Art

Andy Warhol Xmas cards. And a blog with more examples

I  wrote this in the days immediately before Xmas, to consider ways in which such occasions and times of communal sharing and celebration are represented, focused on and may be worked on in conjunction with the arts.

A very sustainable Christmas - The approach of Ridgeway Primary School UK
http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/CaseStudies/casestudy.cfm?id=518

Electric December: On-line Advent calendar from young filmakers across Europe. Check the archives for primary student contributions.
http://www.electricdecember.org/08/about.html

Who designs Christmas cards? This site shows examples from several well known artists who have done so… a great opportunity to address VELS exploring and responding in the visual arts.
http://santasmailbox.blogspot.com/2007/08/christmas-art-2.html

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Father Christmas letters – an illustrated book of Tolkien’s letters/drawings made for his children. These websites are devoted to Tolkiens work, and have a large array of dust jacket images from many of his books.
http://www.tolkienbooks.net/html/1975.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2001/12/07/books/tolk-christmas.slideshow_1.html

Unit of work suitable for interdisciplinary developmen
This site is run by a commercial Xmas tree producer in Canada, and includes an education kit on the history and production of Xmas trees. There is a strong science focus, which could be tied to caring for a live tree and production of the inevitable class decorations.
http://www.christmastrees.on.ca/education/teacher-s-guide.html

Celebrations from around the globe, linked to date
http://www.earthcalendar.net/index.php

Unit of work: Uses CJ Dennis’s Poem A Bush Christmas as a focal point for a range of interdisciplinary outcomes. Non-religious
http://www.bdb.com.au/pdf/teachersnotes/bush_christmas_TN.pdf

Handmade christmas cards – wax resist techniques
http://painting.about.com/od/paintingforkids/ss/waxresist_card.htm

Kids Christmas Rap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVouuXQwhi0

Christmas Songs Site: Very extensive collection of audio files, lyrics, artist/composer biographies from diverse music genres, and christmas traditions. Teacher resource and child friendly.

http://www.santasearch.org/index.asp

I was introduced to the work of Brisbane based artist Alisdair MacIntyre via the Artscape programe on the ABC Tuesday night a couple of weeks ago, and from this small (No Pun intended – truly) beginning a lot of other connections have become evident, including one which has serious and far reaching consequences for the future.

Alisdair’s work like sculptor Ricky Swallow draws on a fascination with childhood toys, including the iconic film series Star Wars.

Two nights after I saw the Artscape program I encountered a more sinister offshoot from the passion for Starwars , and the human capacity to reimagine an existing idea on the news – examples of which are below. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night when I arrived home there were a couple of shiny parcels on my kitchen table. These were a very early birthday present courtesy of my partner and the government bonus. One of the parcels was an ipod. Today has been the start of my ipod adventure, and a day of musing about music.  

I had already been musing about music, because yesterday I took part in a survey about music teaching in Universities. The survey will be part of a submission to the Federal government’s national Arts curriculum put together by the Music Council of Australia . This body plays a role in advocacy for music in Australian schools, has advice on seeking music teachers and musicians; articles of interest, regular newsletters and so on. Go see for yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

What did you do on the weekend? I know a few of you went to Booktown in Clunes, because I saw/heard you were there. I ended up going three times, scouring the stalls for arts references, children’s picture story books and gardening books. I ended up with a goodly bundle of resources, but also had the pleasure of doing some paper marbling, meeting a children’s book illustrator – Ann James and also one half of a two person team who run an excellent blog on children’s books weheartbooks.com. Katie (from weheartbooks) and I met up in a couple of places over boxes of childrens books, and we exchanged info on the joys of small people (son and in my case grandson) and of picture books. That’s one of the great joys of going to events like these – you never know who you might meet up with and where it might take you. Read the rest of this entry »

In class the other day I was talking to a student about textiles. She asked me if I was familiar with Chinese doubled sided embroideries, and when I indicated my interest sent me a web address. Now I’m sharing it with you. Thanks heaps Louise, its amazing!

Another student (thanks Jon) sent me a youtube video of Sir Ken Robins speaking both seriously and entertainingly at a TED Conference on: Do schools kill creativity? This is an issue which needs to be addressed in the light of emerging awareness of the need to generate creative thinkers. What do you think? Read the rest of this entry »

The Age ran this news story on Sunday 29th of March… Its a great example of the kinds of topical issues you can use to explore the roles of arts in society.

Today’s visit to the Eureka centre while ostensibly about history, also highlighted some great examples of using the arts in a socio/cultural and educational context. While I refer specificially to the courtroom drama, the centre offers a range of arts focused activities which were evident moving through the rooms, as well as in the surrounding environment. Which activities did you make note of, Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve recently come across the e-potential site run by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. This shows a range of downloadable videos and weblinks relating to e learning across all levels areas of the curriculum and schooling in general. There’s a section that talks back directly to what I said in lecture one about the current interest in designing effective teaching and learning spaces.  It has videos and other downloadable files (but right now the one on art spaces isn’t working – but I’ve sent an email).  Check out the secondary students using Moodle and webquests and primary kids making radio broadcasts and animations.

Two other great sites are the UK run teacherstv and teachertube . At teacherstv you can find a whole Read the rest of this entry »

The Arts have a vital role to play in allowing us and our students to ‘speak the unspeakable’,  ‘think the unthinkable’ and to find grounds for hope when our lives have been turned upside down by outside events. 
For several years now I have been showing students creative works generated in response to events which have impacted on communities great and small around the globe. Examples include drawings by UK students in response to the Foot and Mouth epidemic in 2002; childrens recordings of music Read the rest of this entry »

Writing this in the midst of the January heatwave, I feel the urgent need for a greater involvement in combining the arts and environment in our primary (secondary, tertiary) curriculum. So I went looking… This was a reasonably short search using the keywords art, environment, primary education in google web, google web Australia, and google images.

Geoproject website includes online exhibitions and downloadable project/unit of work for upper primary art/environment.

Art for a changing school environment. A case study of artists changing children’s play spaces and interactions.

Article: Art Education Victoria magazine, includes articles on art/environment projects in Victorian Schools.