Van Gogh´s Starry Night

My 7th and 8th grade art students are learning about Van Gogh. I printed off a color copy of his famous painting ¨Starry Night¨ and cut it into 16 equal sections. I gave each student one section and a larger paper (11.5 x 15). They were instructed to enlarge the small thumbnail onto the larger paper with tempera paint giving special attention to Van Gogh´s brushstroke. The students got their own palettes, brushes and paint. They were told to only ¨pump¨ one pump of each color and then when that is used, get another pump. This reduces wasting the paint. A lot of the students needed to make brown by mixing red, yellow and blue. They also had practice mixing the tints and shades of blue, yellow, green, etc. Many students needed to be reminded to put the paint on ¨thick¨ like Van Gogh. After I allowed them to paint the way they thought matched Van Gogh´s style the best, I pointed out the sections of Van Gogh´s artwork that have small dashes. I asked them to make sure they included the short brushstrokes or ¨dashes¨ in their paintings if they had not done so already. By layering the colors of tints and shades, it added richness to the painting. This exercise got the students talking about the use of paint and brushstrokes on a deeper level because they could reflect on their own experiences.

ARTIST STATEMENT
 I studied at the Otis Art Institute / Parsons School of Design in Los Angeles and received my BFA in sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri.  I currently live in Los Angeles.

My art has evolved from a time in my childhood when I played in the woods along the Wabash River in Indiana.  With my sister’s help I constructed a series of stick forts, lean-to’s, and hideaways.  We created dramatic imaginary tableaux – clashes on horseback, sharpened stick battles, peacetime trading posts – and used yellow creek pebbles as money. 

I strive to create the objects that would have filled my life if I could have stayed in that imaginary world of childhood.  I try to build in the simplest manner, using as little technology as possible.  In the process, I am still trying to elevate these found objects to an ordered, ordained, and iconic status.  This transformation of the ‘mundane’ to the ‘aesthetic’ is fundamental to understanding these pieces. 

 Within these structures and collages, I look to find a balance between the tribal or primitive and the man-made or technological, and perhaps between the spiritual and the intellectual.  I create spaces to reflect and consider.

The collages are reflections of over-stimulus, an all-over explosion to the senses of the too much, too fast media.  Responding to the overload of visual information, I recombine the iconic images from common magazines in a rhythmic way that makes more sense to me, creating a unique recycled object from a mass-produced image.
Created with flickr slideshow.

  EDUCATION

Kansas City Art Institute, KC, MO
BFA - Sculpture

Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, CA
Dean’s List - Ceramics/Fine Arts

Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Commercial Design

Mrs. Stone is available for private and small group tutoring sessions in the L.A. area.

Contact

She is available for tutoring in the  L.A. Area

My first graders this year created pumpkins from clay using the pinch pot method. They have Art two fourty-five minute periods per week. Three classes before Halloween, I have the students work with clay. They create a simple pinch pot, turn it over, smooth the rounded sides, pinch a stem on the top and draw a face on it using a paper clip. They also put their initials on the back.

Due to the time crunch, I let the pumpkins dry over night and then I stack them in the small kiln, on low heat (with the lid cracked open) for ten hours. Then the following day, they are dried out enough to start a cone 4 bisque fire. The next class, the first graders learn about glaze, the special paint for clay, as they paint at least four ¨layers¨ of glaze on their pumpkins. I only let the students have the orange glaze at their seats but I call them by groups of four to hand in their pumpkins.

When they come over to hand them in, I have green, brown and black glaze for them to quickly add details. I do this do they do not mix all the glaze together at their tables. They are also limited to how much time they have so they don´t over do it with the other colors. They quickly add black to the face of their jack-o’-lantern and green or brown to the stem. After the class, I loaded the kiln for a cone 5 fire and they will be ready to hand out the last art class before Halloween. Happy Halloween!

This year the school that I am teaching at went Halloween crazy with decorations and a huge costume party. So when I introduced the holiday Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) it was no surprise to have the students confuse it with Halloween. I printed out a page of information on Halloween and a page on Dia de los Muertos and had my 8^th graders fill out a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two holidays. Then I had them create family portraits with all their family members as skeletons. I explained that it is a holiday that focuses on the gatherings of family and friends to remember friends and relatives who have passed away. Their portraits were to be happy as if at a celebration and not dark and spooky. The students added individual details to their family members such as hair style and clothing. Some also added family pets as skeletons as well. When they finished with their drawings they put their portraits in a frame. A nice touch was adding their family names to their artworks such as “The Marquez Family.” We put them in the entrance of the school in an “alter” display which included flowers, tissue paper cuttings, fake food, candles, bread and a sugar skull. We also added the Venn diagram to explain how two holidays compare.

   

Draw–> Collage–> Paint

This art activity includes three sequential art lessons. The first lesson consists of a number of contour line drawings of a simple six string guitar. The second includes opportunities to look at and discuss collages made by Picasso (Three Musicians.) The young artist will use paper scraps, cardboard, yarn and their contour drawings to create a collage. After it dries or is partially dry then it can be worked on with additional drawing or painting (part three.)

This three part lesson allows the student to work back into a project to transform it into a new work of art. Some students will benefit from this process because they may feel that they will destroy their work if they cut into their drawings or paint on their collage. It is an excellent way to push them to add to and manipulate their artwork.

The young artists know that the simple contour drawing can be a finished artwork and so can the collage but those works can also be transformed into another work of art. If the student feels that they have spoiled their artwork during the third lesson, they have the experience of bringing it back to where they are satisfied with the result. The whole process of building on another lesson, pushing it further (even to destruction), layering and making it into what the artist is happy with will benefit any young artist.

The above photographs are from a fourth grade class.

The art of weaving has been used in every civilization to make clothing, containers, rugs and furniture.  Weaving is the process where natural or synthetic materials are passed over and under each other in a given pattern.  In the classroom students can explore weaving by creating simple paper weavings or more advanced yarn weaving using a cardboard loom.  Younger students can successfully create a paper weaving by alternating paper strips through a paper loom.  After strips are woven through, the ends can be glued to keep them in place.  Students can play around with materials by using strips of wrapping paper, aluminum foil or recycled shopping bags.  The size and shape of the strips can also be varied. 

The history and examples of the craft should be added to enhance the activity.  Kente cloth, Navajo blankets/rugs and basket making are just a few prized examples of the art form.    

Suggested Resources from Blick Art Materials

1. Weaving Kit  $32.64  item number 65021-1009

2.  Basketry Kit  $62.99  item number 60900-1001

3.  You Can Weave (Book)  $26.95  item number 69902-1001

Clay is great fun and I like schedule a clay unit around the end of November. Students are starting to get a bit restless with the holidays around the corner and working with clay recharges the energy in the studio. With a bit of control and technique they can have an earthenware pot at the end of their session other than a mud pie, although mud pies are fun too.

The three basic ways of making an earthenware pot are the pinch, slab and coil methods. Here is a very basic introduction to each of the methods:

1. The Pinch Pot
   Make a handful of clay into a ball then push one of your thumbs into the middle of it. Leaving the thumb inside and pressing with the other fingers, you “pinch” and rotate. When the opening is big enough, you may want to place it on a surface and shape it using both hands and smoothing out cracks as you go.

2. The Slab Pot
   Take a handful of clay and press it down with the palm of your hand. (This is often described as making a hamburger patty.) Use a roller to even out the surface and be careful not to roll it too thin. Cut a rectangle out of the “slab” of clay. The rectangle will be made into a cylinder by using the “score and slip” method to join the sides. Then you cut out a circle or base out of the slab to attach to the bottom also using the score and slip method.

3. The Coil Pot
   One way to start is to make a circular slab base. Then you make a coil or “snake” by simply rubbing the clay between your hands. Measure the coil to a length that can be made into a ring and placed along the edge of the base. Attach the coil to either the side or on top of the base by using the score and slip method. Make as many of identical rings as you want then stack and join them. To give the pot extra support you may want to smooth out the crease between each coil on the inside of the pot.

Each kind of pot will need cracks smoothed out as you go, so just be careful not to use too much water which could lead to a collapsed pot. You may want to play around with the shape and add different textures to make it unique.

Younger art students love to make paper mache pumpkins or jack-o’-lanterns.  Starting with crumbled up newspaper, they shape it the size they want and wrap masking tape around it to hold the form.  After soaking orange construction paper in water for a couple of minutes, the paper can be torn into large sections.  Their little hands rub watered down elmer’s glue all over the orange paper and wrap it around the newspaper ball.  Depending on the thickness of the paper, it may need up to four layers.  

When the ”pumpkin” is dry, a stem, leaves or jack-o’-lantern face can be added.  Although I usually make these with younger students, many upper school students comment “I wanna make one!” when they pass by the pumpkin patch. 

Fifth grade art students really get into one-point perspective drawing.  Starting with only paper, pencil, ruler and eraser each student draws a horizontal line across their paper.  Next they place a dot in the middle on the horizontal line.  The dot represents the vanishing point.  A vanishing point is where receding parallel lines meet.  The fronts of the buildings are drawn as rectangles with the lines that make up the side of each building lined up with the vanishing point.  The windows are parallel with the sides of the building.  The front windows of the building will most likely be rectangle or square shaped. The trick is when creating the windows on the side of each building the lines of the windows must be lined up leading to the vanishing point. After mastering these skills then have fun with the details and colors to create your own unique street scene.

Often in the art lesson planning, there are lessons that allow the student to explore various drawing and painting media as the focus of the lesson.  The art student selects a still life object such as an apple.  Then she creates a still life study using all the art media the art class has to offer.  Art supplies which could be used are:  graphite pencils, colored pencils, pastels, oil pastels, charcoals, conte crayons, water-soluble colored pencils, markers, ink, watercolors, tempera and acrylic paints.  While creating each individual drawing or painting the student also works on showing tonal values (the lightness or darkness of an area of color.)