How do you feel about themed art classes? Is The Fine Art of Harry Potter fine art?

Things that I love, like Star Wars, Dr. Who, Harry Potter, Cat Memes, and Jurassic Park just don't get much attention with the K-5th grade set.  I have in the past taught a meme project to 4th & 5th grade, and we used Dr. Who during our van Gogh unit in 5th, and I'm always quoting Star Wars...

None of this impacts my students with as much enthusiasm as it does me.  No one laughs when I say "I have a bad feeling about this..." and no one understands my terrified face when their water cups start to tremble.

I started coming up with themed classes and events for teens that come to my art studio.  I started Fandom Friday in the Fall and it has been very popular. I recently tried adding themes to more of my classes that teach outside of school with varying success.

I just wrapped up a three week class called The Fine Art of Harry Potter.  I planned the mini-curriculum to include headmaster portraits, wand-making, and mini-figure construction.

We began with headmaster portraits.  We looked at various portraits found on the Harry Potter wiki.  I equated them to portraits painted by Rembrandt and during the Renaissance.  We learned how paint with acrylics, mix colors, and generally use our imaginations.

Our second project was Wand Making!!  This was fun.  We used dowel rods and model magic.  We looked at some of the famous wands of the wizarding world.  We were inspired by those, but ultimately designed our own.  Very fun!  Teens love Model Magic.

View the Flickr album to see some pix.

Remember that time I taught at the Library and I believed that all teens & tweens were little angels?

I hosted Fandom Friday at my art studio the other night. I advertised it for Teens & Tweens to come together in the art room and make masterpieces inspired by their favorite fandom!

Leonardo after da Vinci's Mona Lisa

I was so excited to have five high school kids and six junior high kids spend their evening making art!  I loosely presented the idea of making fine art parodies and provided several resources, but I let them know they were free to use whatever supplies I had and they could work independently on whatever they would like.

It started off pretty good, but the kids had some super high energy.  By the end of the night I was gently scolding a child for running around chasing another kid with a painty paintbrush, unlocking my classroom door to let an escapee back in, asking someone to get off the floor, and helping someone else get paint off their white sleeve.  (Oh yeah, those were all the same two kids.)  Have you ever been to a child's birthday party during the last 5 or 10 minutes?  The kids just had their cupcake and are waiting for their parents to pick them up and they are not engaged, so they run around and chase each other and squeal?  Yeah.  It was like that.

It wasn't that much different than teaching my K-5s, and it was a completely different experience  I had at the library for teen drawing night. I was thinking of my classroom discipline strategies, like using "I" statements:

"I don't like it when you paint on your neighbors face."  And "I need you to stop squealing loudly."

 I also thought about how effective giving students choices are, like:

"You can sit back at the table and work on a project, or I can throw you out the window.  You make the choice."

These were not working too well.

I haven't had discipline issues in my other classes at the studio because I've set up a few mini procedural things as the class begins.  I didn't really even think about stating, "The most important rule in the studio is to stay in your seat!" to a bunch of teens, plus they know there isn't really much I could do about it, except not welcome them back to the next event. Admittedly, I know the kids very well who were the worst.  I know their parents and I've known them since they were little.  I definitely think I could have nipped it in the bud sooner, but because I knew the kids I didn't think it was going to get that out of control.

Regardless!  Everything else about the evening was great.  It was once again refreshing and inspiring to see so many young artists getting excited about art!  Check out our photostream!

Teaching teen drawing night at the library was a great gig.

I have been a K-5th grade art teacher for 14 years.  I love my students and I love what they do, but they are so predictable.  I've reached the point where in a crazy loud classroom a kid can ask me a question and even if I did not hear them at all, I can give them the right answer (98% of the time).

I have been using my art studio to try and teach older students.   Of course, my K-2 classes have been pretty full each week, and I currently have a fourth grade student for private lessons, and one fifth grader enrolled in another class..... so, it's not quite working out as planned.  I have been having a great time teaching my wine+paint events.  Those are great, and I love how receptive and peaceful the class is.  It's that inbetweener group, the tweens & teens that I really want to reach.

Luckily (& finally!) I had the chance when I taught a Teen Drawing Night at the Westmont Public Library.  Of course I was nervous.  I had not taught Junior High or High School for 14 years. A memory that stands out is an 8th grader pushing his desk over and swearing at me. I also remember the time a high school boy trapped a mouse in my classroom and took it outside and threw it.  I was about 4 years older than him, and I taught in a pole barn.  Ahhh Central Illinois.

Yes, I was nervous for Teen Drawing Night.

Holy Cow!  This class at the library was FANTASTIC!  I knew some of the kids because they go to school with my kids, but some strangers were in the crowd too and it was great.  Talk about receptive, these kids were listening, they were polite, they did what I asked them to do.  It was like heaven.

So, naturally now, I am on a mission to find a job teaching junior high.  I know that all junior high kids must act this way these days when they come to art!  I can't wait!