Happy teaching!

Crumbs # 69 A heart, a heart! I can see a heart! A slightly different approach to Art in English

March 30, 2024October 28, 2023 by Anka Zapart

This was our final October Art Explorers lesson. I was preparing for using Paul Klee’s The Bird and the Cat because the painting does include two hearts as well as other shapes, a perfect final lesson. However, in the middle of the preparations and my trying squeeze everything in one academic hour, I decided to go easy on all of us, myself and the kids. I changed the concept entirely and chose to focus on the technique, for the first time ever in my Art Teacher history.

Ingredients

A pile of cards, A5, enough for everyone to try a few techniques.
Pencils, crayons, watercolours, salt, tissues, hand sanitizer, a paper clip.
For the older learners: a heart as a symbol in brands.
Videos for the teacher to learn about different watercolour techniques. I have taken my ideas from these: here, here, here and here. Thank you)))

Procedures

First of all, I watched all the videos to learn about different techniques and to choose those that will be feasible in the classroom with my kids. The next step was creating my own hearts, a whole set, with different techqniues before the lesson time, in order to be able to show the students the final product. I kept to the same colour for the kids to be able to see the different effect and the impact on the texture and not to be distracted by the colours.
We started the lesson in our usual way, with the hello song, taking the roll call, singing the song about the shapes and looking for the shapes around us. With the older students we also did the heart in brands quiz.
Afterwards, we looked at all the techniques to try in all my samples. While we were doing it, I was also demonstrating the most important tools ie the cloth, the plastic, the salt, the paper clip (for scratching).
Then we just started to create. All the kids would take the cards, draw the heart and then try the new technique. We would look at the final product, talk about it a bit and move on to the following technique.

Why we like it?

It was a lesson like one big experiment, in which we were moving, from one stage to the other, with a lot of curiosity and excitement.
This time we have done the following: salt on the finished picture, salty water as the base, scratching the surface with a paperclip, drawing the patterns with wax crayons and painting over, finishing the picture with a cloth, splattered paint, the broken brush (aka printing with a split brush). I also had the plastic bag for the final touches and the alcohol prepared (aka the hand sanitizer) but we did not have time to use it in the end.
I have to admit, it was not the most productive lesson that I have ever taught but it was an wonderful opportunity for all of us to do something different.
I was very happy to see how the kids were allowing themselves to try something else, something new. At first, they were just following my instructions closely, using the same tools and the same techniques and then they were leaving all that behind and taking one more step further, with a particular technique or with a mixture of different techniques. At this point, we were all looking with curiosity at the outcomes. It was a very beautiful moment.
If this is an option, I would like to recommend looking at the final product on the following day (or in the following lesson). The drying time really does make an impact and the creative lesson might be followed up by gallery walk, expressing opinion and choosing the most interesting heart and technique.
This activity would be a perfect Valentine’s Day celebration in Art Explorers and I was almost sorry that I used it in October. I might be coming back, actually, with more techqniues!

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #66 Shapes Project for Primary

September 17, 2023 by Anka Zapart

Ingredients

A set of shapes of your choice, cut out of paper before the lesson
An A4 piece of paper with the list of figures that will be included in the activity.
A glue stick for every child, a pencil to take notes

Procedures

Naturally, this project involved some pre-lesson preparation: the handout, the glue and, most of all, all the shapes which needed to be cut up and sorted out. I used 5 separate boxes to make sure that they don’t mixed and are easy to select and to abandon.
We had two lessons devoted to shapes and so we could do all of the following as a preparation for the project: introducing the shapes, looking for the shapes in the classroom, song Can you see a circle? from Super Simple Songs, looking at Shapes Monsters from Twinkl, to recognise and to count them, making shapes from pipe cleaners (the example of which you can see above), working on the sequence (‘circle, square, circle, square’) and, as a direct example for our creativity, looking at some transport made of shapes (also found on Twinkl).
The next step was a set of instructions. At the moment I work with a teacher assistant and I saw it as an opportunity to use this resource in setting up the project. I prepared my instructions to use the simplest language possible but I still asked my TA to translate sentence by sentence. The main elements were these: We are doing a project. We have five shapes (displayed on the board). You can make something for yourself. Maybe a flower, maybe a car, maybe a monster (referring to everything that we saw in class). All ideas are good ideas. You can use 10 shapes (gesture). Please sit down and think. I will call one student to come here and choose shapes. Sasha, come here, choose 10 shapes. etc.
Afterwards, with Sasha choosing her shapes, two students helped with giving out the handouts and the glue.
Everyone kept working on their shapes, I was walking among them, helping and monitoring and as soon as they were finishing, I would come up and ask them to count all the shapes they have used.
In the end, the kids were showing their projects to each other but it was not a formal stage of the lesson. Ideally, we should have finished with everyone showing their work and presenting ti with a simple ‘I’ve got…’ but, unfortunately, in our case, we ran out of time.

Why we like it

In general, it is a simple project with a lot of potential and it can be used in a variety of lessons.
In a Maths lesson, like ours, it is a an opportunity to see the practical use of shapes and to balance the serious studying with a more creative task. It also involves shapes recognition and counting. It was also an interesting follow-up and development on the previous lessons in yet another way: we looked at shapes, we counted shapes in shapes pictures, we looked for shapes in the classroom and we made shapes out of pipe cleaners. These last two activities were especially exciting for the kids and that was my cue for a more hands-on activities.
In an English lesson on shapes, this activity could also work very well, especially that there is the early literacy activity which, potentially, can be extended. The kids can be asked to copy the words from the board and, in this case, the ‘handout’ will not be necessary. The kids can also be asked to write the name of the picture they created, especially if they work within a vocabulary framework, for example toys, pets, animals or transport, although, admittedly, this would put a kind of a harness on the creative thinking here.
In an Art lesson, this activity can be connected with any artist who liked shapes for example Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian, El Lissitzky or even Picasso. Apart from the main art project, there would also be an input session devoted to the Artist of the Day. If you are looking for ideas, please have a look here, at Teaching English Through Art.
As a first project, this lesson was a wonder (and please forgive me blowing my own trumpet here!). The kids got the idea and they really took to it. Everyone interpreted the task in their own way and created some lovely pictures, some of which are an inspiration for me as a teacher, for example to draw the shape first and use the shapes to create a proper collage or to make a list of all the shapes necessary beforehand, in order to facilitate and to promite the Thinking Time stage of the project. Please make sure you have a look at the examples below.
The kids got involved in the project, even though there were a few who were slightly reluctant in the beginning. However, as soon as it became obvious that, really, all ideas are good ideas, they started to work on their projects.
The next time I do this project, I will make sure I prepare my own model. I was planning to do it but then the teaching day started and I simply forgot. It would have helped with the instructions and the whole project, including the counting of the numbers and the final presentation.
As regards the choice of the resources, it seems that it was also a good idea to go for a more exciting type of craft paper, as regards the gloss, the texture, the print or a mixture of these. It really adds up to the success of the project. It might be also a good idea to consider an A3 paper for the base, the A4 might be a bit limiting, although A3 is definitely a more tricky size to carry around, to take home or, even, to put up on the wall.
It really was a way for all the kids to exercise their creativity and I am very proud of my students. Some of the creations are simply brilliant and they helped me learn something new about my students. It is also a signal for me to use more of these activities.

Some noteworthy examples of creativity from my kids

This is Lena who was the student to plan her project properly, out of her own accord. She prepared a list of ingredients necessary and, as you can see it does not quite match the number of the shapes used. We fixed it later, after the photo was taken, by writing: circles: 3 + 3 etc.

This is Sergey who decided to take a completely different route and to create a proper work of art, made of hearts only and with a red pencil which is also glued to the paper.

This is Sasha, who was initially very uninspired by the task as he prefers listening. However, after a while, he figured out how to combine the two. He drew an ice-cream cone and then, once it was ready, he came to choose his shapes. This is a lovely approach and I will definitely be using it in the future!

This is a beautiful example of how creative kids can get. Sasha, whose most favourite thing in the world are horses, found a way of creating a horse with the shapes we had. It shows a high level of development of symbolic representation as well as creativity. We see a horse in it hence it is a horse.

This is a picture by Nicol, quite simple one, just a house, we might say, but it is just wonderful because of the paper used and because of the consistent use of hears as windows.

And another wonderful picture, a bear, in which Sasha, decided to use a variety of techniques, including drawing and elements of origami to create a 3D eyes and muzzle for the bear.

This example comes from Sasha, who decided to go for a seemingly simple design of a structure, made of only four shapes. However, it was nothing but simple! The big blue square is in fact glued expertly along three edges to create a pocket into which the small blue rectangle could be put in and taken out. Sasha was extremely proud of his example and I was proud of him.

Happy teaching!

Levitan and Leaves. Art in Primary

October 30, 2022 by Anka Zapart

I found the photograph first but then it turned out that it is a whole post with a video tutorial, too. Have a look at the Art Projects for Kids! Which, by the way, is a cool website that I will be visiting in the future!

The language

This is the second module of our course and I decided that I need to start introducing some of the natural world vocabulary, in order to be a little bit better prepared to talk about the artists to come. The first introductory set is rather modest and it includes: the sky, the grass, trees, mountains, houses, the river, flowers and leaves. We have also used this module as an opportunity to revise colours and numbers and to introduce the first two adjectives (big and small). Finally, we started to talk about what ‘I like’ and ‘I don’t like’.

The artist

Our artist of the day who introduced all of that to us was Isaac Illich Levitan, the love of my childhood and my first artist ever. The album of his works is one of the very few books that I remember from my early childhood (apart from the storybooks, of course). It was there, on the shelf and I did spend hours on the carpet, leafing through it, back and forth, making up stories taking place among the birch trees, by the river, in the forests and in some ‘Sokolniki park’ which I found out about long before I set my foot in it. This, by the way, was also one of my first encounters with the foreing languages as the book was in Russian, English, French and German and these were my first exercises in comparative linguistics. At the age of 5 and 6.

Leviatan’s was what you might call a cameo appearance because I did not want to overwhelm the kids. We looked at the four seasons, looked for the new words in the paintings (‘Can you see a house?) and talked about the colours. We also started to sing ‘What’s your favourite season?’. Not a lot, but Isaac is definitely coming back, with the arrival of the winter and then the spring and the summer. With him, there will be Vivaldi, which would have been a perfect companion but I simply forgot about his existence. I am already looking forward to our winter-themed lessons.

The craft

try to make the leaf at home to figure out how complex it might be and how much time we will require, think about the stages
use the leaves throughout the lesson ie while revising colours and numbers or practising ‘I like / I don’t like’
check that the kids have all the materials necessary: a piece of paper, crayons, watercolours and water
draw the outline of the leaf veins, and patterns with crayons. It is ok to use the same colour but the final product is more interesting if different colours are used. I was considering introducing different patterns to make it more structured but, in the end, decided not to. We will introduce them on some other occasion, with Kandinsky, for example. If possible, I would use special paper for watercolours but in the online world it is not quite possible. Regular photocopying paper works well, too.
colour the leaf with the watercolours. It might be a good idea to start with the brighter colours and, for the sake of staging, ‘dictate’ which colour to use, leaving the kids a decision which section of the leaf to colour. The lines drawn with crayons will not be covered by the paint and they will be still visible and it is not really necessary to be too careful with painting. Not staying within the lines or even letting the colours seep or even leak into each other create a much more interesting effect. I haven’t really encouraged my kids to create a very ‘messy-on-purpose’ picture (not yet, anyway) but I am very reckless with how I use my paints, to show the kids that it’s ok.
finish with showing the leaves, call out the colours, talk about whose leaves we like.
I have cut out my leaves to be able to use them more easily and I was planning on telling the parents that the kids can do it after the lesson, when the paints dry completely. If I still had my classroom, I would put them up on the window.

Happy teaching!