Types of Government Visual Art Warmups

I always feel that Social Studies and Visual Art are the easiest subjects to integrate.  They connect so closely addressing issues of culture, history, and how our world works.  I really wanted to create some warmups that could be completed in the Social Studies classroom but the State Standards for Social Studies are almost as vague as the State Standards for Visual Arts.  One of our wonderful Social Studies teachers helped me by sharing her curriculum and I thought I would start with a series on types of government.  Feel free to use, share, alter for your own purposes.  I will be adding more to the list as I go.  I'd like to come up with two for each of the following types of government.  Check out all of the warmups HERE.

Design Bootcamp

Every field and content area has it's own vocabulary.  Learners need to have a grasp of content specific vocabulary to successfully navigate the curriculum.  But really, who wants to spend art class copying definitions?  Most of my students have never had an art class and if we focus on formalism they'll never take another.  I do need students to be able to discuss their work and the work of other artists with each other and me.  I implemented Design Bootcamp as our introductory unit in each class.  It's a 2-3 day, focused, activity that helps students collect written and visual definitions.  We get in there, get what we need, and get out.  Students then have a collection of resources they can use throughout the class.  I've created a page with all of the resources and processes I use.  Feel free to use, change, and share.

Design Bootcamp

Circuits, Mondrian, Fractions, and On to Degas

It's testing season and I'm not just the art teacher but our building's technology coach.  It's the type of job that you never knew you didn't want.  In all actuality, I'm pretty good at it and it's not a complete nightmare.  But, with state testing it's required me to be out of the classroom a great deal and now I'm in the proctor's seat for the next 5 days.  I always take my absences and changes in the schedule as an opportunity to do something cross-curricular.  I like to squeeze this into my curriculum at least once a quarter.  Check out this lesson blog for ideas on how to combine circuitry, Mondrian, Degas, and fraction practice.

Ciruits, Mondrian, Fractions, and On to Degas

I missed my students and classroom but this was a great way to keep students engaged, studying art and technology, and out of trouble.

I'm really looking forward to being back with my students to help them create connections between all the different activities that they completed.

Where is my blog going?

I've been doing a great deal of thinking lately about my online presence and how I want to share my work as an art educator.  I love sharing lessons, activities, and tips on being successful in the art classroom.  I hate including standards.  I feel like a great number of my posts look more like a lesson plan I would submit to an administrator rather than an activity I'm sharing with other teaching artists.  Be prepared for some changes but expect to see more videos, blogs, and resources on great activities you can implement in your classroom now.

Week 26-Vihls Personal Creativity and Interests-Visual Art CDE

Week 26

Thursday-7th Grade Standard 3. Invent and Discover to Create

2.  Restructure and apply the technical skills and processes required to achieve desired results in producing works of art

A.  Research and communicate personal ideas and interests in works or art

Objective:  Students will review the artwork of Vihls and his sources of inspiration as guiance when explaining personal ideas and interests in their own artwork

Warmup 

“Lisbon, Portugal based artist Vhils has been working around the idea of permanence, and the evolution of urban centers, for over a decade. From street poster collages to literally drilling portraits onto the sides of buildings, he created a conceptual body of work that not only challenges the idea of removal, but creates a visual identity to the city that defies traditional mural characteristics. In a way, he is reminding the viewer of the things that can be eradicated, and that the things we leave behind, physically or emotionally, have a place in the world.”  

“Much of what Vhils showed me were extraordinary works, based on ideas of permanence in the cities that he has either lived in or worked in, and the unique ways he combines these experiences into canvases, cement pieces, styrofoam works and even new works on old doors that are the standouts of the show.”

-Juxtapoz

  

Directions:  Read the two posted quotes and review the artwork by artist Vhils.  Consider what inspires his artwork.  Using a Perfect 3 Sentence Answer, on a piece of scratch paper, explain what personal interests and ideas of your own inspire the artwork that you make.  This will be your ticket out.

Warmup

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/184WlK6eOvmb7vX2fupT6lTozYVXGVxKueofZvj95QB4/edit?usp=sharing

Week 20
Monday: Kindness  Headspace
Tuesday:  Civil War Valentine-https://www.tweentribune.com/article/tween56/how-make-authentic-civil-war-valentine/
Wednesday:  Vocabulary

Week 22-David Shrigley Words in Art-Visual Art CDE

Week 22

Thursday-7th Grade Standard 4.  Relate and Connect to Transfer

2.  The visual arts community messages its cultural traditions and events

A.  Design and create works of art using images and words that illustrate personal community or culture

Objective:  Students will review artwork in an effort to interpret artist intention in the artwork of David Shrigley.

Warmup 
"David Shrigley's work is simple but it carries big ideas." -Juxtapoz

http://davidshrigley.com/category/drawing-painting/

  

Directions:  Review the following images by David Shrigley.  On a piece of sketch paper, using a Perfect 3 Sentence Answer, explain why you think he uses written words in his artwork.

Warmup

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/15dT7vGolwJfl2ciSkO69ADi7H6PfqzvBpVesCwPhEWw/edit?usp=sharing

Week 20
Monday: Gratitude  Headspace
Tuesday:  Colors in Nature- https://www.tweentribune.com/article/tween56/how-peacock-spiders-make-rainbows-their-backsides/
Wednesday:  Vocabulary

Week 21-Andy Dixon and Visual Perception-Visual Art CDE

Week 21

Thursday-7th Grade Standard 3.  Invent and Discover to Create

2.  Restructure and apply the technical skills and processes required to achieve desired results in producing works or art

B.  Demonstrate and apply perceptual skills to create works or art

Objective:  Students will use the work of Erik Jones as inspiration when creating shapes.

Warmup 
"As each work is dissected, each referential gesture is revealed, it becomes clear there is no simple translation of Dixon's chosen symbology.  Stepping back to observe Dixon's work-irreverently swathed in a palette of pink, yellow, green and blue-observers are confronted with a banal economy of iconography.  Instead, each work contains a hollow cache of individual meaning, the gesture of replication rather than what is depicted on the canvas becomes Dixon's subject matter.  Whether a Greeco-Roman scene of erotic pampering or a ship bereft of time and place.  Dixon's characters are stripped of their original iconography, having been slowly distilled through the centuries, until only a singular message now remains: luxury."

http://www.andydixon.net/

  

Directions:  Review the work of Andy Dixon.  On a piece of scratch paper, make a list of 10 things that you see in the artwork.  When you complete your list, circle the word of the item that you think is the most interesting.  Spend three minutes creating a thumbnail sketch of that object.  This will be your ticket out.

Warmup

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1S99pFsjV-uNU2VTdmg_1znkh9hkM7aMqbU6EWIKRaSY/edit?usp=sharing

Week 20
Monday:  Class Dojo-Mindful Movement
Tuesday:  Scholastic Art-Museum restores North America's longest painting
Wednesday:  Vocabulary