Colour Theory Unit

The first thing I thought about when getting this position, was what are some base skills that the students need to learn in order to create successful art pieces and projects this year?

The answer that came to my mind from my art training was colour. While there are many other elements of art explored in this unit including form, texture, line and shape..colour was the main focus. I believe that once students young or old start to understand colour theory then all projects both in 2D and 3D have a higher level of success. 

The wall of my art room, has grown a lot more colourful since my first post! Each year level helped me sort the pencils and markers into different colours, and put them on the counter as a cool/warm colour banquet for the students to easily access for the rest of the year. The bonus of doing this gives them control of their own supplies, and the ability to get it themselves. It also solves the fighting over colours problem that comes from having the colours at different tables. 

I started each year level in a different ways going through what primary, and secondary colours were, testing their prior knowledge! Most students had little or no knowledge of these. After we figured these out, we then talked about warm and cool colours, as well as colour buddies (complementry colours).

This gave us our base for our unit( and the rest of the year!) 

In foundation and 1/2, this was our source image:

The Foundations made crayon and watercolour resisits:

And then framed them, and added their name sticker! I was very pleased (and so were the students!) in how they turned out. 

The 1/2s created paper circles, (see classroom makeover post) and used another one of Kandinskys images to create a crayon and water colour shape composition.

The 3/4s looked at warm and cool colours (and patterns) in melbourne graffiti:

The 5/6s used different Keith Haring images to source their work using complementry colours:

The students really enjoyed this project, as they got to add their own twist to it. Our school has many Samoa students in it, and they did a great job of adding symbols from their culture into their work. 

This brings my colour theory post to an end, but I know the future work by the students at this school, will reflect their in depth learning of how to use colour.

Setting up the Classroom Environment (Small cheap classroom makeover)

 I was so excited to have finally landed my dream job, as an art teacher at a primary school in the north western suburbs of Melbourne. My first thoughts when walking into my new space, was that it needed a facelift to boost the enthusiasm for the arts. Not having a lot of time or money (I didn't know what my budget was yet) I decided that I would make a few changes before the students got there. These included:

Making the walls brighter and full of excitement towards the arts

A soft spot for them to sit while I showed demos or create art themselves (like independent drawing) 

This is a before photo of my one classroom wall. 

This photo underneath it, is just a simple paper face lift until I can get the money a resources to paint the walls properly! 

This is my soft rug that I got from Harvey Norman ( I know I am name dropping!) but the guy who worked there, used to be a teacher himself and after I explained what I was trying to create ( and that I didn't have $200+ to spend on carpets) he had an idea about a huge shipment they had gottan of this particular grey brick rug, which brought down the cost to only $70. Which compared to the classroom rugs I looked at online and in other store was the biggest bargain! Goes to show you what asking can get you.

This photo is after most of the 1/2s work was hung on the tree. The circles are inspired by Kandinskys circles, and inspired my whole colour unit ( another blog post to come) 

This is a before photo of the other main wall I am trying to transform ( there are huge cracks and falling down shelves)

Since this photo was taken, I have managed to get the shelves taken down, and taken down the word wall. (The paper paint brushes were done with brown butchers paper, thumb tacks, and coloured rolls of paper) The black square was put up there to remind me how I want to paint that wall black, as the students work will really pop! The students faces when they walked in on the first day was great. 

My small first day makeover is one small step towards improving the whole environment of the room. I have big plans for how I want it to look and run, and already in the last four weeks the look of the classroom has changed again with the students art work. ( see future blog posts!) 

The final photo I want to share on this post is my board of learning intentions. Some rainbow duct tape, and whiteboard markers, there's a clear board for students to refer to. ( you can see it in the first photo of the post ) there are a few more changes I would like to make to it but for now it's pretty and doing its job well! 

Thats all for now in the small classroom makeover post! 

The Eyes You're Looking Through (about me)

Hello fellow Bloggers and Art Education enthusiasts, 

My name is Angela Huber, and I am 27 years old. I have been teaching for three years, this being my third year in the teaching world. I started my life In Canada, and went to the University of Lethbridge in a province called Alberta. I decided as soon as I was done my degrees in fine arts, and education that I was ready for adventure, and landed in Australia. Since then I have made my home in Melbourne, Victoria with my fiancé Matt and my dog Keira .This year I got my first contract as an Arts teacher. I have decided to blog about my time in the classroom, as a way of reflective practise and to reach out to the broader community. I recently realised I spend a lot of time learning through other peoples blogs and thought it was time to give back. I also want to use it as a way of sharing with my friends and colleagues around the world what I am up to in my classroom. If you are a fellow teacher, you know how busy teaching life can get (as I am currently also doing one day a week in a 3/4 classroom) but I want to share as often as I can. Any comments, feedback or ideas are welcome.

Warm Regards, 

Angela Huber