Free Beginning Art Course in Canvas Commons!

I just uploaded my Beginning Art (Art 1) course for Visual Arts to Canvas Commons! If you use Canvas as your LMS, this should be easy for you to download and import into your own course. 

Here is the link if you're interested: Beginning Art

About the course

Unit 1: Elements of Art / Principles of Design

This is an overview of the elements and principles. There are google slides that prompt students to take notes and create some basic examples in their sketchbooks. They analyze how the elements / principles are used in an artwork and there's a quiz at the end of the unit.

Unit 2: Classifying and Critiquing Art

This unit covers the classification of representational, abstract and non-objective artwork. Students also learn about different genres: still life, landscape, history paintings, portraits, etc. The four steps of critiquing an artwork (describe, analyze, interpret and evaluate) are deconstructed, and students have a chance to practice using them. 

Unit 3: Element of Art: Space Practice

Students will learn about how artists use space in their work. Overlapping, aerial perspective, linear perspective, high/low placement, and size are all techniques that artists use to create the illusion of space. Students will learn to recognize these and exemplify them. There are tutorials in creating drawings of interior and exterior spaces using one and two point perspective and a tutorial on applying aerial perspective when using graphite and watercolor. At the end of the unit, students critique an artwork that uses many of the techniques they learned about. 

Unit 3: Element of Art: Space Project

Students have the choice between two projects. Both projects require students to use the techniques they've been practicing to create an artwork that gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional space on a 2-dimensional surface.

Unit 4: Drawing Exercises

I used to teach this unit before the space unit, but many students find it easier to be successful in the space unit so I teach that one first to build their confidence. In this drawing exercises unit, students will learn a variety of exercises that artists use to strengthen their drawing skills: blind-contour drawing, contour drawing, and drawing upside down. They will learn how to draw ellipses and how to create thumbnail sketches. They'll put all of this together by drawing a still life that prompts them to arrange their own items, create thumbnail sketches and "block in" their still life during the beginning stages. 

Unit 5: Value and Shading

Students practice shading with graphite by creating several value scales using blending, hatching, cross-hatching, and stippling. Then, they practice shading a variety of geometrical forms.

Unit 6: Portraiture and Grid Drawing

This unit breaks down how to draw each of the features of the face using correct proportions. After drawing a self-portrait from a mirror, students learn how to draw using a grid and a 2:1 ratio. The final project in this unit is a portrait applying their previously learned drawing and shading techniques. 

Unit 7: Color, Texture and Final Exam

This unit is packed! Students learn about color theory and texture through several exercises. Then, they begin working on their final exam project that requires them to apply a lot of what they have learned throughout the semester.

Each project, and most assignments, have detailed rubrics and tutorial videos so that students can complete assignments at home if they have to be absent for any length of time. A virtual teacher could choose to use this entire course while another teacher may only choose to use portions. Hopefully it's helpful to most middle / high school art educators.

One more thing - At the beginning of the course are 4 modules that are not part of the units. The first module contains the syllabus and a few activities that I use at the beginning of the year when schedules are still being changed. The 2nd module houses my classroom clean-up schedule. Students sign up to clean different things in the art room throughout the semester, and this gives them ownership and responsibility over the materials. The 3rd and 4th modules are my "bell-ringers." When students first come in the classroom, they choose one of the drawings on their table to draw from. Each week, there are about 5-10 drawings on each table. They submit a photograph of their drawings at the end of the week. 

I hope someone out there found this helpful! When I started teaching, I was so overwhelmed. I had 5 different course preps and there was NO written curriculum for my county - JUST the standards. I wish I had something like this put in place that I could tweak to make my own. If you have any questions about any of the material, feel free to email me! 

Remote Learning: Art Class

I am currently in my ninth week of remote learning, and I have never worked so hard in my life! I also decided to complete all four components of National Board Certification this year... so that definitely factors into the workload. 

I am ALL about sharing content to help other teachers out during this time. It occurred to me that I haven't posted on my blog in a long time, and this is the perfect place to share some of the things I've been doing. 

First, let me give you some background information. My high school is fully remote right now and will be until at least January. I'm on a block schedule with four class periods- three classes and one planning period. When we are in person, those classes are 90 minutes, but the synchronous Zoom meetings are cut down to 60 minutes. We take attendance, and 70% - 80% of my students are attending, which is fairly comparable to when we are at school in person. 

I've gotten into a groove with how I run my Zoom meetings, and I would LOVE to hear your own success stories in the comments- I'm always willing to shake things up a bit and try new things. Basically, here are a few "procedures" that have been working for me. I grade student work throughout the day and try to make sure that everything has been graded before my first class meets each day. While I'm grading, any time I have specific feedback that needs to be shared with a student, I make a note in my notebook. Sometimes, I include the feedback in Speedgrader (in Canvas), but if it's something that I want to have a conversation with a student about, I make a note. 

At the beginning of each Zoom meeting, I deliver direct instruction and outline what the students will be doing for independent practice. This part of the Zoom meeting is recorded for students to view later if they missed something or were absent. 

Then, I put all of the students in individual break-out rooms. To do this, I click on break-out rooms, assign automatically, and I make more rooms than there are students... just in case some students join late. First, I visit each of the students that I made a note to give feedback to. We go over the feedback and I move on to the next student. Every time I speak to a student individually, I record their current grade on a printed spreadsheet so I can see how it goes up or down over time, and I can see how often I meet with them. After I meet with students that need individual feedback, I meet with students that I haven't met with in a day or two. Generally, I'm able to meet with each student individually every 1-3 class periods. Here's a sample of what my spreadsheet looks like. 

If I have a row with several empty spaces, that is usually due to absences, and I know to contact home or to let our admin / guidance counselors know. 

In our district, all of our middle and high school teachers are using Canvas as our learning management system. As I go along, I am sharing my modules into Canvas Commons so that other art teachers can use them. Here's an example of one of my modules and how to find it:

If you aren't using Canvas, but you are looking for tutorial videos, check out my YouTube Channel. I currently have demos on shading, linear perspective and a few other things. My tutorial on drawing boxes in one-point perspective is shown below.

If there's anything else I can share, send me an email and I'll do what I can! I would also love to hear about any tricks or tips you have about teaching remotely during this pandemic!