Circumpolar North Aurora Borealis-Watercolor Technique

Tales of the Aurora Borealis are common to all the people of the circumpolar north. Auroral activity is high in Alaska currently, so students are learning a variety of watercolor techniques to prepare for an aurora painting.

Treat Art Materials With Respect

Here's a funny video that I'm sharing. It's a serious message with a sense of humor 😂.......the best kind!
Treat Materials With Respect

Ukiyo-Notan

This is the final summative project of the Japanese art and philosophy inspired unit. Students chose one of their two brayer and leaf printed papers to use for their Notan design. The leaf prints symbolize the Ukiyo-Floating World concept. The Notan represents the Japanese concept of balance between light and dark. Finally, work was 'signed' using the signature chop. What a great job they all did!

Ukiyo-Chop Pattern Prints

Students learned that a Japanese 'chop' is the signature of the artist on an art print.  Since the Japanese language not only consists of characters that can represent a whole word rather than one alphabet letter, and is read from top down, our 'chops' are creative interpretations of the initials of the student's name done in a vertical format. Once the chop was designed and carved as a printing stamp, students used the stamp to create patterns onto the 5"x8" card previously printed with leaf images from the previous lesson. 

Ukiyo-Leaf Prints

We started our unit inspired by the printmaking and Notan philosophy of Japan with some leaf prints. Students worked with contrasting sets of warm and cool colors. The first layer of printing consisted of ink brayer prints, one cool and one warm. Next students printed leaves, warm on the cool background and cool on the warm background, as if they were falling. Additionally, they printed a 5"x8" card to be used in the second lesson.