Realizations as I Take on More Classes

This week I took over one of the Art Fundamentals classes in a lesson on using colored pencils to create texture of an animal. I introduced/reviewed the color wheel with the students and I had so many hands up (and not the same ones every time!) to answer questions about primary, secondary, and complimentary colors. They were really receptive to my lesson. I wrote on the board, explained, and showed them a color wheel. I had them copy the information in their sketchbook to be able to use it as reference while they work on blending and layering colors. I had them get out of their seats to come up and take a closer look at student examples. I feel I had plenty of variety in my instruction for this lesson and it was effective.

I based the lesson on a lesson my CT presents because I really like how each of her lessons builds on the skills the students have been learning in all their projects. This particular lesson they are able to choose an animal to draw using their skills of mapping out their compositions on the page and seeing and applying value to the page to create an illusion of 3D and depth. I made sure to create a sample piece to demonstrate the methods they would use and one that I would also keep building on to show them how to achieve "texture" and "saturated tone". I kept my demonstration short this time to allow them to explore the media more. In regards to my Ceramics lesson from last week, I felt that by giving the students a more thorough demo, I am seeing that they are making their slab pieces exactly like I showed them, instead of manipulating the clay in a more creative way. I don't want to limit their exploration, but I do want to give them enough of a demo to work off and understand what they need to do.

I believe it's a good practice to have an in-progress piece to use for the students to see and understand the process. I also did this for Ceramics. I believe it's only fair to the students for myself to have worked on the projects I am expecting them to take part in. I also need to start collecting and making samples now so I can use them in the future for examples to show classes.