Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. T he topic for this month’s issue is drawing and color media, and we have several interesting tips from experienced teachers to add to your teaching bag of tricks! IT’S ALL A BLUR Here are two different approaches to line drawings. The first comes from Geri Greenman of Chicago. She suggests having students draw with water-based markers and then go back over the lines with water to create a blurring effect. This sounds like an idea with a lot of potential for a broad range of age groups, either as the basis for an overall painting or for a technique to use as an accent or embellishment. tip #1 long workshop based on the methods described in Betty Edwards’ book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Tarcher; 1989). I went upstairs and dug out my old copy, and I am currently experimenting on my sixth-graders by having them go through the various exercises in her book. I am curious to see their progress and anxious to compare their beginning self-portraits with their final ones. Stay tuned—I’ll report back when these exercises are completed! If you have tried this with your students, I would love to hear how it worked out. by Laurel Winters STORIES TO TELL Susan Yingling rec- tip #2 ommends having students tell two overlapping stories in a two-layer assignment: a torn-and-cut collage WE’RE SURROUNDED! Barrie Archer, a retired teacher from East Liverpool, Ohio, sent in two tips about how she helped her students with the challenges of working with color. Barrie says, “Helping students create the correct color is difficult because every color is influenced by the colors that tip #4 and some colors appear to recede.” After instructing the students about the value of color complements, she suggests this exercise: Paint a page with large areas of mixes from one set of complements, e.g. red/green. After the page is dr y, cut the same size shape from each of the mixed colors. One at a time, place the shapes on the student’s composition and obser ve the spatial changes. Drawing and Color Media underneath with a black line drawing on top. Susan teaches at the Miller South School for Visual and Performing Arts in Akron, Ohio. tip #3 OBSERVATIONAL EXERCISES I have been working to improve my students’ ability to draw from observation by including some observational exercises at each grade level during each marking period. It has been interesting to note whether the students can observe the curve in pumpkins—even after discussion and demonstration—and who notes the color transitions from yellow to orange to green. After reading Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future (Riverhead Trade; 2006), I wanted to deal more directly with the issue of the right and left sides of the brain, as well as find more ways to improve my students’ observational drawing. In one chapter of the book, Mr. Pink talks about taking a week- surround it.” She suggests this strategy as a way to help students find the right color: When working from a student-generated photograph, have the student cut a 1⁄8-inch square out of the center of a piece of white 8" x 10" computer paper. Instruct the student to place the 1⁄8-inch square over the color on the photograph with which they are having difficulty. This isolates the color from the surrounding colors and enables the student to better see what the color really is. tip #6 POWER OF PERCEPTION Barrie’s tips reminded me of an exercise I did with education majors to help non-art folks understand how the surrounding color affects your perception of a color. The students would select four or five pastels from a box, and make color patches with these same colors in the same order on strips of different colors of paper. They were always amazed how “dull” some colors would look on similar papers, how they would “brighten” on complements, and how ever ything seemed to “pop” against black. Many thanks once again to our contributors—Geri, Susan and Barrie—and please remember share your “artspertise” with your colleagues by sending in your tips! n SPATIALLY SPEAKING Barrie also points out that “color can be difficult for a student to control because colors have spatial properties. Some colors appear to move to the front of the composition ATTENTION READERS If you’d like to send in one of your teaching tips, e-mail them to: triedandtrue@artsandactivities.com. tip #5 Laurel Winters is an artist in Akron, Ohio. She teaches art at Canton Country Day School in Canton, Ohio. x www.ar tsandactivities.com 50 march 2010