Fieldwork Experience

For my fieldwork this semester I have the opportunity to work at a local high school once a week with an excellent mentor teacher. I have been to the school three times already and am going to begin my lesson with the students on Wednesday. Something interesting about my placement are the courses that my mentor teacher has. My mentor teacher has some interesting courses in graphic design, architecture, drawing/design for production, and ceramics, and it has been excited to see how I can help the students. When the graphic design students are working on layouts for designs or collages, my mentor teacher encourages them to ask me questions about composition and color. I also really enjoy her ceramics courses and drawing/design for production class. In these particular classes it is interesting to observe the students problem solve. Whether working on their ceramic hollow animal sculptures or building rooftops for houses in DDP, my mentor teacher encourages the students to work through problems, experience some trial and error, and work hard for a rewarding final product. By experiencing these various courses I am getting a taste for what a high school art curriculum has to offer beyond studio art.
For my lesson I am going to be able to bring a bit of what I know to the graphic design students. As they will be doing a printmaking project in the future, they are responsible for learning color theory and to mix color. Together, my mentor teacher and I brainstormed to come up with a way in which she could introduce color theory to them and I could follow up with a paint mixing lesson. We wanted them to do something more interesting then to just make color swatches. I reflected on what I had done in terms of learning my color mixing and reflected on when I took a Cezanne painting, broke it down into shapes, and recreated those colors. I wanted them to do something similar but with something more meaningful to them. They had been creating collages in order to express a particular emotion. I thought, what if they took a small section of their collage piece, creating a new composition, and matched those colors? This way they could create a painting, with a definite focus on color mixing. They students will have to really examine the color. What would they first define it as? Now how can you tone that down? What is really in there? Below is the teacher sample I made of both the collage and the 3 inch by 3 inch painting. I can't wait to see what the students come up with.