This entry is a dedication to one of my colleagues who is moving on this year and led this sculpture project. Emre, you’ll be missed!

Our slum housing sculpture projects was based on a sculpture called “1000 Shacks” by Tracey Snelling. The materials were very simple: cardboard (preferably used), rulers and box cutters, hot glue guns, and paint. We had this sculpture in a large multi-campus exhibition and it was a big hit! People spent lots of time exploring the intricacies the student work.

The project also ticks off a lot of boxes. It’s a great collaboration with humanities classes. It’s also great team or group-work project. It teaches how to use recycled materials for art pieces. It can teach empathy and understanding (I designed investigation and reflection sheets aimed at the exploring the causes of slum housing and imagining what it could be like to live in marginalised community). I teach very wealthy students, so this angle worked for my classes. If I were teaching in a poorer neighbourhood, like when I was in north Philadelphia, I would probably change the investigation a little.

The key to this project, sculpturally speaking, is making “L-joints”, which are really simple. You need to cut hundreds of small rectangles out of the cardboard to fold and then glue behind the walls when you make a corner. The houses are 3 sided (we didn’t make a back wall).

This project was done with year 8 students. You could teach this to older students too, but I wouldn’t go any younger because of the dangerous materials (knives and hot glue). After each slum house was completed, we took a picture to print and put in the student’s art journal. Afterwards the houses were glued together into a giant group, reminiscent of many of the slum houses outside of major Latin American cities. Our sculpture had a simple wooden post behind the sculpture for support.

I’ll attach images of the sculptures and the investigation sheet. As always, I would try making one first before teaching this art unit.

Images: the sculpture at multicampus student show, details of the sculpture, a photo for the student art journal (individual house), investigation sheet from a student art journal, reflection and investigation sheets.

This is a brand new art unit that I started this year and am very excited about. Those who know me, know that I love to teach Photoshop, but love to paint in my personal artistic practice, and this fuses the two! I intentionally take screenshots using Photoshop Elements which is a much cheaper program than Photoshop CS and does many of the same things.

The assignment shows students how to turn a nice photograph into an abstract composition that can later be used as a template for a painting. You could literally print the image on thick paper and then paint right on top of it like it was a coloring book. The primary tools you use in Photoshop are the Hue/Saturation menu and the Cutout Filter. The hue function will change the colors of the photograph and the saturation will make them more vibrant. The Cutout filter is what turns the image abstract. You will want to raise the edge simplicity bar and lower the edge fidelity bar. You could also rotate the image afterwards. The last step is to print it on thick paper and paint on it. You could even change some of the colors in the painting or use different tones. I also recommend outlining the shapes with a charcoal pencil and then using a blending stick to soften the line (which you’ll see in one of the examples below).

The great things about this is it offers lots for students to show about the creative process. Which is a key component of the criteria in IB Process Portfolios or IGCSE Portfolio Boards. Below are two examples from IGCSE portfolio boards (ignore the unrelated artwork). I recommend pairing this with an artist investigation of Wassily Kandinsky. Below that is a student example of a photo from 7Eleven turned into a very beautiful and complicated abstract image.

This is another art unit that uses Photoshop to create some powerful images. In Photoshop, the function to make a stencil is called “threshold” and can be used to make various layers. I like 3-4 layer stencils personally. Any more than that and I get some major burnout from my students getting tired of cutting shapes with exacto knives. There are also numerous websites that will make stencils for free, but learning how to do it with Photoshop will ultimately give you more control. The main thing to know when stencilling are “bridges and islands”. The stencil has to be connected somehow, so no “islands” or little pieces that aren’t connected to the outer stencil. If you do have an island, you must connect it with a bridge. We print our stencils on 60-90lb paper (card stock). You also need to punch a hole in the the corners of all the stencil layers together so they line up after you cut them out and spray them later. Protip: Montana Spray Paint sells a water-based spray paint that is practically odorless and much less harmful (though still wear a mask when spraying!).

If you do this in an IB or IGCSE class a great artist investigation could include one Banksy, who’s work is just fantastic for a study of conflict, peace, and capitalism. But I also like to show a stencilling group from Oaxaca, Mexico called Lapiztola who are great for a study of themes like human migration and indigenous-peoples’ rights ( http://www.instagram.com/lapiztola/ ). I’m a big fan of their work and proudly own one of their pieces.

In the best results I’ve had from this project students paint a base layer of metallic-colored paint (like silver) on a surface, then I have them spray paint through a lace patterned piece of cloth. Afterwards, they spray their stencil on the surface. Once the stencils are made, the best thing is that they can be used over and over again. Spraying them onto a newspaper with an interesting headline is another good option.

Back when I taught a 3D art class in the Seattle area, this unit was a staple of the semester. Teams of students would get together and create Goldsworthy-like work around our campus. Fortunately, there were plenty of rocks, leaves, and sticks to do things with. I later realized that this art unit could be converted into a great online learning experience, and that it wasn’t necessary to be outdoors (Shanghai, where I live, is currently in a lockdown). Plus it would get kids off their screens for a little while! The task is simple: make versions of Goldsworthy’s sculptures. The seed (or egg), river (curvy line), spiral (whirlpool), and hole (or circle) could all be made with objects found around the house. Just make sure that you insist your students clean up after themselves!

We watch Rivers and Tides together for the investigation component of the unit and I have them sketch and answer questions like “Andy Goldsworthy is famous and successful, but is his life easy?” and “What rules to you think he follows to make his sculptures?”. I’ll post some examples of student work, both from the Seattle years and more recent online learning.

Laundry Hole, Dog Food Spiral, and Coffee River

I’m a big fan of using technology to level the playing field in art class. Many students can think like an artist but may not have the skillset (yet) to draw or paint with precision. This unit hits all sorts of categories that make a great lesson: Art History, Typography, Photography, Composition, Color, Photoshop, to name a few. The result are often great and can be additions to an AP 2D Art Portfolio or an IGCSE A2 Board, not to mention a great Process Portfolio page or two for IB Art.

The basis is simple. Using a great photograph or two from vacation, make a poster in the style of Art Deco. I recommend studying Roger Broders for this project. The photos can be reduced to something simple like Art Deco using a few Photoshop functions: the cutout filter, poster edges filter, and the image saturation (to enhance the color). Students should also download an Art Deco font (free online).

If you live in a city, like I do right now, there is the added bonus that there are probably some Art Deco buildings around for students to see. This is a great reference to how what we learn can improve the quality of our life. I personally enjoy taking note of this aesthetic style while riding my bike around the city and passing Art Deco buildings.

Here are a few examples from AP 2D and IGCSE portfolio boards: