Picasso was a master of line. Check out his . Try to make an owl of your own.
Now, think poetry. One of the significant ABCs of poetry is sound. Try to write a poem using only this one element. Try to repeat one sound throughout your poem, write a poem based on a singlular sound.
Example:
hoo of an owl
frosted stars twinkle
and the hoo of an owl whittles
a tune on shadowy branches
-Kim & Constance
When I teach children to read and write, I begin with the ABCs—phonics to words to phrases to sentences and beyond. The possibilities are limitless.
When I teach children to appreciate and make art, I again begin with ABCs—line, texture, value, shape, and color. Again, the possibilities are limitless.
When it comes to introducing the potential of shape in visual art, French artist, Fernand Léger (1881-1955) is always invited to the Guild.
In art, we begin by looking. And for this Léger lesson we looked at one of his wonderful "studies" titled, Étude Pour L' Anniversaire, 1950 (pen and ink on paper):
And after a thorough session of looking and discussing all the wonderful integrated shapes, the drawing began:
The strokes were sketchy at first, until the apprentices were satisfied that their shapes echoed the original work.
Next, we inked in the drawing, erasing pencil lines as we went.
When the observing, sketching, and inking was completed, we stood back from our studies and discussed what happens next by exploring Léger works related to his study:
L’ Anniversaire, 1950 (gouache on paper)
Birthday, Two Women, 1950 (oil on canvas)
Birthday, Two Women, 1950 (oil on canvas)
-Kim
Write a small story that describes the parts of an object or characteristics and memories of a person, in order to tell a story or reach a conclusion about a certain character, just as the fading parts of this rose imply a history of aging and weather without words—by showing, not telling. The House on Mango Street, Esperanza vicariously describes her family by describing her house.
Example:
Red Tennis Shoes
Every month, my mother tells me to throw out my red tennis shoes.
They’re about two sizes too small (left over from tenth grade, because tenth grade was the best year, this liminal space where you weren’t the school baby and you didn’t have to worry about WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO FOR THE NEXT FOUR YEARS because God knows that’s too much responsibility, and all you need to worry about is whether you’ll get an A or a B, or whether you look better with a red or pink lip.)
One shoe’s lacings have been torn into frayed ribbons (because of my brother’s dog who mistook my shoes for his red ball, and I would say that it was stupid except for the fact that he often couldn’t recognize one thing from another, like my handwriting from my mom’s or fun from fulfilling, and yet you know she still loved both of them for their eyes)
They’re still covered in dirt stains (from the time we went camping in the Appalachians and I saw trees burst into photosynthetic flame for the first time, and the image of a ring of massive trees blossoming into red around a stagnant lake is still so sharp)
Every night I go to the trash to throw them out, I turning back to the house in the distance with its laughing yellow light, dangling their relieved weight from my hands.
-Constance
In the scheme of biological classification, butterflies and moths fall into the Order we call Lepidoptera. Typically speaking, butterflies are brightly colored diurnal creatures. Moths are nocturnal and lackluster. But there are some exceptions. Leave it to Van Gogh to lend his artistic curiosity to the Great Peacock Moth that began with a sketch, and ended in a painting.
We began with a close observation of the artists palate, imitating each color with acrylic paint. We stored the colors in pint-sized mason jars knowing that the paintings could not be accomplished in one sitting.
The apprentice painters began by lightly sketching the composition in pencil on canvas, all the while marveling at Van Gogh’s marvelous composition.
Next came the brushes, the paint. The artists began with the lighter colors, blocking in the delightfully organic shapes, until layer upon layer, the moth began to emerge in its surroundings. The last colors to be painted were the deep blue-green outlines and the popping crimson accents.
I’d like to imagine Van Gogh smiling.
Metamorphosis is transformation.
-Kim
Or an ordinary gardener
and her dog named Theo?
My dog is clever.
Not only does he enjoy
poking his nose in the warm
soil as I was plant seedlings,
he is also quite resourceful..
Write a poem inspired by your pet. Begin with one singularly detailed sentence. Break your sentence into lines to create a single stanza poem.
/ People who say that fish have no personalities / have never held a fish in their hands / while changing the fishtank water, / feeling the small body flail in such choked / desperation that you suddenly understand / what it means to touch a scream. /
Example:
My Fish
People who say that fish have no personalities
have never held a fish in their hands
while changing the fishtank water,
feeling the small body flail in such choked
desperation that you suddenly understand
what it means to touch a scream.
Now, write another. Pets make great fodder for writing. Consider writing a poem after .
-Kim & Constance
Once again, I was inspired by the lovely textural drawings, especially, Tempo by artist, Vija Celmins as a starting point for exploring texture with my students:
"I really didn't fudge around or erase or smear. The graphite went on quite clear."
Texture in drawing translates the sense of touch into the sense of sight.
This particular series of drawings by Celmins are drawing of the surface of the sea. While we did not have the luxury of sitting on the beach observing for hours and hours before diving into our drawings, we did close observations of photographs and film footage to explore the sea's texture. We used prints of the artist's work to study technique as we created our our own textural seas.
I've had the privilege of exploring his architectural scaffolding—Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species—with my apprentices during Science Discovery.
There are four types of sentences: Statement, Question, Exclamation, and Command. Teachers are famous for jotting that last type—command—in swarms on their chalkboards.
But imagine your science teacher marching into class and scribbling this on the chalkboard:
Devise a system for naming and classifying ALL living things.
Imagine the buggy eyes, the tilted heads, the groans, the tears.
Never happen.
Now imagine a time way before the technological advances that our computer age has to offer. Way, way back before our Declaration of Independence was conceived in the minds of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin there was a young man named Carolus Linnaeus. Born on May 23, 1707, in Råshult, Sweden, his father, a lover of all things botanical, introduced him to the joy of observational science. Young Carolus was encouraged to imagine possibility as he tended his very own garden over time. He looked back fondly on that garden as a place that "inflamed my soul with an unquenchable love of plants."
As Linnaeus continued to observe nature, he developed a passion for order. Over the course of his life, Linnaeus accomplished a great many things—research, publication of scientific papers, a medical practice. Greatest of all, he devised a binomial system for naming and classifying all living things… without the prompting of a teacher's command!
Way before computers, Linnaeus was an information architect.
It's taken the better part of the year to appropriate the great lessons we chip away at on a daily basis—value silence, process is a slow and steady pacing, your-ideas-matter, work works—but now, like a spring bloom, I marvel at the fragrance of their progress. In a few short weeks, you too will be able to flip through the Science Discovery Journals to experience the wonder of this important work.
So much of education is couched in the promise that technology will ensure success. But so much of what we really desire for our children cannot develop without the passion to care about an academic work at hand and the longitude to explore. Challenging children to engage in the work of idea-making and providing the time to Discover just what it takes to bring shape to that idea, time and time again, leads to Critical Creative Thinking. Truth is, technology is a tremendous asset of our age, but the art of learning is a low-tech endeavor.
Ideas of the original variety begin with a spark of curiosity, not a command, and rarely a click.
Here's another idea: click back to our Pinterest, the Write it… board. Scroll down to the boy flying through the air on the shimmering fish and put on your Poet's Cap.
Imagine that the bony on the flying fish of shimmering shades of orange takes you to a staircase pond of giant carp?
What then?
Think humorous.
Be humorous.
Take your somewhere imaginative.
Think pun. For example, let’s say that you were to write about the following pun: “I don't trust these stairs because they're always up to something.” What might those stairs be up to? Does it have something to do with the upper floor, or could it be something unrelated?
Sky's the limit when you travel by flying fish.
Example:
I Don’t Trust These Stairs
I don’t trust these stairs; they’re always up to something.
Apart from fooling around with the well-groomed
second floor, they make a point of tripping me
at least once every day in front of someone I admire,
or stretching themselves to seem higher and longer
during those days when climbing them feels like
scaling the frosty length of Everest: and, in particular,
they seem to find undying pleasure in the task
of making me think that there are more of them,
just when I think that I’ve finished counting the number
of flat heads and sharp shoulders on each flight.
-Constance
The habit of observing is habit worth developing—a Habit of Being. Observation of simple objects is best when you begin your Observation Journal—a spoon, a clock, a marshmallow, an apple.Getting started is easy as 1, 2, 3…
One.
Trace the edges with your pencil follow along with your eyes.
Two.
Begin your sketch, following the outline edges (very s l o w l y). Let your hand “see” all the curves and bumps that your eye sees as you look back and forth from your drawing to the apple. Don’t rush. Making a connection between the eyes and the hand is a slow motion exercise.
Three.
Simple observational drawings can be embellished with a wash of watercolor. Add a wash of color. And always paint from a puddle, never directly from the pigment tiles.
When creating a wash of color for a red apple Sara reminds us that the red is not the red directly from the tile. “Red in nature is complex. Make a puddle of red and add a tiny drop of green.” It’s the same process for a pumpkin, add drops of the complimentary color into the prominent color of the object to achieve the natural complexity of the object’s color.
Once your observational drawing is complete, do some research on the object you observed, date the entry and add it to the Observation journal.
As you complete the Observation, putting away materials and washing brushes and paint trays, reflect on what was gleaned. It’s likely that what was gained is far more than art far more than science. Developing the skill of observing is a habit of being that invites us to imagine possibility.
-Kim
Join the fun on our Pinterest and Write it!
It’s April—National Month of Poetry— let this be your muse. Write a poem inspired by something that is homemade. The object in question need not be a DIY art project—you could write about homemade food, homemade clothing, homemade furniture. In the abstract, think about what habits are homemade, and which homemade ideas have influenced you significantly.
Mother’s Sandwiches
They were
Always greasy,
Sticky with lumps of butter,
Subject to lunch-hour teasing, but
They were home.
