Line and Color Elements

As most of you know, I was in the hospital last week because my back was in so much pain, and I could not move. I did end up teaching an art lesson the day after I was in the hospital, so the lesson was very low-key. We did our review of the other elements of art and then discussed the element of line. I try to incorporate the SMART board whenever I can, so I had the students identify different line directions and such on the board. The students then worked on a project called "Stripesville." The idea was inspired from one of my classmates, Kiersten, who is an art teacher at an elementary school nearby. The example of what her students have done can be seen here. 

The students were not completely in to the idea of the lines, but they each completed a unique city skyline with a variety of lines. 

This past week, we were working with the element of color. Kendra and I had planned out the lesson and printed worksheets for the students to do color wheels with paint. I do not think we really had any bad expectations for the paint because we just assumed everything would work as planned. As Kou would say, Rookie Mistake. When I arrived to class, I found out that the seniors were leaving for a field trip. The only two girls in the class were the seniors, so I was left with four boys, paint, dirty water, and color wheels. 

The boys have a very different dynamic than when they are with the girls. Again, I was not expecting anything to be out of the ordinary. Most of the students did not know the secondary colors or how they were made from the primary colors, and all of them are in high school. The student with autism was not very happy with the color wheels and was stating he did not like the work because it was not art. So, I tried to make a comparison that trying to learn art without learning color is like trying to learn math without numbers. It is just a foundation of art. He agreed to complete at least part of the color wheel, which was great that he tried rather than refused. 

The table kept moving from the boys, so the dirty paint water was spilling all over the table. I covered it entirely in newspaper ahead of time, but the newspaper was just sopping wet and just a huge mess. I was constantly cleaning throughout the lesson. We had planned for the students to do a color project involving leaves and using tints and shades. We only had time for the two color wheel worksheets! I was surprised, but I agreed to the students that we could do the painting project for our next lesson. 

Overall, the students were fairly quiet and occupied with their work, but the classroom teacher was being distracting again by playing youtube videos while the students worked. I ended the lesson and spent an extra 20 minutes cleaning up. I had paint on my khaki pants, an armful of wet color wheels, and a bag of wet paint bowls. For next time: use cups for water rather than bowls.