ELEANOR VOYVODICH
CURRICULA DEVELOPED BY YOURS TRULY
Individual Lessons:
FANTASY CLAY HEADS
In the Fall of 2010, I had my first experience teaching an art lesson to a group of local students from State College, PA with a few of my student peers. Our big idea was fantasy, and we had the students sketch and design their very own creative clay creatures out of stoneware. We fired them afterwards, and they painted their creations later in their school's art class. To view the first lesson I ever created, click here.
PRINTMAKING WITH CARDBOARD AND STYROFOAM
With a small group of my peers, we lead two classes at the Park Forest Elementary of State College, PA on printmaking. We had the students used recycled materials such as corrugated cardboard pieces and Styrofoam pieces. The class was split in half, where one would work with additive printmaking methods and the other with subtractive methods. I taught the group who used the additive methods with cardboard squares, corrugated halves of cardboard, foam, and cabinet liner. View the lesson plan here.
PAINTING A STILL LIFE
At the Falk School, the humanities immersion art course students were working on drawing from observation. I picked up in the middle of their study to teach them how to paint a still life. We focused on developing the skills of color mixing, controlling paint brush strokes, and adding in highlights and shadows on basic still life forms. The students worked three 40-minute class periods to complete their paintings. Click here for my still life lesson from my 2013 student teaching practicum.
Unit Lesson Plans:
SATURDAY ART SCHOOL UNIT:
"Coming to Our Senses"
(Developed in the Spring of 2013)
MUSEUM SCAVENGER HUNT
The purpose of this lesson was to get students excited about viewing and discussing art in a formal museum setting. The scavenger hunt assists the students in looking closely at famous pieces of art without the daunting task of having a formal critique about it. The scavenger hunt needs to be planned out by the teacher by visiting the gallery ahead of time. This lesson is particularly exciting and rewarding, because we found that the students became very creative in their responses and readings of the pieces of art. View the lesson here.
CIHULY LIGHT SCULPTURE
This lesson's purpose was to bring the children together in a collaborative way and create a sense of community within the classroom. Students studied images of Dale Chihuly's organic glass forms; they designed their own forms in sharpies, melted them into organic forms, painted on them with fluorescent paint, and installed them on a wire backing. To view this lesson, click here.
MONOCHROMATIC ASSEMBLAGE
Students used found objects to learn about composition's purpose in works of art. They studied the meaning of juxtaposition by placing objects they found and those found by others in an arrangement on a square wooded board. Afterwards, student spray painted them their choice of color- either silver or gold. They pondered the meaning of taking what some would consider to be trashing and colorizing them in a way that suggests wealth or value. View the lesson right here.
BLIND TOUCH SCULPTURE
As part of the unit's focus of the five senses, we thought it was especially important to discover how heavily we rely on our hands and eyes to create artwork. We took away the sense of sight so that students had to begin seeing with the eye of their mind while tactually sculpting found objects into unique sculptures of great color. This experience brought about one of the most exciting discussions of the semester; view some of the things our students said in response to this lesson and the previous one. View our lesson plan by clicking here.
Watching the performances on iPads at the art show!
PERFORMANCE ART
This two day long lesson was essential to our students’ understanding of uncommon forms of art making. Our society is very concerned about the outcome or the product of creativity as opposed to the process where so much is discovered and learned; these two days taught students what process art is and how process art, despite the fact that it doesn’t have a final tangible product, can carry strong conceptual meanings that move the minds of its viewers. We requested that students be especially thoughtful about what would be heard during their performance that would communicate something powerful to their audience- an appeal to our sense of hearing. View the lesson here.
FOOD ART PORTRAITS
Food portraits were an introductory lesson on food art to preface our final lesson- a collaborative mural where the students would feel and create a work of art with an uncommon part of their body. However, this day’s lesson further informed students’ understanding of process art by allowing them to individually design their own two-dimensional self-portrait in food. We studied artists such as Jason Mecier and Vik Muniz to start to think about why artists would make their work in such transient materials. Students pondered what was the most significant part of this making process: the act of making it, the act of documenting the temporary art, the act of tasting the food art, or act of “destroying” something we’ve created. This lesson was our way of safely incorporating the sense of taste into our unit on the five senses. The lesson can be seen here.
Student artists watching the projected video of their food art murals.
FOOD ART COLLABORATIVE MURALS
Our final lesson on food art concluded our unit, “Coming to Our Senses.” Students engaged collectively in a set of murals where they felt and created works of art with an uncommon part of their body- their feet! This lesson served as a challenging sensory experience to complete the loop on the use of our five senses in art making. Students learned about what movement means within a piece of art and how this can speak heavily on the bodily movements it took to create it; we specifically looked at Jackson Pollock and Janine Antoni since the students have become familiar with both of these artists over the course of the semester. A musical mood was set with each mural so that the students could create movement in their work in either linear or curvilinear motions according to the music. Students had to think critically about the ways in which the food marks would age on the canvases, and we further discovered the unique scents that can result from painting with food. We could not keep the murals themselves, because they were so messy and impossible to preserve; however, we did capture the making process thanks to a couple of volunteer students who filmed with a GoPro camera. View the lesson.
STUDENT TEACHING PRACTICUM: FALL 2013
@ FALK
Yarn Bomb Unit:
The yarn bomb unit with the Falk 8th graders was directed by the students. I taught myself how to crochet so I could teach my students how to as well as slip stitch the pieces together and create a yarn bomb fiber art piece that was measured to go over the object/subject of their choosing. I tried to cater best to all learning styles by use of visual presentations on the ELMO and inspirational powerpoints on Magda Sayeg and Agata Oleksiak. I created step-by-step packets for students to refer back to along the way that have a deeply descripitive written component consistent with the initial vocabulary I used when presenting on the ELMO, and they had visual pictures of how to accomplish each step of the crochet stitch (feel free to request a copy- it is too large of a file to be attached here). I tried to be as available as possible so I could help each individual as needed when they would encounter a challenge. Once students overcame the initial frustration and pushed through, they easily mastered the beginner stitches and wanted to know more. This project took us 6 weeks to complete, but we probably could have used a little more time for the "installation step." Because we were running a little behind, we invited students of all ages after school to have a crochet party to produce as many crocheted pieces for the yarn bomb suit as possible. The students were very excited to have their crochet piece become a part of the school's yarn bombing. The suit has been worn by many students, even the school's director; it was featured in the First Night Parade of 2014 in Pittsburgh thanks to the help of my cooperating teacher and Creative Director for the first night parade, Cheryl Capezzuti, and the Ocotber 2014 issue of Davis School Arts Magazine.
We had a lot of fun photo-shooting our yarn bomb suit.
We had a lot of fun photo-shooting our yarn bomb suit.
Printmaking Unit:
Sixth Graders at Falk experiemented with additive and subtractive printmaking styles in self-directed learning centers before starting on their final linocut project. This was inspired by Katsushika Hokusai's famous series of subtractive woodcuts depicting 36 views of Mt. Fuji. The students were humbled by his expertise but inspired and challenged to depict a place that was very significant in their lives. Sixth graders had to be extremely aware of the tools and techniques they were using while carving into their linocuts; they finally printed a series of 3-5 and signed it like a professional printmaker would. These lessons offer some alternative adaptions for students with varying needs/skills.
Examples of
Student Reflection:
STUDENT TEACHING PRACTICUM: FALL 2013
@ COLFAX
Cardboard City Unit:
First graders at Colfax worked 8 weeks to complete their cardboard city. Students were invested in their artwork, because it was relevant to their world and they were working with especially exciting materials. They first planned their buildings with 2D deisgns, then constructed a cardboard armature, strenthened and smoothed with paper mâché, painted with tempera, and embellished with windows, signs, and so forth.