#8 Blotches, Splotches and A Treasure Map of Your Mind

Learning Areas: The Arts- creating and making, exploring and responding, Thinking- inquiry, creativity, Science- patterns, order and organisation, Communication- listening, viewing and responding
Materials: acrylic paint, paint pots, small plastic spoons, paint brushes, A4 paper, visual diaries, felt-tipped pens, coloured pencils and crayons

We are going to start a project together that I am very excited about: So far it is called Because of me  (the name might change as we go along)

The project is going to be about you: who you are, the things you like and do and the ways in which you influence the world around you.

We will be working towards using all of the ideas and things you create to design big box constructions to play and perform in. First though, we need to gather ideas... 

The place everything gets connected

We are going to go on a fascinating journey today: exploring the most important tool an artist has: our brain!

Artist’s notice things, gather things, imagine and think. When the thoughts and gathered things and ideas are very strong, an artist may choose to bring them together to create some art. When you bring everything together in art and are ready to begin making we call it a concept.

Let me show you a piece of art I finished recently. I made this after we made our colour targets (#3 Blending Colour: Transforming Spaces) You can see I chose to add more elements to my colour blend. 

The (next) Big Thing, Copyright Heather Marsh, 2013

We have a conversation about what they notice.They talk about the warm and cool colours - how they notice sea creatures and airplanes on the cool side and a heart and "seed" on the warm side. 

Before we get further into our artistic concept for the box project, lets put another element of art into our artists toolbox: shape.

Now, I know you all know what a shape is – how many shapes can you describe for me? What about shapes that aren’t regular – as in, shapes that can’t easily be measured?

Investigating: Rorschach Blots

Here is a type of shape I find very interesting. It is called a Rorschach blot. Do you think that would be tricky to say? Let's have a go..

How do you think this shape was made? Do you think the blot makes a picture of something you can recognise? 
What about this one – what can you see?

The children start to name the things they see, at first slowly and then once they get going they suddenly see many many objects, animals and people in the blots. 

Notice that because each of you is unique you see different things. Part of the specialness of being you is that you offer us a unique perspective.

Making: Colourful Rorschach Blots 

Lets make some Rorschach blots. We are going to use A4 paper and paint. Instead of using a paintbrush, though, we are going to use teaspoons to put very small blobs of paint onto the page.

There are some instructions for making this work:

Fold your page in half. Put a few small blobs of paint only on one side, close to the middle or in the middle.

Fold your paper and squish the paint around.

Unfold it to see your blot! What does it look like? Can you see a picture in your blot? 

*The challenge for some children is following all the instructions. This is a great opportunity for learning and without shaming children who did things differently, we usually discuss what we have produced in terms of personal satisfaction, what worked and didn't work and what we would do differently next time. 

Exploring: Mind Maps 

While our Rorschach blots are drying, lets explore artistic concepts again. I find when I am thinking about making some art, it helps to gather my ideas all in the one place. Recently I started doing mind-maps – it is like a treasure map to your brain and your ideas and thoughts are the treasure. 

Here are some mind maps I found: 

By Kira, Grade 6, Ararat Primary School 

Acknowledgment: Coach Shev Gul  www.swimmtech.com

Making... Again! 

In your visual diary you are going to begin a mind map. We don’t have to finish it today – it might be something that you return to and add to over time.

I would like you to begin by putting a shape or a small picture in the middle of the page, which we will call your centre – the thinking, connecting, joining stuff up bit of you. It could be a drawing of your brain, or your heart – or a sparkly gemstone – whatever you like that represents you.

Coming out from the centre we are going to draw paths. Each path can be different – wriggly or straight, thick or thin, dotted, textures – however you like. At the end of each path is something about you- a special thing you like, something you do well, your family or favourite pet, something you are really interested in.

New Vocabulary artistic concept, Rorschach blots, mind map, unique, perspective 

#2 A Colour Poem for You

Learning Areas: the arts - creating and making, exploring and responding, interpersonal learning, English- speaking and listening, vocabulary extension, observation, visual communication
Materials: acrylic paint (suitable for 5 year olds), brushes, paint pots, newspaper (for protecting surfaces), old magazines with diverse high quality content (old national geographics, special interest hobby magazines), scissors suitable for 5 year olds, glue sticks

Healing the Heart, Albert - grade prep, Image Copyright 2013

This is my second session with preps and year ones. 
I ask the children to "turn on your artist eyes" - which means to become super observant of the kinds of details many people overlook. We begin by sitting in a circle. My current practice is to avoid using raised hands when asking the children to respond. We are all practicing the kind of co-operative, intuitive turn-taking that is expected out in the world. 

Tuning in: Our colour spectrum scroll 

I would love to see the collaborative work you made last week and see how it has changed since you worked on it between classes. 

We get out the mixed media colour spectrum scroll (from session#1 Art- What's that about?) and roll it out. 

Lets use our artist eyes and notice some things about this art-work.You might notice some things about lines, shapes, the shades of colour, the depth of colour, patterns, representational images (pictures of things you can recognise), what has happened to the paper, spaces that haven’t been filled...

The children do pretty well at not talking over one another. They share what they observe:

"I can see lots of scribbly lines" 

" I can see lots of red over there" 

" I did that bit - that's indigo and violet" 

Exploring: artists who use colour in their work

Today I’m going to share some artists with you who have made illustrations for books.  Sometimes artists use colours to convey an emotion - to make you feel a certain way or to let you know how the characters are feeling.  The colours can be grouped into two 'feeling groups' : cool colours and warm colour.

This book is called  Oh, No! George. I like it because it's funny. Lets see what you think. With your artist eyes turned on, tell me as we read, what you notice about how the artist has used colour. 

Copyright Walker Books, 2012. 

I read Oh, No! George and the children tell me what they see. They notice that the pages with George doing naughty things is warm or hot colours and the pages with Harris are cool. They also notice that on some pages the colour goes all the way to the edge of the page but on other pages it has a border.

We call this full bleed when the illustrator has decided to make the colour go all the way to the edge of the page. 
Shall we read another book? This one is called Where Does Thursday Go?

The children start to show that they are picking up new vocabularly quickly- telling me which pages are full bleed and telling me that the illustrator has mainly used cool colours. We talk a little about the feelings the colours create. 

Copyright Scholastic Books, 2002

"I think cool colours are a bit sad"
" I think Harris has cool colours because he is, like, a bit more sensible than George"
" George has lots of orange and purple" 

Exploring and Responding: A Colour Poem for You

In the week between lessons I have written a poem for the children about colours and the feelings they evoke and made an art-work to show them: a visual 'colour poem'. 

I am RED

Copyright Heather Marsh, 2013

I crackle and burn

I burst like fireworks

Sometimes I am sweet like strawberrys 

Or spicy like chillies

I wake you up with sirens

I am RED

I am ORANGE

I am the dusty soil of the desert

Or a citrus grin at the footy

I glow on birthday candles

& slow you down at traffic lights

I am ORANGE

I am YELLOW

I shake my shaggy lions mane

And lift my sunflower head to follow the light

I can make you screw your face up with lemoniness

Or melt on your tongue like button on toast

I am YELLOW

Copyright Heather Marsh, 2013

I am GREEN

I shoot,curl, sprout and grow

In leaves, buds and blades of grass

I’m a python wound around a tree

Sometimes I’m disgusting like snot

But also cool like dappled shade

I am GREEN

I am BLUE

I wash the sea and sky clean

And dress you every day for school

I’m a1st prize ribbon on sports day

And icy cold toes in winter

I am BLUE

I am INDIGO and VIOLET

The colours of royal robes and

Cadburys chocolate wrappers

I make purple irises sway like flags

I am the ink to use for a love poem

I am INDIGO AND VIOLET

Making: A paint and collage colour poem 

We are each going to make an artwork today that tells the viewer a story about colour.

I show my artwork (pictured above at beginning of poem)

The type of work we are going to make is a monochrome work. That means that I have used only one colour in my composition. 

We are going to begin by applying paint to part of the page, then we are going to layer drawings and cut out collage images to the work to produce a picture that evokes a mood and tells a story.

I ask the children to listen to all the instructions before choosing a place to work at one of the tables. There are sheets of mid weight white A3 paper laid out and the rest of the materials: paint, scissors, magazines, paper. 
I tell the children where each colour is located and that they will need to choose just one colour for this composition. 
I ask them to lay down their paint first and then layer their colour poem with images using collage or crayons. 

Take some time to look at the page and think about your composition.

Be aware of how much paint you apply to your surface. The paper can only absorb so much paint before it begins to warp or break down.

If you work across your paint your work will smudge. If you want to smudge that is ok – we can incorporate it into the artwork. If you don’t like smudges you will need work differently to not drag your arm across the page as you apply other media. 

Some of the students' colour poems are shown throughout this blog entry. I really noticed how individual each child's approach was. 

Image Copyright Heather Marsh, 2013

Reflection 

Lets talk about our work:

We are going to walk around the room and use our artist eyes to notice things about one another’s work. Remember to be respectful – at this point we are all experimenting so there is no need to criticise the work.

New Vocabulary monochrome, composition, collage, warm colours, cool colours, media, warp, full bleed