Our latest art challenge: Create a piece of art with an environmental message.

After students were presented with the above challenge, they sought out some inspiration, made a plan for what message they wanted to communicate, made a sketch, and listed materials they wanted to use. From their plans, we gathered materials so they could experiment and make decisions before creating their final product. Writers don’t jump into a published piece on their first try, so how can artists create their best work without some experience? I’ve mentioned this before, but I truly see the art curriculum as being no different than other subject areas in that students are encouraged to THINK. I would not write a paragraph for students and ask them to copy it (in whatever colour they wanted), so, I won’t show them a piece of art and ask them to emulate it either.  Instead, we look at art to learn from and to get inspired from, and then make choices that reflect our own thinking. It takes longer to get a final product, but it’s really the process that reveals the most about the artist anyway.

Once we gathered our chosen materials, students set out to answer a question that would help them gather information for their challenge. For example, “What paint works best on a plastic bottle?” “What works best on black paper?” “Is there a difference between chalk pastel and oil pastel?” “What paint works best on cardboard?” “What is paper mache?”

After students experimented, they did some reflecting, shared findings with classmates, and started to make more informed choices about how they would create their own piece of art. 

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