Artful Thinking

This summer at our Art Department meeting we learned about Artful Thinking Routines.  These are different routines you can use to discuss artwork.

This program was originally designed to be used by homeroom teachers.  The purpose of the Artful Thinking Program is to help teachers regularly use works of visual art and music in their curriculum in ways that strengthen student thinking and learning.  It has two broad goals: (1) To help teachers create rich connections between works of art and curricular topics; and (2) to help teachers use art as a force for developing students’ thinking dispositions (Artful Thinking).

I am using Artful Thinking routines at the beginning of my units this year as a way to introduce my students to the artist(s), culture, and/or artwork.  I have found that my students really enjoy using these routines and I get quality discussions about art.  Below I provided an example of how I used Artful thinking with my kindergarten classes.

We just finished studying lines and I was introducing Primary colors.  I chose to use Piet Mondrian's Composition (Blue, Red, and Yellow) to introduce the next project. 

The Artful Thinking routine I used was: What do you see?

 

 What do you see?  Describe.

How does it make you feel?

We discussed the artwork in more detail and discussed the art concepts that I wanted them to learn for the lesson.  Then I asked:

What do you see now that you didn't see before?

Here is the website that I use as a reference.

Artful Thinking.  Retrieved on November 10, 2011.  http://www.pz.harvard.edu/tc/overview.cfm

Fish Bowl Collages Inspired by: Henri Matisse and Eric Carle

My first grade students studied Henri Matisse, specifically looking at his Fish Bowl painting.  They learned how he created collages out of painted paper like Eric Carle.  He called it "drawing with scissors."  The students painted large sheets of paper.  We talked about color mixing and color schemes.  They used the painted paper to cut out the shapes for their Fish Bowl collages. 

Post by: Jane Delmastro from Ms. McDaniel's 1st Grade Class

I had to cut out some shapes to make a beautiful collage.

 Display at Manning Oaks Elementary

5th Grade Contour/Pop Art Drawings Inspired by: Escher and Warhol

My fifth grade students studied M.C. Escher's Hand Drawing Hand artwork.  They had to do a contour drawing of their hand holding a magnifying glass.  Then, they studied Andy Warhol.  We looked at his Campbell Soup Cans, Brillo Boxes, and Portraits of famous people.  We talked about Popular Culture and how you can use everyday objects or things from popular culture as the subject of your artwork.  The students chose their subject and created a contour drawing of it.  Finally, they combined the two drawings together to create their Pop Art.  They look amazing!