Wednesday, February 27, 2013

I am going to be teaching first graders art for Elementary art education. I have taught high school and middle school. This is going to be a strange experience, but one I am looking forward too. 

Lesson plans are being thought up. Not sure what I am doing yet, but trying to decide if Egyptian Hieroglyphics would not be too difficult for first grade. Thinking about having them write their name in hieroglyphics and then using the images in a landscape drawing. It may be a little advanced though, I think adding a little history and having them use their imagination to tell stories about the finished pictures would be fun for them. 

I have really began to love education. and the ideas behind how to teach students well. Philosophies on teaching art I am learning have been my own philosophies on art anyway. So if I teach 12th grade or 1st grade it doesn't matter, I will be fine, and my students will be inundated with the love of learning and hte love of art. 

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

As being an artist becomes being an art teacher...


...and the dangers of digital art, okay not dangers, just... well let me explain... I can appreciate and have many times made art completely digitally, and could teach classes on the Adobe suite of programs, photoshop, illustrator, flash, indesign, etc, and because I can, I likely therefore will. I hope (and it might truly be against hope) that I get to teach 2D basics too. In a world increasingly CGed I think it is a genuine concern, so I will continue to keep astride the current design tech, for both in my civilian ID and teaching guise, but I will champion the way of the pen for as long as I can.
I have been an 'artist' for a while now, I love it. I love it more than I can express in any other way than simply making the art I love. Lines and areas of black, shapes and color combinations, style with substance, all of those things I love. Watching an artist work is endlessly fascinating too me. I simply love process. I want to pass that on to the next generation, the love of line, the beauty of the hand drawn, there is something about lines on paper that just makes me smile.
So in the end if i must teach tech art, I will try to make it have the heart of a pen on paper, and I will teach and focus on the basics of the tactile sensation of feeling the pen on the tooth of the paper, there really is nothing quite like it.