Observation Assignment

 1. My Personal Working Preferences for Artmaking:

I've wanted a studio of my own for the last ten years because I am so particular about the space in which I work.  I must admit I'm rather O.C.D. about artmaking. I have to have all supplies I might need ready and close at hand or I can't work.  I can't count the number of times I have cleaned my apartment and laid out all of my art making just to have a roommate come along a get mad that my stuff is everywhere.  The other really annoying part is that I am slow and methodical about what I'm creating.  Over the years I have grown accustom to going to campus and taking over a classroom for the weekend.  I will clean and organize the whole room or floor in the case of the fibers department, camp out for two or three days, and work till classes start up again on Monday.  There used to be this old leather couch in the Fine Arts Building that was great for power naps.  Because I know I'm slow I have to remove all distractions or I never get anything accomplished.  In the printmaking room or the fibers department I would play movies on the projector but I almost always end up watching more of the movie than making art.  If instead I just play music over the speakers I get a lot more accomplished.
When it comes to planing out a specific piece of work I don't like to plan much at all.  I prefer to play until I feel like it's finished.  My teachers have never really appreciated that much, but some of the pieces I like the most and feel are the best quality had little to no specific design in the beginning.  Usually if I have a design planned it gets thrown out half way through.  As far as rituals go, COFFEE is the only requirement.  Four shots of espresso over ice in a small cup, to be more specific, and usually there will be four to six of them over a forty-eight hour span.  The first time I took fibers I made a needle-felted bag by hand.  I listened to the entire sixth book of Harry Potter on CD, over 100 hours in the fibers department during Thanksgiving break. 


2. Visual Exercise:



3. Observation Experiment Reflection:

I should not work with distractions.  I tried to do this assignment two or three times at home with my niece(3) and nephew(4) running around, but it just didn't work.  I was far too distracted by the kids to get anything accomplished.  I finally went to a friends house where this one drawing took me three hours.  It was painfully slow.  I watched the Sound of Music start to finish, had Facebook open, two different email accounts, three or four other web sites, Pandora and Candy Crush on my phone, and I was talking with the friends who's house I was at.  I even painted my nails neon pink because it was sitting there (I hate pink).  It just about drove me nuts trying to focus with all the distractions.  I know the iGeners think they are so on top of the multitasking thing, but I think they might be fooling themselves.
As a child my mom would play the piano as we fell asleep at night and ever since I've listen to some kind of music in order to fall asleep at night.  During the day I listen to music to drown out the noise of everything around me.  I don't know if it's a short attention span or dyslexia or ADHD but at times I can be quite easily distracted and by listening to music I distract myself from distractions.  If an art room is completely quite I feel like it becomes oppressive.  I want my students to be able to work in a way that makes them comfortable, but allows them to stay on task.  Quiet talking or texting, listening to their own music, or the music I might choose to play have all worked for me in the past.   The administration usually have pretty strict rules about cell phones and I found I am very conflicted about enforcing said restrictions.  At the same time, too much of a good thing can cause just as many issues as silence.  If students are determined enough to do something they will find a way to do it, rules be damned.  If instead students learn not to abuse certain privileges while in my room and they are being productive I see no reason why a limited amount of multitasking shouldn't be allowed or even encouraged. 

Classroom Refection

Attribute #1

"Speed" - Tapscott
Relevance - It is important that I understand this aspect of my students and adapt my habits to help accommodate them.
Classroom Application - Incorporating an online blog or discussion board into my lessons so that students can research topics and communicate with classmates on the subject matter outside of class to enrich the learning experience during class. 
- An online database that the school uses to keep parents informed of their students progress is widely being adapted by many school districts around the country.  This form of immediacy for the student's grades requires teachers to stay on top of assessments of students work.  If the same system which parents use to view grades offered the option for images than the parents would be able to see the work which generated the grade.  This option might also expose the teacher to more criticism from parents.

Attribute #2
"Connected yet Disconnected" - Unrath & Mudd
Relevance - A by-product of the connectivity of today's youth is a lack of social interaction on a face to face basis.  Adolescence is a particularly awkward time in a student's life.  Socially interacting in a structured yet informal and creatively free setting offers kids the opportunity to develop the protocols necessary for the future vs the highly structured environment of the core classroom.  Like recess is for Elementary, the art class can be to middle or high school students.  My classroom moto will always be PLAY, and there is no such thing as a mistake, only new opportunities for learning.
Classroom Application - Classroom critiques are often painful to sit through in beginning college art classes.  If students taught how to critique each other and themselves

Attribute #3
"Multi-taskers" - Unrath & Mudd / Rosen
Relevance - The iGens may think they are champions of multitasking but the studies show it is not true.  They are actually worse at higher levels of thinking, understanding, and reasoning.  This relates to the students ability to learn and the teachers job of knowing what and how to teach.  Being aware of any and all limitations the student may have offers more opportunities for differentiating lesson planning.
Classroom Relevance - Music can help to give students focus whether it is something I play or they play form their phones.  Music can distract them from distraction (friends) so that they focus on creativity. 

Attribute #4
"Evaluating Differently" - Prensky
"Scrutiny" - Tapscott
Relevance - These two attributes are not defined the same way but they both speak to a growing awareness of not taking things at face value, a "man word" is no longer enough.  The iGeneration must have prof first, legitimacy based on the testimonies of hundreds or even thousands of online testimonials.  Becoming a teacher does not hold the same authority it did fifty years ago.  Students now have access to the same social networks that young adults (some not young at all) flood with images of their lives.  Where once one person's word could be spread to another and another at a relatively slow pace, now one image can be viewed by hundreds or thousands of people instantly.  As teachers we must hold ourselves to a much higher standard of conduct.  The lines have blurred between personal and professional lives, teachers do not have the luxury of being anything but above reproach. 
Classroom Application - The iGeneration is able to find vast amounts of information at the click of a button, often before the words are even entered into the search.  With this overload of information the iGeneration has adapted to evaluate worthiness quickly.  Whether their assumptions are always accurate is debatable but were older generations might find it daunting even to begin to sort through the iGen'ers think nothing of it.  I myself identify with the second group often. In the modern world of contemporary art the line between what is an is not art almost does not exist.  A weekly discussion of new vs old ideas of art is would be a wonderful springboard for a class blogging activity.  IGen'ers are well equipped to investigate and search out artist which interest or relate to their personalities. 

Attribute #5
"Grow Up Differently" - Prensky
Relevance - In order to teach any curriculum to the fullest you much understand who it is that you are teaching.  You need every possible scrap of information you can, because the iGeneration has an understanding of technology which expands as quickly as the technology advances.  Lessons and projects that the students see as boring can not offer a rich and juicy learning experience. 
Classroom Application - Being unafraid to experiment with and use technology is the first and biggest step.  Using technology to create a connected classroom with blogs for communication outside of the classrooms, online forums for displaying students artworks such as Artsonia, Animation apps like DoInk or Animoto, Photoshop, Percolator App, Vimeo, or the even document camera Rotoschoping on iPads.  An iPhone or Android device are instant cameras in your pocket and provide streaming music for students 

Read & Reflect #5

It's strange to think that an article written less than ten years ago could be so completely outdated and useless.  Technology advances at such a rate that it is intimidating for me when thinking about my own classroom.  Even the ten years I've been in college (sad I know), education has drastically changed along with technology.   I took a class two years ago in which I had to buy a Clicker from the MU bookstore, it was used for daily attendance and quizzes.  I had never heard of Clickers because it had been several years since I had had a lecture class.  I was irritated with having to spend so much money on it when there was no returning it or even selling it to another student for the next semester.  One of the T.A.'s in the class had a quiz/pole he had us answer with our cell phones.  The technology was awesome.  We answered the questions by texting our responses and the information was instantly compiled and displayed on the website projected on the big screen in the front of the class.  The T.A. informed up he was using the app for his students at the local high school where he taught.  I didn't even have a cell phone the first two years of college.
M.V.L.E.'s for my future classes still seem at odds with what I envision my at room experience to be.  Firstly, when I began my student teaching I had to de"friend" several students in the district.   The state has had to adapt strict regulations concerning social media because of an abuse of power/position/privilege that some MO teachers have demonstrated.  Many of the kids I de"friended" were babies or toddlers I babysat back in middle and high school.  I like being able to see how these kids are growing up into young adults.  While this makes me feel much older than I really am, I was rather off put to learn I was legally no longer allowed to be associated with them on Facebook.  I mention this because quite honestly Facebook is the only online/virtual environment I am comfortable with.  If I was to utilize an M.V.L.E. in my classroom I will need to do a lot of research and experimenting to find a forum I am comfortable with.  Maybe that is something I need to do anyway.  For a high school setting, possibly middle, the M.V.L.E. would be ideal for offering students more time to explore and discover contemporary and historically relevant Artist.  In collegiate settings M.V.L.E.'s seem only natural now.  I never once thought twice about emailing a teacher in order to stay connected with them and at the very least Blackboard or Blogging is a necessary component to all my classes.  
Secondly, I just can't get past the need for a tactile experience in an art room regardless of the innumerable iPad Apps that are available.  There are many ways to incorporate technology into the art room and that experience should be/needs to be blended with the tactile aspects of making art.  There are as many different ways to create art as there are personalities creating it. Depending on your definition of multitasking, I have been incorporating technology into my own art making process for a decade and a half.  By listening to music I find it easier to concentrate and focus on the project, and for as many years I have been sneaking my music into class in order to work.  From my Discman to my android cell phone with Pandora streaming 24/7 music has been a necessity for me.   I see no reason why my students can't do the same with their own working process.  I would hope it'd encourage each one to be more focused on the project at hand. 

App Review

I remember the first paint program we had on the family computer.  I would play for hours making circles, squares, patterns, dragging out lines with the mouse and erasing with the click of a button.  The paint app of today's iPad used by artist David Hockney and to the stumbling around in the dark that I did 20 years ago are a universe apart.  I was first introduced to Hockney by my 2-D teacher Daria Kerridge.  She told me about Hockney because of his Polaroid and photo collage pieces like - Merced River,Yosemite Valley, Sept. 1982
Telephone Pole, 1982
Nicholas Wilder Studying Picasso, 1982
Patrick Procktor, Pembroke Studios, London 1982. 

Hockney has been one of Britain's most prolific and renown artist for over 60 years. Over the decades as new technology has come about he has embarrassed it.  With the iPad Hockney has created entire shows exhibiting the pieces he creates using a stylus or his finger.  In one such show he displayed 40 separate iPads on a signal wall, each with a different image.  Some of the iPads would display the creations of his image start to finish in a continuous loop while others just the final piece.   In January of 2013 DAVID HOCKNEY RA: A BIGGER PICTURE was displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.  This show displayed large printouts of his digital images in addition to his large scale oil paintings, some filling entire walls.  Hockney's earlier work has inspired a number of my own art pieces so I wanted to explore the paint apps which might be available for smart phones.

http://vimeo.com/30363451 - this is a short clip of Hockney's pieces being created.

Paint Joy - Free your inner artist - FREE

A wonderful drawing program for all ages to free your imagination and inner artist. Simple, neat while full of possibility.
With Paint Joy, you have full control of brush style, color, brush size, background color etc.
Paint Joy has more than 20 beautiful brushes, such as glow neon, glow, crayon, chalk, sketch etc. You can draw on a color canvas, or decorate any of your photos to make them more beautiful.
The app supports built-in gallery， which saves not only your drawing pictures, but also the drawing animation. You can play back your masterpieces like a small film anytime you want with the "Movie" feature in app.

Despite the smallish size of my phone I had a lot of fun creating this piece.  I had to learn how to use just the tip of my finger.  The variation of lines, colors, color effects, shading or even blocking in sections of color were are fun to play with.  I love working with lines and attempted to create a complex image with just my finger tip.  You can start with blank screen or pull up an existing picture on your phone.  I had two complaints with the app, one, the screen size of my phone was small and I would have liked to work on a larger scale and two, once I downloaded my finished drawing I could no longer play the image.  On the mobile devise you are able to watch mark by make being created.  My computer is not an iPad so I was not able to add the program to my HP laptop.  I was a little disappoint the image looked washed out once it was on my computer as well, it seemed brighter on the phone.  The Eye took me just over two hours to create.


Ideally each of my students would have an iPad to work with and if so they would have a larger surface area to work with/on.  In an interview Hockney said he would make drawing on the sunrise and send them to his friends almost as soon as he created them ten or fifteen people would have access to them and comment on them.  He would do this every day and after a year his friends had hundreds of different images of his original works.  The immediacy for me was the best part of his use of new technology of his new works.

The Eye