Prof John Toth: Research Objectives

Hunter College
School of Education
The Arts: an Interdisciplinary Experience

Prof. John Toth

ART AS COMMUNICATION

Explore the nuances and differences between teaching the arts as conducted by Aesthetic Education, Art Education and Arts in Education.

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Art Concept / Visual Element

Artwork / Knowledge Modality

Contrasting Knowledge Modality

Skills Activities

Creative Activities

Examples of Student Work

Contextual Information

Standards

Rubric

PRIME COMMUNICATION:
LINE QUALITIES

Objective:
Understanding and using line quality with pencils to show creative communication. How do artists use line qualities to communicate meaning and expression?

Visual Element:
Line

Expressive Content: curvy, thick/thin, swirly, dripped, short/long strokes, wavy, haphazard.
Conceptual Content: ordered, parrell, perpendicular, in rows/columns, symmetric,angular.

Action Lines
POLLOCK

Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm

Jackson Pollock, (American, 1912–1956) Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 (Met)

Orderly Lines
HERBIN

Auguste Herbin. Vie No.1.

Skills Activity:
LINE QUALITIES

Explore line qualities in your signature. Use a #6 ebony pencil to write, print, sign, draw and scratch your signature to express different moods and ideas. Supplies: pencils, markers, chalk and drawing paper.

Print your name the way you would on a form. Write your name large and boldly as you would sign your name to one of your great accomplishments.
Angrily sign your name in protest /agreement.

Creative Activity:
LINE PORTRAIT

Present and explore signatures as an example of how we communicate using line qualities that can be expressive and logical.

Make a portrait of your neighbor using the letters and gestures of your signature.

Draw portraits of each other using the vocabulary of your diverse signatures for expression.

Sample Activity:
LINE PORTRAIT

Examples of student creative artworks

student work examples
LINE PORTRAITS

Context:
ART HISTORY

Jackson Pollock,Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 (American, 1912–1956) (Met)
Article by Arthur Danto

Lee Krasner

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #1: VA Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes

Achievement Standard:
- Students know the differences between materials, techniques, and processes

- Students describe how different materials, techniques, and processes cause different responses

PRIME COMMUNICATION:
BODY LANGUAGE

Objective:
How do artists use the energy of line to create movement.? How does body language communicate balance? How does body language communicate meaning and expression?

Visual Element:
Body Language
gesture, form, sign language, signals

Objective:
How do artists communicate meaning using interactive body language?

Relaxed Flowing
Matisse

Henri Matisse. The Dance,

Angular Assertive
Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence, Migration, series

Skills Activity:
GESTURE DRAWING

Paint or draw poses of small groups doing specific tasks. Explore angular and flowing lines to effect mood / content.

Creative Activity:
SHAPES WITH ATTITUDE

Draw a large circle that just fits inside the page. Students will take turns pesenting a pose with a specific attitude. Sketch a pose with the feet on the bottome inside the circle. Rotate page and add another pose. Sketch and rotate 8 times. Place a symbolic object in the center that relates to the combined poses.

Sample Activity:
GROUP GESTURES

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES

Jacob Lawrence & Lanston Hughes, Migration series. Artist and writer collaboration.

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #1: VA

Achievement Standard:
- Students use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories

- Students use art materials and tools in a safe and responsible manner

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VALUE PAINTING:
TINTS & SHADES

Objective:
Art communicates through a language of shades and tints: value is the lightness and darkness of color.

Visual Element:
Tints & Shades / B&W
tones, middle gray, values

Objective:
How do artists use tints and shades of black and white to create light & shadow, spatial depth, mood and form?

Shaded Values
Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti The Artists Wife (Annette) (Swiss, 1901–1966)

Precise Values
Driggs

Elsie Driggs, Pittsburgh, 1928, o/c http://www.sullivangoss.com/Elsie_Driggs/

Skills Activity:
Value Painting

Paint a scale of at least eight shades and tints using black and white paint.

Skills Activity:
TECHNOLOGY: TONES

Create a scale of 9 even tones of black and white.

Creative Activity:
VALUE PAINTING

Use the skills and control of mixing tines and shades to make a tonal study with tempera point with a theme of your choice.

John Toth, Chair, 1995, ac/wood

Sample Activity:

student work examples
VALUE PAINTINGS

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #1: VA

SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE:
ART HISTORICAL COMMENTARIES

Objective:
This idea calls upon the TC’s capacity to consider relationships and meanings about personal, social, cultural differences using symbols to communicate.

Visual Element:
Shapes & Symbols
scale, color, metaphor, designs

Technology Objective:
Develop a simple structure for a podcast of your own using your favorite art work. 4 Hyperlinks.

Shapes and Symbols
Chagall

Marc Chagall, I and the Village. 1911

Florine Stettheimer, Cathedrals of Wall Street. (1871–1944)
Dogon, Seated Couple, Ancestral Figures.
Navajo, Bird Nester Myth
Faith Ringgold, Street Story Quilt.

Cultural Identity
Rossiter & Mignot

Rossiter and Mignot, Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon. 1859
Washington and Lafayette Podcast
Article - Research - Timeline - Transcript -
PowerPoint Show -
Image - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

ARTWORKS:
Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel. (MoMA)

Skills Activity:
Analyze Symbolic Shapes

Discuss and identify current examples of shapes that make up symbols that are understood in daily life.

Skills Activity:
Construct Symbols

Experiment making line drawings using simple geometric shape to construct complex objects. Use circles, squares and rectangles to construct; a face; a lamp; food; home;

Creative Activity:
SOCIAL COMMENTARY

Make a drawing or painting that uses simple geometric shapes as symbols that represent or elude to a dramatic social experience in your life.

Consider using scale as a means of organizing symbols to show the importance or insignificance in effecting this event.

Sample Activity:
SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE

student work examples

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES

Symbols in American History

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #3: K-4. Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas

Achievement Standard:
- Students explore and understand prospective content for works of art

- Students select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning

COLLAGE LAYERS
DREAMS AND IMAGINATION:

Objective:
An aesthetic approach to learning bridges skills, knowledge, reflection, cultural identity, curriculum and a variety of human endeavors.

Visual Element:
Layer magazine cut-out shapes

Process:
Select a background color or image. selecting parts, cutting, consider interaction of parts, exaggeration, focus, placement, gluing,

Unexpected Relationships
DALI

Salvador Dali, Persistence of Memory,

Imaginative Representations
WOOD

Grant Wood, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,

Skills Activity 1:
COLLAGE

Cut out 3 people, 3 objects and 3 places from a magazine. Arrange these parts 3 different ways to tell a story.

Skills Activity:
Technology.
Take a digital photo of each of the collage arrangements. Copy images into MS WORD and add captions to each image. You can also add a sound file if you wish.

Creative Activity:
LAYERED DREAMS

Create a collage using magazine cut-outs that portray a dream experience.
Randomly organize your cut-out shapes. Select a background color or image. Layout the parts and consider the interaction of shapes. Exaggerate scale, color, texture for effect. Explore focus, placement and readability from a distance before gluing.

portfolio: student artworks
DREAM COLLAGE

Sample Activity:
COLLAGES

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #1: VA

CHANGE OVER TIME
TRANSFORMATION

Objective:
Transformation may be seen as a process for change and growth over time that promotes individual and community identity.

Visual Element:
Change the SHAPE, COLOR, TEXTURE, SIZE

Imaginative Transformation
MAGRITTE

Time Transformation
MATISSE
Henri Matisse, Jeannette #1-5

Skills Activity:
MORPHOLOGY

Make two simple object on opposite sides of a sheet of drawing paper. Drawing two to three morphing steps between the first and last image.

Creative Activity:

Choose your own medium to make a transformation. Try to explore a theme or idea that would be interesting to both children and adults. Try to blend imagination and logic.

Sample Activity:

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #1: VA

LOGIC AND SYSTEMS:
PATTERN BLOCKS

Objective:
Explore elements of Math in art: patterns, sequences, and rhythm. Elements of symmetry: mirror, reflective, radial, progressive and alternating.

Symmetry & Balance
PAPUA NEW GUINIE / ASMAT

Paterns & Rhythms
PICASSO

Skills Activity:
SYMETRY & BALANCE

Use pattern blocks to illustrate elements of symmetry. Use pattern blocks to create designs and pattern. Experiment with different kinds of sequencing and spacing of pattern blocks. Explore order and chaos. Create a three dimensional solid using the pattern blocks.

Creative Activity:
A WORLD MADE OF PATTERNS

Use pattern blocks to make imaginative insects, dinosaurs, robots or action figure.

Creative Activity:
TECHNOLOGY

Pattern Block Program: on-line
http://www.arcytech.org/java/patterns/patterns_j.shtml

Sample Activity:

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES
Papua & New Guinea Art
http://www.tribal-explorer.com/bygeo_8.html

MUSIC
Symmetry Balance and Proportion in Music
http://www.aboutscotland.com/harmony/prop.html

ART
Mazes
http://www.astrolog.org/labyrinth/algrithm.htm

MATH
Pattern Blocks

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #1: VA

SPATIAL ORDER:
RECONSTRUCTING TAU

Objective:
Explore elements of Math in art: patterns, sequences, and rhythm. Elements of symmetry: mirror, reflective, radial, progressive and alternating.

Symmetry and Tessellation
http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/jbsymteslk.htm

Spatial Ordering:
MAPPING 3-DEMENTIONAL SPACE

Objective: Explore methods of investigation around a work of art: describe, analyze, interpret, reflect and question. Develop question strategies that open ideas around multiple intelligences.

Creative Activity:
GEOMETRIC SCULPTURE

Recreate Tony Smith's sculpture "Tau" from sketches. Work in small groups to recreate the sculpture using triangle templates.

Sample Activity:

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #1: VA

MAPPING THE UNIVERSE:
MANDALA ART

Objective:

Consider a work of art as a process and product that reveals knowledge through the way that images are presented. Facilitate: balance, order, symmetry
Artworks:

Art from India, China, Tibet, Japan, Africa, The Americas, Australia,

Mandala Artworks

Cycles of Change:
MANDALA

Networks:
FRACTALS

Skills Activity:

Explore aspects of SYMMETRY as an organizing principle. Explore REPITION and PATTERN.

Creative Activity:

Create a Mandala that organizes and reveals the essence of your world.

Contextual Information:
Mandalas, Circles, Sand mandalas, Wheel of Fortune, (Myth, Legend and Folklore), Math & Mandala

MATH:
Fractals -
Fractal Domain
U-Tube

Navajo, Bird Nester Myth

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES

Mandalas - Wikipedia

Standarts Met:
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/ArtsStandards.html

Content Standard #1: VA

MARIONETTE: PUPPETS, Part 1

Biographical Self Portrait

Objective:

Explore the history of puppet theater as an early form of MEDIA COMMUNICATION and consider the connections to Early Childhood Development.

Cultural Identity or Framing

Objective:
Use artworks, archives and personal history as a source for thinking about identity.
Skills Activity:

Research your own cultural Identity: Family, friends, teachers and neighbors.

Creative Activity:

TC’s will create PUPPETS / marionettes that express personal history.

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #1: VA

PICTURE BOOK
Objective:
Explore different ways of sequencing image and text: paintings, storybooks, portfolios, comic strips & timelines. Assess the way we construct meaning through media.

Creative Activity:

Create 4 facing pages of original text & original imagery based on your marionette performance.

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #1: VA

Context:
SOCIAL STUDIES

Standarts Met:
NAEA

Content Standard #1: VA

John Toth
http://www.JohnToth.net/