The Painted Word: An Altered Book Workshop for Teachers

Today I presented a workshop for teachers at Mansfield University. This was at a conference called "The Painted Word" put on by the Endless Mountains Writing Project and the Endless Mountains Reading Council. My workshop allowed participants to learn about and create altered books for creative writing journals.

In my session, I introduced some projects that allow for cross-curriculum connections. These are especially great for the students in our classrooms that learn best when they are doing creative projects. We looked at some examples of student projects, and then we all started our own altered book. First we used acrylic paint to decorate the cover of an existing recycled book. After a review of basic color wheel theory, we experimented with acrylic techniques such as impasto and scumbling.

These books are going to be writing journals/visual journals. Next we used watercolor paint to make some pages for the interior. Some of the favorite techniques of the day included salt technique, wet-on-wet, and painting with bubble wrap.


We listened to a short talk by Ken Robinson. He has some important points for teachers to remember about the need for schools to move from standardization to personalization.

Integrating art with other subjects is very important, especially today. The Learning Focused Schools (LFS) model is the current trend in education. One of the key ingredients for success in the studies they cite (Reeves, 2003) is the stress put on "cross-disciplinary curriculum integrating subjects currently downplayed (e.g. art, music)."

Remember, according to Bloom's Revised Taxonomy, creativity is the highest order of thought! Eliminating creative projects from schools is just plain nuts! We need more of it, not less -- especially projects that help them make connections between disciplines.

What a great bunch of teachers! We all had a great time learning and sharing ideas. I sat in on a few of the other sessions, and learned some new things myself.

The picture above shows me trying to look "teacher-ish".

The Music Box

This comic was inspired by an incident described in Rauschenberg by Mary Lynn Kotz.

Comics in the Classroom Prezi

Here is an amazing presentation by Megan Crimmins. She was a participant in the Comics in the Classroom workshop I presented recently at Alfred University. She summarized what she learned from that and explored the topic further. Check out her amazing Prezi production below!

Comics in the Classroom on Prezi

A Vortex in the Nebula

Here's a page from my sketchbook. As a practice exercise, I redrew a page of a Flash/Superman story and made a few "minor changes". (Names have been changed to persecute the innocent!)

I drew it in pen without penciling first, and then colored with marker.

Comics in the Classroom Workshop

Today I presented a Comics in the Classroom workshop at Alfred University. The participants were a fantastic group of young teachers. Most had already completed student teaching and were working with students in a summer literacy program. Some have been hired for teaching positions at various schools in the fall.

It was a great group of committed educators who have a passion for teaching and compassion for the struggling learners. We completed exercises in using comics in lessons to demonstrate:

1. Fun reading opportunities for students.
   
2. Comic Book Readers Theater. Reading a comic together as a dramatic exercise.
   
3. Comics Conversions. Using existing comic strips as writing prompts and to teach the conventions of writing dialogue.
   
4. Comic Book Book Reports. Using comics to help students summarize what they have read.
   
5. Graphic Novel Graphic Organizers. Using comics to teach the theme of a book (or how a character changes through the course of a story).
   
6. Using comics to teach onomatopoeia, alliteration and hyperbole.
7. Using comics to provide opportunities to discuss bullying and violence prevention.
   
8. Strategies to help students create original cartoon characters and letter their creations with speech balloons.

Our "text" for the day was the Sunday Funnies comics section (courtesy of The Daily Review). Their Comics in Education program is a great way to get multiple copies of the same comics text to use when discussing comics with students.


Here's what one of the participants had to say:

I participated in this workshop presented by Andy and found it to be the most informative and eye opening class ever given by a guest speaker. As a result of what I learned, I am going to co-teach a comic based unit during the summer reading program in a couple of weeks. And, I just returned from the used book store with a copy of Bones for 3 dollars. The vast amount of graphic novels spanning all ages was a reality unknown to me before the presentation. I had heard of Watchmen and 300, and enjoyed the movies. But, was not aware of the many other types. My level of enthusiam regarding graphic novels has increased dramatically. I'm very excited about implementing some of the things learned in the classroom. Thanks a ton Andy. This was a blast.

The participants in this workshop read, wrote and drew to experience various strategies they might like to use with their students some day. They had fantastic questions and it was a great day for me.

Even though most participants weren't art majors, everyone created an original character and made a sketch of it. The results were creative and hilarious!

Mother's Day

Mother's Kiss (2011)
Charcoal

I made this drawing as a gift for my wife on Mother's Day. It is based on a photo of her with our son Nathan when he was a little younger -- the last picture taken before he got his first haircut. Mommy could not bear to cut those beautiful curls!

The Imaginative Approach

For this drawing, I took a Pop Art approach, which is a type of Appropriation art. I am inspired by artists like Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, and Lichtenstein who appropriated images from popular culture and recontextualized them.

To appropriate is to take possession of something. Appropriation artists deliberately copy images to take possession of them in their art. They are not stealing or plagiarizing. They are not passing off these images as their very own. Not at all. Appropriation artists want the viewer to recognize the images they copy, and they hope that the viewer will bring all of his/her original associations with the image to the artist's new context, be it a painting, a sculpture, a collage, a combine or an entire installation (Gersh-Nesic, 2011).

There are many different things you can do to an existing images to make them into original statements.

Strategies include "re-vision, re-evaluation, variation, version, interpretation, imitation, proximation, supplement, increment, improvisation, prequel... pastiche, paraphrase, parody, forgery, homage, mimicry, travesty, shan-zhai, echo, allusion, intertextuality and karaoke" (Pichler, 2009).

I see these kinds of images as a type of visual poetry. Like a poem, I take all these images together and say something. What does it mean? Does it take all the fun out of it if I spell it out? I don't know. Sometimes I explain what I was thinking, sometimes I try to give a little hint in the title and let you figure it out. For this time, I guess I'll spell it out for you.

I'm doing a series of drawings that feature unusual eyewear, like the 3-D glasses in Secrets of Success. My idea is that what you get out of what you are facing depends on your outlook. You can choose that to some extent. I often see the goofy side of life, so I used the spectacles you see here to represent that. Look at what you are facing through the lens of imagination. All of these images go with that.

I wanted to superimpose this collection of images that might seem random at first over the text of something really boring. I found an old mimeographed handout from an art class. Let's just say I disagree with the professor, who begins with "Drawing is not fun" -- and goes on from there. To me this picture is about the experience of daydreaming when you are sitting in a boring class and everyone is going over the handout. Random thoughts come from all over the place. The text below each detail image is my unwritten guide to the Imaginative Life.

Are the mundane details of life getting you down? Try an imaginative outlook on life. A new pair of glasses can provide a new way of looking things -- and your new outlook may affect how others look at you.
Everyone's got something to say. Having trouble getting your point across? There may be some simple tools that you have overlooked. The solution you are looking for may have been under your nose the whole time. Using these familiar tools in new ways has a lot of appeal.
A good cup of coffee is a great way to wake up to the possibilities. Gather your faculties and begin!
We all have mundane tasks to perform. You can either do it the boring way, or the imaginative way.
Taking the imaginative approach to life will bring you new joy.
You will find that you will rise above the dreary aspects of life and accomplish great feats.
With the focal point and accessories drawn, I was ready to add the handout. I enlarged page to 18x24 at Staples, traced the objects through it and then cut out the shapes with an X-acto knife and glued it down.
Then I added the finishing touches with pastel.

Beth Gersh-Nesic (2011). Art History Definition: Appropriation. http://arthistory.about.com/od/glossary_a/a/a_appropriation.htm
Michalis Pichler (2009). Statements on Appropriation, published in Fillip #11 (2010), Vancouver