Mr. Mallory's Theory of Everything

Truly, this could probably go on forever. Just the "Utility" bubble alone could branch off indefinitely. In fact, that may be a good lesson, to have kids brainstorm as many uses for art as possible (and thereby also art-related vocations).

What kind of shape are you in?

Want to learn what Mr. Mallory tried to teach Boyer Valley's elementary teachers? Click the link below:

Shape Slide Show

Escher in the Classroom

Escher in the Classroom
Here's a great lesson on making tesselations. I think it would probably work for at least 5th grade, maybe even 4th. You can go all-out and make them with sponges or foam-core so that kids can experience them as puzzle pieces.

Inkscape tutorial: Elements

Inkscape tutorial: Elements & Principles

This tutorial will demonstrate the elements and principles of design which are normally taught to early art students in order to understand various properties used in art making. This is not an exhaustive list, so please add, subtract, and combine to make this tutorial more comprehensive.

Difference between conceptual & perceptual

I don't usually like seeing pictures of myself, but I caught a yearbook staffer trying to shoot me during 7th Grade Art and it occurred to me that I may as well be using this blog as part of my teaching portfolio that the State requires. Also a chance to share some stuff with elementary teachers for their professional development and to reinforce stuff that high school drawing students are learning.

To introduce junior high students to the element of design, line and to drawing, we talked about how to accurately draw what you see in real life, you have to overcome the prior knowledge you already have of the subject matter. In other words, to avoid making mistakes, you have to avoid letting your fast working, logical brain from superimposing concepts about things and using over-simplified "clip art."
For example. Our brains "know" that a stool has a circle for a top, and four legs that are all the same length and all on a flat level. Ah, but knowing is not seeing. What we see, is an elliptical top that is way to narrow to ever sit on, and each of the legs is a different length and even a different width. Kids often make mistakes in drawing because they "know" too much about what they are looking at, resulting in distorted perspectives and overly simplified images. Ironically, Cubists like Picasso drew that way on purpose, because they were visually analyzing and abstracting the basic concepts and geometric shapes of things from multiple perspectives simultaneously.

Is this getting a little deep? Maybe the next picture will make more sense.

We "know" that adult humans have 32 teeth. But if you draw a smile with exactly 32 teeth in it, it's going to look ridiculous, because even Jack Nicholson as the Joker in the Batman movie doesn't have a broad enough jaw to show all 32 teeth! Gums and lips and tongue and the natural curve (the "arch" as dentists call it) all conspire to hide most of them. The best way to draw teeth is not to. by focusing on the negative-space around the teeth and the shared edge between the teeth and the darkness of the inside of your mouth, you're much more likely to record accurate perceptions where the size and placement relationships are more correct.

One of the best websites I've found for Elementary Teachers who looking for ideas

The ArtsConnectEd Web site (www.artsconnected.org) puts you and your students in touch with images, information, and educational resources from the Walker Art Center and The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
They'll suggest ways to make ArtsConnectEd a part of fun, student-centered learning.

Their "Tool Kit" is a great way to start learning about the elements and principles of design.
Artists use visual elements and principles like line, color and shape as tools to build works of art. Each title has three sections:

• Watch an animated demonstration
  
• Find examples of the concept in works of art from museums
  
• Create your own composition

Visit their Art tool kit at
http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/explore.cfm

Digital Web Magazine - The Elements of Design

Digital Web Magazine - The Elements of Design
he elements of design are the basic components used as part of any composition. They are the objects to be arranged, the constituent parts used to create the composition itself. In most situations the elements of design build upon one another, the former element helping to create the latter, and the elements described in this column are arranged as such. We will be focusing on the elements of point, line, form (shape), texture and color.

Basic Art & Drawing: Lessons

COOL School; Online Drawing Lessons

This is an awesome site I found from the Oregon school system. If you want to learn about the elements of design or about drawing, this is a quick, easy fun website with simple, "independent-study" exercises you can do on your own.

Audience

Middle School to Adult

Goals

• Analyze art work using elements and principles.
• Opportunity to meet/exceed Art CIM standards.
• Expose students to a variety of drawing techniques and styles.
• Recognize, know meaning, and demonstrate art principles and elements in student's own art work.
• Students will critique their own art work and that of others, using elements and principles.
• Students will recognize and demonstrate the following: contour line, stippling, shading, crosshatching, gridding, 1-point and 2-point perspective, portraits, and proportions.

Elementary Art Resourses

Okay, Colleagues of the short people,

Here are a whole slew of websites and elementary art lesson plans on the web. See, not being a qualified Elementary Educator myself, I'd probably come up short if I tried to write your lessons for you. Besides, if I gave you all of my fun, short lessons on the elements of design, what would I have left to teach Seventh graders?

I will be sure to send more resources your way as I discover them through out this year. Good luck!

Some Specific Lesson Plans

• Incredible Art Department - this is from Princeton University
  
• The Worldwide Art Gallery
• Prairie Visions - they have summer workshops for teachers in Nebraska
  
• Artsonia Kids Art Museum - The Largest Student Art Gallery on the Web! I liked this one, hopefully you'll enjoy it more than KinderArt
  
• KinderArt - Art Lessons - Art Education: The largest collection of free art lessons and art education information on the Internet.
• Preschool arts and crafts
• A. Pintura: Art Detective -This is really kind of fun, I assume you remember Carmen San Diego? It's like that only his name is like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.
  
• Living Colour
• The Art Teacher Connection Home Page
• Search Lesson Plans (Education at the Getty)
• Crayola® Creativity Central - Lesson Plans
• A Lifetime of Color - (from Sharpie Markers)
• Inside Art: An Art History Game
• Art Resources in Teaching
• Drawing in One-Point Perspective
• MoMA | online projects | Art Safari
• National Gallery of Art | NGAkids home page
• Color Matters

Some Specific Lesson Plans

• A Lesson Plan for Why the Mona Lisa is Smiling
• Art and Technology--for those would want to use technology in art education Art - Math -Science Connections
• Art Strand Lessons
• AskERIC - Art Activities
• Carolyn Roberts--computer art lesson plans using MS Paint
• Christmas Stockings/ Spiders / Skeletons Lessons
• Computer Art--more computer art lesson plans using MS Paint
• Drawing Lessons
• Great Art Lessons
• Judy Decker's Incredible Art Resources
• LessonPlansPage.com--Art Education resources
• McREL (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning) The Arts Lesson Plans and Activities
• Painting Lessons

Teachers; Art basics for non-art teachers

Here is the PowerPoint Show for the presentation I made today for the Boyer Valley Elementary Teachers in Dow City

http://boyer-valley.k12.ia.us/artbasics.pps

And here is a PDF of the National Standards for Art
http://boyer-valley.k12.ia.us/artstandards.pdf