Skills and Application

The balance between developing skills and teaching for creativity is a tricky one. Finding it has been a goal of mine. My ideal Bootcamp gives students enough information to create a solid foundation of understanding. Then the students are able to build new learning in directions they choose with me and each other as guides.

My Art 2 students are nearing the end of studying the figure and facial proportions as part of Artists Develop Skills. During this unit I've woven one day Bootcamps with mini-projects. They've learned new skills, like body and facial proportions, and applied learning with increasing independence. 

Bootcamp: Students learning proportion by working in groups to create a life-size figure.

Mini-lesson: Creating life-size figures that interact with the school campus. In this case a zebra tape mural made last year.

The summative project for this unit was broad and challenging: make art in any media using what you've learned about the figure or the face. I asked students to look at the Bootcamp and mini-lesson sections of this unit as research for the summative project and they all had clear ideas ready when it was time to use them. Many student decided to continue with drawing, but some selected media like oil pastel, drawing with the ipad or painting. 

I've focused on teaching that planning is doing what you need to gather the information you need to be successful in creating. As my students set about planning what to make they used they were very thoughtful about what learning or resources they should use and growth was very evident. 

One student's planning. She decided to sketch, work on specific details and print a resource image. Other students used grids, watched video tutorials or asked me to demo.

Final drawing in progress.

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