"What is art for? Alain de Botton's animated guide"

Here is a wonderful, quick video that addresses a question that many people find challenging to answer. This would be a great way to start an art class or a unit on art history.

Cheers,

Patrick

Free tutorial: how to draw the human face and head

Here's an interesting resource to help with one of the more challenging drawing projects: how to draw the human face and head- Open Culture posted this free tutorial video here.

- Patrick

The Mural Project 2016

This term, I worked with the Grade 11 Media Arts class to paint another mural at the campus. The project involved covering up an older mural that was painted years ago in what is now the guidance office. The colours as well as the subject matter of the old mural were interesting but a bit unnerving for the calm atmosphere I try to create in the guidance space. 

Some Grade 9 and 10 students volunteered to sand down the old mural, a senior student did two coats of primer to cover up the black and primary colours of the old mural. Then, the Media Arts students took over covering the wall with a cool blue and green layer, using sponges to blend the two areas. They used variations of a sketch of mine to cover the wall with the line work for the paint. 

Many students who weren't in the Media Arts class wanted to help out and paint part of the mural, it was great to see the project bring so many people together!

We used eggshell house paint and finished the mural in two main stages: the mid-tone blue trees and the highlights of brighter colours in between the patterns in the branches. It was a fun project and it gave the students a chance to be creative and to work in an environment other than the typical classroom setting, listening to music and chatting as they worked. Looking forward to another mural next year!

- Patrick

Neil Degrasse Tyson & David Byrne explaining the importance of art education

Here's a great, quick video of Neil Degrasse Tyson and David Byrne explaining the importance of art education: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/startalk/videos/the-importance-of-art-education/

I think what they are saying is that education/real learning is interdisciplinary in nature. Studying art and science go well together - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You will become a better engineer or scientist if you study art and you will become a better artist if you study science.

I'm currently developing my first online course (for Blyth Academy Online), and it's a Grade 12 Interdisciplinary Studies course on Museum Studies. It combines visual arts, social sciences, marketing and technology to introduce students to the world of museums and galleries. I'm really enjoying putting it together and it should be up and running by February 2017. More info to come...

Thanks to the OAEA for making it easy for me to find this video!

- Patrick

Tree Mural Video

                                         

Last term, my Integrated Arts class painted a mural at our neighbouring Fun Community School. We enjoyed working on this project and I made the film above as an example of a high-speed movie for my grade 10 Communications Technology class.

Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education

"Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education."

Salman Khan presents an effective way of using video to instruct content mastery so that students can watch at their own pace at home. This opens up the class time for activity-based learning, more one-to-one time and peer interaction. I have seen so many attempts to shoe-horn technology into the classroom, this is an example of a way to really use technology to enhance education. This is an inspiring and motivating talk.

If you want to learn more about this, check out: The Khan Academy site.

Community Gardens: Experiential Learning with GTGK

Green Thumbs Growing Kids is a Toronto-based group that provides experiential learning in environmentally sustainable community gardens for urban youth and their families.

I had the opportunity to volunteer with them a few summers ago and had a great time in their Winchester community garden learning about plants and drawing some of the helpful pollinators.

This is a recent video of theirs, produced by an OISE teacher candidate.
To find out more, have a look at their site.

Emily Pilloton: Teaching design for change

"Emily Pilloton: Teaching design for change."

"Design is education. 'In order to do something good you first have to do something'"
An inspiring story for design and for public education.

Class Activity: In groups find some issues or problems in your community and suggest some ideas of how art or design could be used to better them.

Scott McCloud on Comics

Class activity: This talk would be a great way to introduce a narrative project. Scott McCloud addresses the essential elements of narrative work and presents them through the medium of comics. Part one: have students research one comic and use the critical analysis process to identify some of the main elements of narrative and how they are applied. Part two: students apply the information they gained from part one in the creative process by producing their own narrative.

David Bryne: How Architecture Helped Music Evolve

"David Bryne: How Architecture Helped Music Evolve"

Class activity: I would like to use this video as a way in to a unit on architecture. Students could choose any work of architecture and discover how it's design helped shape (or was shaped by) a cultural phenomenon.

Paul Rand: Design

"A work of art is realized when form and content are indistinguishable"
Paul Rand.

Milton Glaser, Art is Work

Milton Glaser quoting Horace: "Art at its best informs and delights."

Sir Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

"Sir Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity"

It is so refreshing to hear him speak of creativity as being just as important as literacy and numeracy. I love that Picasso quote that he mentions, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."

Ben Cameron: The true power of the performing arts | Video on TED.com

Here is a great TEDtalk by Ben Cameron, "The True Power of the Performing Arts."
He addresses the current "democratization of the arts" with new media and the resulting monumental reformation of the arts: "we now live in a world defined not by consumption but by participation." If you have a few minutes it's a great talk.

Art Matters + Mayoral Arts Debate

This is the first post! I'll start with the basics: the A.G.O. info and a link to the arts debate that just happened.

    Last Wednesday evening was choatic outside the A.G.O. with a massive crowd full of political types, the media and members of the Toronto arts community. All gathered to witness the Mayoral Arts debate that filled up so fast they had to run a live feed next door. 

Here is the full video,  http://artmatters.ca/wp/2010/09/toronto-mayoral-arts-debate-full-video/

from the A.G.O. blog (http://artmatters.ca/wp/). The main A.G.O. website is: http://www.ago.net/.