ELEMENTARY ABSTRACT MARK MAKING A Jordan DeWilde couple of years ago, while taking my third-grade stu-dents on a field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, a student asked me, “How come we don’t study any artists who are still alive?” He was right. At the time, my curricu-lum for third grade lacked any living artists, and although I incorporated more contemporary examples in my other grade levels, I knew I needed to make some changes. Inspired by Heather Hansen I was first introduced to artist and dancer Heather Hansen by my former classmate, Kim St. Leger (@artastic-gws), and later by my student teacher, Johannah Tomita (@ms.tomita.art). Both of these women are phenomenal art teachers and provide great examples of contemporary art in their class-rooms. Each had approached interpret-ing and teaching Hansen in different ways, and I decided to put my own spin on the artist to add something new to my third-grade curriculum. The First Class We started our unit with a time-lapse video I found on YouTube of Hansen creating her large-scale abstract draw-ings. She uses a full range of motion with charcoal in each hand to create symmetrical marks on large paper. After watching the video, I gave stu-dents each a sheet of copy paper and asked them to choose two of the same art materials: colored pencils, markers, crayons, etc., and mirror Hansen’s style by using both hands to make simulta-neous and symmetrical marks. At first, students struggled. Many didn’t understand that their marks didn’t need to look like a specific subject. Some students tried to use Hansen’s methods to create flowers, Art teacher Jordan DeWilde proudly wears a t-shirt featuring nine of his students’ artworks. Next page, top: Students’ Hansen-inspired artworks. Bottom: Lauren Weems, grade three. With a better understanding of how the artist moves and creates, students felt more comfortable tr ing out different movements and techniques. faces, or peace signs, rather than let-ting their movements create some-thing organic. At the end of the first day, I identified a few students who were on the right track. We discussed representational versus abstract and deliberate mark making compared to scribbling. After the first day, I was not sure how well the direction of this project was going, but students’ discussions about the process had been productive, so I was encouraged to move forward. The Second Class The next day, I gave each student an 18 x 24 " (46 x 61 cm) sheet of paper and two sticks of charcoal. I have six tables in my artroom and only one student worked at each table at a time. Six at a time, students finished their drawings, then placed the fin-ished artwork on a stack at the front of the room and returned to their 24 APRIL 2019 SchoolArts
School Arts Magazine APR 2019: Page 28
