I recently attended the Spring, 2018 MAEA (Missouri Art Educator Association) Conference in Branson, Missouri. It was a wonderful opportunity to learn from other art educators around the state and spend time creating. I will share a few of my take-aways.
One session I especially enjoyed was taught by Amber Mintert, Art Professor at Missouri Southern State University. Amber walked us through a simple procedure for creating paste resist on cotton fabric. We started by drawing a simple image with Sharpie on white paper:
Amber made the resist by mixing equal parts flour and water. The resist was then funneled into reusable ketchup/mustard bottles or other small squeeze top bottle.
We laid 100% cotton fabric over the Sharpie drawings and squirted the resist on the lines.
These designs were allowed to dry overnight. The next day we painted in the spaces with acrylic paint.
After the acrylic dried we picked the dried resist from our fabric.
They can be washed and are ready to be used for making items such as bags, wall hangings, or clothing.
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| Finished Paste Resist |
Another great session was taught by Erin Price. Erin shared her Steampunk Assemblage unit for teaching sculpture. In the unit students create wall mounted sculptures out of trash. I especially enjoyed the compositions using multiple metallic items, such as gears, chains, etc. Erin used this unit to teach conservation of resources, elements of art, and principles of design. The results were stunning. My middle school students have been requesting a trash art unit so I think Steampunk Assemblage will make it into my classroom.
Another session I really enjoyed was “Watercolor Techniques for Beginning and Advanced Students”. We started is off by drawing a 4 by 6 grid on our water color paper. We then created a loose gestural composition on the paper. In each of the 24 sections we painted watercolor with a different technique. He said so many of us judge watercolor when really we’ve only tried one or two techniques for painting with it. We tried things such as wet on wet, alcohol, drops with toothbrushes, points, sponges, salt, cling wrap over the surface. Time slipped away and I found myself still painting in the room long after the class was dismissed. I finished my first ever watercolor painting and am ready to go for number two. I think watercolors will also be a great addition for artistic expression in my middle school classroom.
I met a wonderful highschool art teacher who teaches bookmaking to her students (I didn’t catch her name). Students sew the pages in, decorate with found objects, and other items special to their lives. I think this would be a great way for students to synthesize learning in my middle school affective class at WINGS. Each week we meet for 40 minutes to learn strategies for meeting social/emotional needs. We focus on the KU Competency Wheel. As students learn about each of the competencies and the relation to their own lives they can create pages in the book. Our affective class runs for two years (7th and 8th grade). The books would take two years to create.
I also had the opportunity to present my own gourd art unit, Out of the Gourdinary:
I met so many kind and helpful educators at the MAEA Conference. I appreciated their willingness to accept me into their community. I loved their positivity and passion for creating, education, and children. It was my honor to spend a weekend in their company.