All the Arts for All the Kids 6-lesson plan Fullerton School District - 2005 - Session 4 Teacher: Glenn Zucman - AKA: "Mr. Z." ata@artboy.info Our Mission: Over the next 6 classes we're going to create a portfolio or collection or time capsule of art. The students will make 6 art projects, write 6 short thoughts about art, and house all of it in a 6" x 9" time capsule (envelope.) In addition to the 6 works of art, the portfolio itself will be a work of art. Hopefully by organizing everything into an elegant package the students will think of the projects not just as 6 fun experiences, but also as steps to building a body of work. In the end their parents might tuck it away in a closet and then give it to them when they're in college or later in life. Then the "portfolio" will have become a "time capsule" back both to their own childhood and to the world of 2005. When the artist Paul Klee was frustrated and searching for ideas, his mother sent him his childhood artworks and he was inspired on to new work - perhaps this portfolio / time capsule will one day serve a similar function. Our Approach: Is art a "lesson?" A thing to learn? A place to be? Or is it a journey? A way of thinking? A way of seeing? A process? Our journey in these 6 "walks" will give us a glimpse at some of the formal elements of art such as: Line, Color, Shape, Pattern, Texture, and Time. Along this walk, students will begin to acquire some skills and they'll produce some projects, but more importantly, they'll continue to consider the idea of art. Week 1: Gesture Drawing AKA: "A Walk with a Line" Today we'll do what artists... what "people" have done for as long as they've done anything, we will draw. We'll play with a line. And we'll draw the thing that people have most consistently drawn for as long as they've drawn anything: the human body. Why do we do this? Are we humans self-absorbed? Well, probably! But also, we do this to understand both our place in the scheme of life and also just to learn about our bodies. Today we'll explore "gesture" drawings, "contour" drawings and "mass" drawings. Media: Pencil Project: Life Drawing / Gesture Drawing Vocabulary: Realist, Abstract Featured Artists: Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) Keith Haring (1958-1990) 5-minute Writing Homework: What is Art? What does art mean to you? What kind of art would you like to make? Week 2: Non-objective Painting AKA: "The Movement of Color" Last time we thought about Line. Although most of "art" and most of the world we live in contain both Line and Color, it turns out that Line and Color are having a little bit of a "war." It seems that Line likes to contain things, while Color wants to roam free, with no boundaries. Today we'll stop making lines, or so to speak, we'll start "coloring outside the lines." Today we'll let color be color. We'll consider the movement of color. We'll let masses of primary colors, their combinations, tints, and tones express themselves. We'll think about the "language" of color and how, as with vocabulary words, colors mean different things next to different colors. Today we'll use Tempera Paint to paint the outside of our portfolios/time capsules (envelopes.) NOTE: Teacher's assistance in passing out / wrangling paint would be greatly appreciated! NOTE: We'll need a place to set the wet paintings to dry. Media: Tempera Paint Project: Non-objective painting on outside of portfolio/envelope Vocabulary: Representational, Non-objective Featured Artists: Hans Hoffman (1880-1966) Dale Chihuly (1941- ) 5-minute Writing Homework: What is the difference between non-objective art and representational art? Which do you like better? Why? Week 3: Mail Art AKA: "The Shape of Peace" Can there ever be peace between such strong willed characters as Line and Color? We'll try to find some today as we explore Shape. We'll find color mass in colored paper and this time we'll make our "lines" with scissors. We'll cut shapes: representational, figurative, abstract, non-objective, in colored paper and then glue them to a postcard. Today's exploration is also known as "Mail Art." Students should think of a friend or relative, outside of California if possible, that they'd like to make a piece of mail art for. We'll think about the geography of all the places our little class stretches to as we create scenes to send there. Media: Cut Colored Paper Project: Mail Art Vocabulary: Figurative, Biomorphic Featured Artists: Henri Matisse (1869-1954) Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) 5-minute Writing Homework: What does it mean to have art in a big museum? What does it mean to mail art to a friend or relative? Which is more important? Week 4: Watercolor Mosaic AKA: "The Pattern of Variation" Without patterns in our lives, our art, our homes, our daily schedules, our relationships to friends and family, everything is just too chaotic. But without variation everything is just too boring. Finding some balance between chaos and boredom is probably one of the keys to life and it's certainly a key to art. We'll think a little bit about mathematics, measurement, and geometry today as we make mosaics. We're not going to try to make a mosaic of the Mona Lisa, instead we're going to think about patterns. We'll take some of the ideas of shapes from last time and discover the relationships a lot of little colored shapes can find next to each other. NOTE: We'll need a place to set the wet paintings to dry. Media: Watercolor Project: 12 small watercolor paintings on one sheet Vocabulary: Pattern, Variation Featured Artists: Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) Chuck Close (1940- ) 5-minute Writing Homework: If you could choose between 100% Pattern & 0% Variation, or 0% Pattern and 100% Variation, or any percentages in between, how much Pattern and how much Variation would you like to see: 1 - in a work of art? 2 - in a piece of music? 3 - in the behavior of your friends and family members? What's the difference? Week 5: Magazine Collage AKA: "Out of Many, One" When we zoomed out on shape a little bit, we found pattern. When we zoom out on pattern a little more, we find texture. The texture, the graininess, the smoothness of things is a big part of art just like it's a big part of earth science and ecology. We'll create textures of a different kind, "Visual Culture Textures" today as we use magazine scraps to collage a greater whole. Images modify the meaning of other images just as words modify the meaning of other words, and just as words build up to form a sentence or an essay, images build up to form a visual "sentence" or "essay" or "composition." As artists we can manipulate images, symbols and signs, but as Visual Culture Citizens here in the 21st Century, we must always be aware of how much images, symbols and signs can manipulate us. Media: Magazine Collage Project: Draw an object (eg: house, tree, person) or shape (eg: star, triangle, circle, biomorphic blob) and fill in in with magazine images. Vocabulary: Appropriation, Juxtapose Featured Artists: Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) Robert Rauschenberg (1925- ) 5-minute Writing Homework: How can you combine images to change their meaning? How do images in the world manipulate you? Week 6: Pastels / Time Capsule AKA: "The Time of Your Life!" All the projects we've done have had a time element, but today we'll think a little more explicitly about time, the function of archived artworks and the student's future relationship to art. We've already worked with color pigments suspended in Tempera and Watercolor, today we'll make our final portfolio piece with powdered pigments - this time molded into sticks ("Oil Pastels.") We'll add our pastel art to our portfolios and then take a look at the body of work (or portfolio or time capsule) that we've created in the past 6 weeks. We'll look at the Art and the Vocabulary and the Ideas we've ventured through in these 6 lessons, and finally we'll finish with the question we began with, "What is Art?" Media: Pastels Project: Pastel artwork of student's choice. Vocabulary: Gestalt, Trace Featured Artists: Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) 5-minute Writing Homework: What is Art? What does art mean to you? What kind of art would you like to make? About the Artist: Glenn Zucman is a working artist in Los Angeles. His work features all the elements we'll be exploring in these six "walks." His "Magnadott Portraits" are figure images that explore line, color, shape, pattern, and texture. His multi-screen video installations explore time in multiple ways. His art making robots explore what it means to make art and what it means to be human. He also operates a design boutique, "Artboy," and was formerly an Art Director at the Walt Disney Company, the CBS Television Network, and the NBC Television Network. He is the producer and host of "Strange Angels," and "Border Patrol," two radio programs that are continuing conversations on art and contemporary culture.