Internship: A guide on process comments...

Anna has written a great guide for parents on what to say when children are working with art materials. click the link below to visit her internship blog and read more.

Internship: A guide on process comments...: "During this past Winter session, several of the parents I worked with had questions about our model of using process comments in the ..."

Building a Boat and Seeing it Float

Over time as children come to the studio for a weekly class, they begin to bring ideas with them from school, daily life, and important events. In this case, a young artist saved a small clear container from her snack at school with plans to use it in the after school studio.

Here the artist uses tape to secure a popsicle mast into the container.

A friend is excited to help her test the boat in a tub of water - it floats!

At the end of class we share about our creative process - in this case a demonstration is in order.

The entire group gathers to see the boat sail around the bin!

Not a Tube

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis is a favorite among our preschool studio classes.

We often talk about reusing and finding new uses for things in the studio - for instance the many recycled containers that hold our supplies.
For this project, we tried using our collage supplies to create variations on cardboard tubes.
It's not a tube, it's a...

Rocket ship!

Light saber - notice the button to turn it on.

a princess

and a castle!

I was surprised by all the careful de-constructing as well as construction related to using the tubes.

Exploring the Loom

A stand-up loom is a new feature in the studio and has generated varied interest from our four to six year old classes. Almost everyone first thought it was a harp.

Soon there were explorations of weaving in and out of the warp thread with colorful ribbons.

Sometimes it was a good strategy to have a partner to pass the ribbon back and forth working out a pattern.

It seemed to progress that one child would teach another who would become the partner until one lost interest and then another would come along so a new partner was trained. As you can see above, initially there was weaving all over the loom. We tried to start at the top but realized that we were working against gravity so we switched to weaving from the bottom up. Sometimes pulling out the woven strand was part of the fun - we need to understand how things come apart as well as how the fit together.

This student had previous weaving experience in preschool ans was more focused on the task and beginning to work on patterns in his weaving. His interest encouraged his peers to want to learn in our next class.

Weaving

It has been a goal this winter to bring some fiber arts into the studio and we began with some explorations of weaving in our Thursday after school studio. We tried two methods, the first, shown below is a loom with warp strings created over the opening in a mat board.

The student weaves and the final piece will be displayed in the mat.

We are also trying out some simple small wooden looms as seen below here.

This loom is designed for the weaving to come off the loom when complete. Weaving takes time and concentration as well as attention to patterns and detail.

Fortunately, several students had some weaving experience and were able to share their knowledge as the instructors are learning along with the students.
Others branched out to improvise simple creations from woven pieces. Below is a hammock made from a small piece of weaving.

Another student warped a piece of card board on both sides and wrapped it in such a way that when her weaving is complete she will be able to take out the card board and form a bag. She did a similar project on a smaller scale at school and remembered how to wrap the warp to create a larger bag - more pictures to come when it's complete.

Peer Teaching

Peer teaching is one of my favorite things to observe in the studio. Often, kids seem more receptive to a peer; the learning and knowledge sharing is more informal and relevant. I learn by listening and hearing how they teach and re-teach each other concepts and routines.
These two young artists spent an entire class period working with color mixing. They mixed both from new colors and from a selection of mixed palettes created by others.
The artist on the right had much greater experience mixing and happily shared her knowledge with her friend who used the colors for his painting. This particular week, the "product" for the teaching artist was her sense of confidence and mastery in being about to share her experience with her friend.

A Memorial

This project began with the announcement by a young artist, "I made my grandma - she died so she's in the box." She spoke matter-of-factly about the creation featuring a drawing on a slab with the addition of a slab above (a headstone?).

The others at her table became interested in the project and with some great peer teaching helped her to score and slip to make stronger sides to fully realize this idea of a box.

The angle on this final photo makes it a bit harder to see the drawn figure but she is there, now surrounded by her box.

What captivated me about this story was this young artists' ability to create a memorial to her grandmother and the support she received from peers during the process. The focus stayed very much on the logistics of creating this box. I don't recall peers asking much about the death or even the usual sympathetic remarks one might expect to hear after hearing of a loss in a family. And yet, it did not feel as though the group was insensitive - it was just a very matter-of-fact sort of interaction. This is what happened - my grandmother died, they put her in a box and so I am making a sculpture of my grandmother in the box.

Speaking to the artist's mother, it was in fact her great-grandmother who died and she said that her daughter's questions focused a great deal on trying to understand what happened when someone dies. The great-grandmother was cremated so it was a very small box that was buried and this at the time seemed difficult for the child to reconcile - many questions related to why the box was so small. Perhaps, by creating a small box and drawing grandma inside, this young artist was able to work out artistically this part that seemed to not make sense at the same time creating a personal memorial of her great-grandmother.