Art with Kids

Some of you may be curious as to what I’m doing with these children I’m teaching. Four days a week, I teach them English. On Fridays, I get to really enjoy myself, teaching art in English to second and third graders. Here’s a glimpse into a typical Friday as well as some of the work my students have produced.

We began with some basic color theory and a study of Piet Mondrian. Students then completed their own Mondrian-influenced piece. Here’s an example by one of my third graders:

Those kids really loved using their rulers. Some even tried to work in Mondrian’s technique, which was without a ruler. Either way, students made really unique pieces and enjoyed the project. I’ve also taught the third graders about background, middle ground, and foreground. They created still life pieces using oil pastels to work in a background, school supplies to draw a still life in the middle ground, and paper flowers to place in the foreground. This project was completed over a couple of hours and students did really well:

Our first Friday in October saw our class interrupted by a theater production, so creation time was very short. Kids worked in watercolor to create an autumn background. They then used marker, colored pencil, or oil pastels to draw in trees and leaves. Here is a work in progress, created by my newest student, a boy from Russia:

And here are my beloved third graders in action:
  

One of my second grade classes designed mandalas on Friday. They seemed to really enjoy this project, using our study of lines to guide them. Some were very intricate for second graders. Others added spiders to their pictures because the mandala format reminded them of webs. These kids have great imaginations and love creating art.

  

Fear and the Truly Terrifying

I have a genuine fear of heights, and I have no idea from where it came.  If I attempt to take part in a height-filled activity, I literally freeze and cannot move, and someone has to work incredibly hard to coax me along.  While my acrophobia is real and something I cannot get past, there are many things in life that just generally freak me out.

Now, some people are frightened by terrorism, guns, ethnic minorities or gangsters, but I went to public school, so I’m all: “what’s the big deal?”  I am far more apprehensive of the truly freaky and/or terrifying:

Squid.  I’m confident the Kraken was based on giant squid, and it’s totally understandable why all those pirates were so terrified.

Ventriloquist dummies.  What insane person thought that was a great idea?! They are truly terrifying with their wide, demonic eyes and their creepy, jerky movements.  No wonder there’s a horror movie dedicated to them, which I will never see.

Clowns.  I never should have seen any part of It, because every time I see a clown, no matter how harmless he/she/it seems, this is all I can think of:

Spiders, and most bugs in general, with their creepiness and oozing and fangs.  I couldn’t even look up pictures to post because I felt like they were crawling all over me.

Children in horror films.  Why are kids so much more creepy in scary movies than adults (with the exception of Jack Nicholson)?!

Tornadoes make my stomach turn with the way they swoop in out of nowhere with incredible force and power and leave behind a wake of destruction, much in the way of a high school girl.

So, there you have it:  I have given you all the information you need to completely damage me.  In hindsight, this entry was a bad idea.  All one has to do is strap me to a high place and force me to watch all the things listed above (including Jack Nicholson and Carrot Top) and I am in a straight jacket for life.

Angel Tree

Since I first began working in high school, one of my favorite things about the Christmas season has been Angel Tree, a ministry that buys Christmas gifts for the children of prison inmates.  We always had an Angel Tree set up at my church, and I would carefully read each angel card until one connected with me.  I would then go out and spend way too much money fulfilling the simple gift requests of the child and the convicted parent.  I never met any of the children, but I imagined their surprise and joy to see a package at Christmas that was from their incarcerated parent, a parent who thought of them often and wanted them to know how loved they were at the holidays.

For the first time, I have not plucked an angel from the tree.  My hours at work have been repeatedly cut until, finally, I was laid off on Monday.  There are not many job options here right now; there haven’t been for months.  I’m not sure when my next paycheck will come, so I did not take an angel.  That has been bothering me for days, so although the rest of my spending must come to an end, I will still pick an angel and buy that child Christmas gifts.