That Little Art Teacher: Supplies

Showing posts with label Supplies. Show all posts

Sketchbooks… I High School Necessity

While teaching elementary, I dreamed of using sketchbooks in class. I had seen others in the blogging world implement them successfully, but for some reason or another I could never get around to making it work. Not even in my 45 minutes of time.

But… I knew in high school it would be different. The very first thing on my supply order for the year was sketchbooks. Our art department is very lucky to be able to charge an art fee and fundraise to have the funds we do. I was able to purchase them all. I think of the sketchbook as my textbook and here's why...

Sketchbook "pinsperations"
Project ART-A-Day
Pinterest sketchbook page

Sketchbook Goals
Note taking / Bell Ringer Work
At the beginning of each class I will have a Bell Ringer (something for the students to work on when they arrive and while I take attendance and basic "house cleaning" things) on the screen. Usually it is an activity that relates to the lesson or notes. I do this using PowerPoint and my projector.
When I give notes, I try to cram as many of our notes onto one PowerPoint slide that are easily read. I also try to keep my notes as short and simple as I can. Students have 10 to 15 minutes for Bell Ringers. If they didn't have enough time to copy notes, it's okay. The notes they needed reappear when I actually go through the PowerPoint for the day's lesson.
If students didn't have time to finish the activity they will need to finish it after the lesson/instruction.

Students may trace a post-it so they can draw a picture alongside their notes.

Cut out color wheel for Bell Ringer that is pasted into sketchbook for note taking.

All Bell Ringers are dated. Monochromatic bell ringer Pre-Assessment

Practice
The thing that scared me most when I was in art class was little prep for the actual project. The teacher would explain and demo during the lesson, but then hand you the paper and say, "Now let's begin." I was always scared to begin because I had had no practice. I always allow my students to practice with materials and techniques before beginning an actual project. This has worked best with color mixing and value studies with various materials. The 50 lb paper may not be best for all materials, but it works well for practice.
I teach by the "I do, we do, you do". First, I demo. Then, we practice together. Finally, they do it on their own in the sketchbook or go right into the project. This has been such a successful teaching method and the sketchbooks are an crucial part of it.
I have seen less waste for "Redo's" because of the sketchbooks.

Pre-assessment Bell Ringer

"We do" student does while teacher demos

"You do" student practices on their own.

Experimentation
Kinda the same as practice. Students experiment with color mixing and techniques.

Grid drawing
Many students are leery to work BIG. So, when we begin a large sized project they may want to draw it first in their sketchbook and then use the grid system to enlarge. I will usually provide a template to trace into their sketchbook so that the sizing will be correct.

(Sorry, somehow I managed not to get a pic of this)

Pre-Assessment
Most Bell Ringer work is a pre-asseement of sorts. I can walk around while they work and get a grasp as to who needs more work. Sometimes I am pleased to see that I don't need to spend as much time as expected on a technique if I can see that most have it. It's also a great way to document student growth.

Color wheel and pre-assessment for color mixing

Pre-assessment for color pencil and composition

Pre-assessment for drawing and hatching

Rough Sketches and Drafts
I require rough sketches and drafts for some projects we do as part of their grade. I may require 3 thumb nail sketches or just one to see what their idea is. This has been wonderful to help with 3D planning.

referring to her plan

planning out designs

Notice her plan in the background

More design planning

Drawing out her painting from her draft

sketching some ideas

What Sketchbook do I use?
I like to use Strathmore Sketch. It has 100 sheets of 50 lb paper. Not the best for watercolor, but it will do the job. I like to have many pages so they can continue to sketch on their own. Students in Art I must leave the book in their class "mailbox". All other arts can take them home, but must have them each day as a part of a daily grade. It was the best bang for the buck.
At the end of the semester the sketchbooks are theirs to take home. They may choose not to keep them and I will keep them for reference or repurpose them. If I don't have enough sketchbooks and I get a new student, I will tear out pages and give the old sketchbook.

Prang / Ticonderoga product reviews

I was asked by the wonderful Dixon company to put their products through the ringer. Well, my students sure did do that. During the whole school year I used Ticonderoga / Prang products along side of some of my typical art supplies to see how they performed.

Below is a picture of Prang markers alongside of my go-to markers Crayola. You already get two bonus markers in the Prang pack, Yippee!!

I always purchase Crayola markers for the school year so I placed all 12 of the Prang markers in one basket and Crayola in the other 5 baskets. During lessons the Prang basket was always used along with the Crayola. During one of our sketchbook assignments one student wanted to use them both, and her experiment summed up our testing quite well.

Below you can see how she divided her paper.

On the left side she used Prang markers and on the right Crayola.

Prang markers provided a richer color. Though they do tend to bleed through… a lot. They also bled into other colored areas. Below you can see a picture of the back of the paper. The sketchbook paper is the same weight as my drawing paper at 60lb, so the bleed through is pretty ominous.

If you want richer color and don't mind bleeding, go for Prang. I do think however that I will stick with Crayola in the marker department.

The next product were the Prang Large Triangular Colored Pencils vs. my classroom choice Crayola colored pencils.

I provided one table with Prang and the others with Crayola and Cra-Z-Art colored pencils. I never have to buy colored pencils because they are a required supply for our county, but our teachers don't use them much so they give them to me at the end of each year.

Below is a color wheel review exercise. Students only used Primaries Red, Yellow, and Blue and mixed to create the Secondaries.

Prang color wheel

Beautiful and rich color that mixed very well. Students loved the triangular grip and larger size. One student said, "They're not like Kindergarten big, but they're bigger and I like it."

Crayola Color Wheel

Color was not as rich and they didn't mix as well.

Cra-Z-Art Color Wheel

Color not rich at all. We could never really get the secondaries we wanted.

Cra-Z-Art pencils after one use.

Crayola pencils after one use.

Prang pencils after one use. Best tips!

Prang pencils come with their own sharpener in the box and it does an awesome job. Larger pencils equal larger lead and they don't break easily. Heck, they didn't break easily during use!

I think I'll be requesting Prang colored pencils from now on.

Next up we have the Ticonderoga pencils against regular Target brand.

These pencils have held up great! Their erasers have lasted longer. They sharpen with little to no breakage in the process and they take the longest to dull.

Below you can see that with the same pressure you get a darker color with the Ticonderoga (top) pencil then the Rose Art (middle) and Target (bottom) brand. I prefer Ticonderoga.

(this picture was after 3 weeks of use)

Finally, the last product are the Prang (left) Watercolors against Crayola (right) watercolors.

I choose Prang watercolors over Crayola every time because of what you get for the price in class packs. Also if one of your paint wells runs out you can take it out (as seen in the bottom pallet below) and replace it with a new one. With Crayola you will have to replace the whole pallet or use two at a time when colors run low.

When you buy a class pack of Prang watercolors they come with refills. You can refill the whole pallet or one well at a time. I take all the refill wells out and separate the colors into empty oil pastel class pack boxes for better storage.

Crayola watercolors are very neon which the kids do love, but red looks pink and black looks grey.

Crayola painted onto Crayola Model Magic. Students didn't like how the color faded.

Below are the Prang watercolors at their best. Nice rich colors.

Prang even works great on Crayola Model Magic! Wet or dried.

That Little Art Teacher's final recommendation

Markers

Crayola

Colored Pencils

Prang

Pencils

Ticonderoga

Watercolors

Prang!

Put a Cap on It

I love the pump lids that come with many gallon paints, but good GOSH I can't stand how much they clog... I even stopped using the pumps for a year because I was so tired of sticking a paper clip in there. Alas, I also did not enjoy tipping the gallon over to poor into my smaller paint bottles.

Smaller paint bottle

I always wondered why someone could not come up with a stopper for the paint like they have for the Elmers glue pumps... Maybe they have, I just haven't found them yet. I don't spend my days googling paint pump stoppers.

One day it finally hit me. I needed something I could mold to the pump to stay and fit perfectly...