Day 23

Collage is an art medium that you are all familiar with and I would guess most of you have tried in one way or another.  Who hasn't taken pages from an old magazine or catalog and cut out their favorite bits and pieces and pasting them down together to create a whole new composition? Many photo apps rely heavily on the concept of collage, where you can drag pictures from your photo app into a frame to create one picture. 

The first collages were made over 100 years ago, by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques.  Since then, collage has maintained its position as one of the most popular ways for an artist to express themselves.  Some artists use photographs, some combine photographs with patterned paper, or bits from the recycle bin.  Some artists create mixed media collages where they might add paint or fabric or a multitude of materials to complete their work.

Romare Bearden, an American artist, writer and songwriter was born in Charlotte and even has a park named after him on Church Street, right across from the stadium where the Charlotte Knights play baseball.  Who misses baseball?  Sigh.  I know I do.  It's my favorite.  Although Romare explored many different types of art, he is probably best known for his collages.  You can learn more about Romare and look at some of his work here, here and here.

A few of my other favorite collage artists:
David Hockney
Jasper Johns
Henri Matisse 
Trevor Norris
Jean-Michel Basquiat

Today's challenge is to be a collage artist.  You'll need old magazines, catalogs, scrap paper of any kind.  Ask an adult if there are any old books or phonebooks laying around that might be headed to the dumpster - those are great for collage.  Also, some kind of glue, scissors and your imagination.  Search for images that stand out or mean something to you.  Arrange them in a way that you think is pleasing to the eye or speaks to you in some way.  Do your arranging before you do your gluing.  You can also be a mixed media artist and add bits of fabric, beads or countless other things that might go with your composition.  Have fun!

In the meantime, I'm just going to be over here hoping that I get to go to a baseball game before summer is over.  Sigh.

Day 22

Origami is one of the things that we don't do a lot of in MizzSmiff's art room, mostly because I'm not good at it.  I can make 3 things: paper cranes, water bombs and pagoda towers.  Visit Tavin's Origami Instructions on YouTube (I've approved the channel so you should not have any problem watching any of the videos) and have fun making some origami.  No MizzSmiff needed.  Don't have any origami paper?  Ask an adult in your house if there is any leftover wrapping paper from holidays or birthdays.  Wrapping paper makes great origami paper because it is thinner than writing paper, has designs on one side and is blank on the other. Just be sure to cut our perfect squares before you start.  Have fun!

Day 21!

Today is just a quick, fun activity.  Go here to figure out what color your name is.  Take a screenshot and share with the class in Google Classrooms.

Here's my first name:

I actually really like the colors that I am.  I can't wait to see yours!

Day 20!

Most things, especially things in nature, have a color that people automatically assign to them.  The sky and the ocean are usually depicted as being blue, grass is generally green as are most trees.  People have varied skin tones but they usually fall into a palette that we are familiar with.  Dogs and cats usually are black or white, brown or 'ginger', sometimes mixtures of all of those colors, sometimes in various shades.

Back in the early 20th century there was a group of artists called 'The Fauves', meaning 'Wild Beasts' in French.  The Fauves were interested in using color as personal expression rather than the realistic, representational way that it had been used in the past.  The Fauves valued individual expression and the personal relationship between artist and subject.  You can read more about the Fauve movement here, here and here.

Here's a list of a few of the most famous Fauve artists that you can read about:
Henri Matisse
Andre Derain
George Braque
Raoul Dufy

George Rodrigue was an American painter most famous for his Blue Dog series.  While not technically a Fauve, he employed arbitrary color in his work regularly.  You can read more about George's work here and here.

Today's challenge is for you to think like a Wild Beast.  Draw a picture, or if you have a coloring book you can use a picture in the book, just make sure that if you do use a coloring book picture, it is a picture of something recognizable, not just designs or patterns.  Then, throw all your ideas of what color things should be out the window and color in your picture using arbitrary colors.  Use colors that you want the things in the picture to be, not the colors that they are usually assigned. Have fun, be creative and as always, take pictures and share them with the class in Google Classrooms!

Day 19!

Today's challenge is to enter an art contest!  Use one or more of the drawings that you have been doing in your sketchbook or something that you have done for a daily challenge or something that you have done on your own.  What do you have to lose?  You never know, you might win something!  Look for art contests here, here and here (scroll down a little bit for the 2020 contests) or search for one on the internet.

Day 18!

Today is just a little bit of fun.  It's is supposed to rain all day so you will more than likely be stuck inside most of the day. Today's challenge is to just play a drawing game.  You'll need some dice, like you might have from a board game. If you don't have any dice, don't worry, you can use these online dice. Next, you'll need to choose a subject to draw from one of these game boards.  You can draw a landscape, or a face, or a cupcake or a lego person -there are 10 different boards to choose from.

Here's what you do:

1. Roll your dice (online or real)
2. The first roll is the first column in the board and the first thing that you draw.  If you roll a ONE, you draw whatever is in the First column, first box. If you roll a FOUR, you draw whatever is in the First column, fourth box.
3. Roll the dice a second time.  If your dice says SIX, draw whatever is in the Second Column, 6th box.
4. Keep going until you have completed your drawing.
5. Color your drawing in using whatever materials your have at home.
6. Take a picture and share on Google Classrooms.
7. Have fun! 

Day 17

Today is Earth Day!  Earth Day is a global celebration that has happened every April 22nd. since 1970.  On Earth Day, we acknowledge issues that affect all of us as global citizens such as climate change, pollution, deforestation and plastic waste.  Every year has a theme and this year, it is climate action.  You can read more about Earth Day 2020 here.

I thought that it would be appropriate today to learn a little bit about Louise Nevelson.  Louise was an artist who is primarily known for her abstract sculptures made from found objects.  Her assemblage art, sometimes the size of rooms, were pieced together from boxes, broken fragments of furniture and pieces of wood that would otherwise be thrown away.  Her assemblage art would be painted in one color so even though the bits and pieces of her sculptures might not have anything in common, the end result would be unified by a singular color.
To see examples of Louise's work and to learn a little bit more about her, visit here and here.

In honor of Earth Day, I would like for you to make a sculpture inspired by Louise Nevelson out of found objects (fancy words for junk) around your house.  To begin, you will need something like a shoe box lid or other shallow box that you can put your objects in.  Then, go around your house and collect your found objects.  Things like paper towel tubes, plastic lids from bottles or other containers, broken toys, bits of yarn, one doll shoe that has lost its mate, buttons and the like. Does your house have a 'junk drawer'?  That would be a perfect place to look.  Of course, ask an adult before you take something because I'd hate for the extra garage door opener to end up in your art.  Once you have collected all of your items, it's time to start the assemblage part.  Take your shoebox lid and start arranging your items in the lid in a way that pleases your eye.  If you have glue and the items don't need to be returned to their original places, glue them down to the lid.  Take a picture of the finished product and post on it on our Google Classrooms page.  Now, here's the part where we have to hope that we get to have in person art class again this year.  Remember where Louise would paint her sculptures one unifying color?  I'm not going to ask y'all to do that because 1. Most of you probably don't have enough paint of one color laying around the house 2. Your parents probably have enough stress already without the art teacher making you paint something 3. I'd LOVE to be able to put all your sculptures together and assemble them into ONE big sculpture at the end of the year (or even at the beginning of next year if it comes to that) so we will need them to be one color 4. I'm not afraid of a little bit of spray paint an it's my job to be messy.  So, that means that after you make your sculpture, I'm gonna need you to save it and bring it in to art class when we get back to school.  Okay?

Day 16

When you think about careers in art, most of you probably think about artists - people who draw or paint and sell their work - and maybe about art teachers, but careers in art go so far beyond those obvious professions.  In fact, some of you have probably thought about what you might want to be when you grow up and have not realized that it is an art related field.  Video game designer?  Fashion design?  Web design?  All art related fields.

Nearly all art and design related careers rely on being proficient in some kind of digital art platform.  Being comfortable with a graphic editing program such as Photoshop is essential if you are looking to find a job in the art and design world today.

Here's a short list of careers that rely heavily on photoshop:

1. Graphic designer
2. Photographer
3. Freelance designer
4. Web developer
5. Art director
6. Illustration
7. Social media marketing
8. Advertising
9. Animation
10. Game designer
11. Interior design
12. Fashion design
13. Set design
14. Comic book artist
15. Character design
16. Multimedia design
17. App design
18. Visual effects editing
19. Background artist (film/gaming)
20. Architect

There are so many careers that are art and design related that if you spent enough time, I am sure that nearly all of you would be able to find something that would interest you enough to explore it for a future career option. 

Today, I'd like for you to try your hand at digital art.  I would love for us to be able to have a digital art lab, with new computers that have Photoshop and other photo editing programs ready for us to get to work, but, since that isn't possible, I have done a little bit of researching over spring break and have found a program called PhotoPea which is a free web based photo editing program that is about as close to Photoshop as we are going to get.  I also want you to remember that when I was in art school, all of those jobs that are listed above were done the OLD FASHIONED way.  By old fashioned, I mean without a computer.  And yes, I know that means that I am older than dirt, but luckily, because we now have programs like Photoshop and Photopea, that just means that I can digitally manipulate my face and pretend that I am young again.  It also means that I am by no means an expert and I will be learning along with you as we explore this realm of digital art.

Follow the links to get to Photopea, and tutorials here, here and here to get you started.  

Have fun!  Play around with the program and see what you can learn.  I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Day 15!

Welcome back from Spring Break.  I hope that everyone had a relaxing and fun time during break and that everyone made the best of the time off.  I know that it probably wasn't the Spring Break that everyone was wishing for but, hopefully better times are in the near future.

Today, all I would like for you all to do is take the survey about what art supplies you have available to you at home.  Find it in our Google Classroom.

Day 14

Today's challenge is to create an art history meme.

Follow these steps to create your own meme and then upload it to Google Classrooms!

1. Go to The MetKids Time Machine. Pick a time period on the left, push the red button on the bottom right of the screen and then search for an artwork that you want to meme.

2. Save the artwork to your drive.  Make sure to give it a name so that you can find it easily.

3. Go to Make a Meme, click on the upload image icon at the top and then click on the beige rectangle in the center that says 'Click here to upload image'.

4. Find your artwork that you save to your computer, click on it and then click on open. Your image should automatically upload.

5. Scroll down a bit.  Put your text in the gray bar that says 'top text' and/or 'bottom text'.  You don't need to put text in both, but you can if you want to.

6. Scroll down a bit more and click 'Make the meme' in the green bar.

7. Save your image and then post on Google Classrooms.

Here's the meme that I made:

Day 13

Today's challenge is to learn a little bit about one of my favorite contemporary artists, Melissa McCracken.  I know that most of us enjoy listening to music in the AMS art studio when we are working and that it can change the mood in the classroom.  I so miss listening to you sing while we are creating and I even miss our occasional dance parties.  Read a little bit about Melissa McCracken, look at her work and let me know what you think over on Google Classrooms. I think she is amazing and I'd love to have one of her pieces hanging on the walls of MizzSmiff's house.  I'm saving my pennies, and in the meantime, I would love for you all to put on your favorite tunes today, break out whatever art supplies you have and just listen to what the music tells you to do.  Do you have synesthesia?  Probably not, it's pretty rare, with only about 4% of the population being aware of the condition.  But, research does say that it can occur with prolonged sensory deprivation, perceptual isolation and removal of stimuli and goodness knows, over the last few weeks, I would say that we've checked all of those boxes.  Let's make today a musically creative day!

Day 12

Day 12.  Today's challenge, after you read about Vincent Van Gogh and his paintings of his bedroom in Arles, is to show me your favorite space in your house.

This is Vincent's painting of his bedroom in Arles.  I love all the colors.

This is a picture of MY favorite space in my house.  A few years ago, I added this sun room and a deck to the back of my house and this is a picture of one of the reasons that it is my favorite space.  The checkerboard floor!  Many, many years ago I went on one of those tours that they have of fancy houses and one house, which was actually down the road from the school where I taught before I came to AMS, had floors just like this. In that house this floor, which is made of cork tiles, was in a third floor 'media' room.  When I saw those floors, I said to myself, 'Self, someday you are going to have a house and in that house you are going to have floors like this.' And now I do!  This picture is just when they were finishing the room. Now, it is filled with books and plants and art supplies and the comfiest couch ever.  One of my goals for this summer is to put blinds up on those windows.  When it was first built, I didn't need them because my house was surrounded by woods. Now, I have neighbors on one side so I need blinds.

Read about Vincent's bedroom here.  A few years ago, The Art Institute of Chicago recreated Vincent's bedroom in a one bedroom apartment that you can rent and stay in for one night.  I think that would be a fun thing to do if I was ever in Chicago.  There is also a hotel in The Netherlands in the town where Vincent was born and spent most of his young life that has recreated his bedroom where you can spend the night.  My list for visiting places has become much longer now that I am stuck here in one place.

I can't wait to see your favorite spaces!

Day 11

Color is important! It might even be more important that line or shape or any of the other elements of art. Note: That's my opinion.  Color is my favorite.

See if you can guess the following characters just by their colors and the way that they are arranged.  Answer on our google classrooms wall.  Then, once you've done that, see if you can create your own character or groups of characters defined only by their color order.  I imagine that you could use legos or draw and color them or maybe even put strips of colored paper in order and take a picture.  Upload and share in google classrooms for everyone to see!  Note:  I didn't make these images, I just found them all over the internet.

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Day 10

There are so many videos on youtube that show you how to do art things.  Art Hub for Kids is a fun one to give a try.

I hope everyone is doing well.  Remember to stop by Google Classrooms even if it's just to stay hi!

Day 9

One of the things that a lot of you are probably missing right about now is meeting up with your friends and playing together.  Maybe you are missing playing basketball in the gym at school or throwing a football around at home or even just watching sporting events on television.  Whatever it is, this virus and Stay At Home - Stay Safe has disrupted all of our lives.  Everything is different.  My challenge for y'all today is to think about a creative way that you can show your favorite sport.  Maybe you can get some action figures together and depict them playing a game.  I'm all in for Thor, The Hulk, Loki and Captain America playing a game of soccer.  Maybe you could get some of your sports equipment together and create a still life.  You can also draw or paint something sporty or even go through some magazines that might be lying around the house and create a sports collage.  You can do this in your sketchbook if you like or on paper that you have at home.  Whatever you do, take a picture and post it on our google classrooms page so that everyone can see your work.

Day 8

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.  I haven't seen my kiddos for coming up on 3 weeks now and I miss them terribly.  I miss seeing them in the hallway.  I miss their smiles and I miss their snotty little attitudes when I tell them to get to work.  I just miss being in their presence.  I didn't become a teacher to sit in my house and come up with lessons and post them online for my students to do with no real interaction from me.  I miss the joy in my classroom.  I miss all the personalities.  I miss the chaos and craziness and the aggravation and the hugs.  You would think that this forced isolation wouldn't be any different than summer vacation but it is.  There is a natural pause that comes at the end of the school year.  We wind down and we celebrate and we have time to say our goodbyes. We reminisce and settle things up.  We know it'll soon be time to take off and relax and recharge and spend the warm, long days with friends and family.  This abrupt break in the school year didn't give us that time.  And it's hard.  It's unprecedented.  I don't like it.  I really hope and pray that we will be given the chance to come back together as a school family before the end of the calendar and have a chance to see each other again.