Tag Archives: skills

Dec19

Skill vs Creativity

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As a teacher that has embraced the Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB) philosophy for almost a decade and a half, I still find myself struggling sometimes with with debate around skill and its importance. I know it’s important for artists to have technical skills and for them to continue building those skills. Buuuutttt…. should that be the most important thing in the high school art room (or any art room for that matter?)

I was doom scrolling the other day, and I came across this reel in my IG feed and I finally felt a little bit of validation. The artist talked about an art teacher he had that pretty much said what I had felt in my art heart all these years.

Gabriel talked about an art teacher he had who said that “technical skill is extremely overrated. And she had visited a school that prioritized the technical ability versus teaching the students creativity. And while their paintings were very technically well done, they were super dead, boring, not inspiring whatsoever.” He goes on to say that he thinks we put technical ability on a pedestal way too much, and that there isn’t enough credit to the creativity. Skill is still important, but it is a means to show that creativity.

I couldn’t agree more. There are times when I go to conferences and see “award winning” art, or I scroll through Facebook looking at other high school programs and I feel a sense of insecurity. I begin to question if I am doing a disservice to my students by focusing on the process, on creativity, and on what they have to say over spending day in and day out just learning and practicing technical skills and realism. But then I pause and picture in my mind’s eye the work my students are producing. Some of my students are very skilled. Others still have ways to go on their journey. But their work is so expressive. It has life. You can tell they explored new things. You can see the energy in their marks. I think of their faces and conversations when they are in our classroom studios creating, and it fills me with joy. I watch them push themselves to be better than the day before.

It’s not that I don’t teach skill. It’s not that I don’t encourage practice to make better. I do those things. I just don’t preach that it’s the pinnacle of art making. I teach new skills for my students to have in their tool boxes. We practice technical skills every time we make in the art room. It’s just that I put the onus on my students to choose which technical skills they want to practice to get better at. There are so many mediums and techniques that I can’t teach them all, and I am not going to choose which ones are more important than others to focus on. I will let my students decide what is important to them. I let them guide me when it’s time to explore new mediums and techniques.

In the end, I am not saying that those classes that focus on technical skill are wrong. If that is what you want your focus to be, then that’s your prerogative. What I am saying is that I am proud of my students and the work they create. I am proud of my program. They are proud of their work and their growth! Personally, I would rather have my students make work that carries their feelings and emotions out to the world, than a bunch of pretty pictures that are technically well done.

Jan29

Printmaking Exploration

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Printmaking Exploration

I decided to start the second semester off with some good old exploration.  I was going to jump right into my “Artists Steal” unit (appropriated from Apex HS), but then I changed my mind and thought we needed to get messy for a week and a half.

We don’t have a printing press at school, so that limits what we can do.  However, that didn’t stop me from coming up with 6 different techniques involving making prints.  I got this idea from Cynthia Gaub and her art around the room activities.  The students would be asked to explore 5 out of 6 techniques and reflect on each technique.

I set up the counter with the 6 different “stations”.  We would learn about block prints (with EZ cut), collograph, stamping, styrofoam plates, monoprinting, and faux screen printing.  I laid out the week and a half in a short PowerPoint, explaining I would only do demos for cutting blocks, inking plates/pulling prints, using the gelatin plate for monoprints, and how to set up the screen for screen prints.  For the other techniques, the students would have to rely on the example cards I had created the year before.  Some of it required some thought on their part on interpretation of the card.

The students were asked to reflect on their findings of each technique.  They could either write their answers in their journals/sketchbooks or they could start a new BlendSpace lesson and reflect there.  I gave the students 7 questions to choose from…they have to answer question #1, then pick 4 from the remaining 6.

  1. What was the medium/technique explored?
  2. What qualities/characteristics does the medium/technique have?
  3. What makes the medium/technique different from a similar medium/technique?
  4. What did you like the best about media/technique and why?
  5. What did you like the least about media/technique and why?
  6. What could you use this medium/technique for?
  7. What other information would you like to know about this medium/technique?

My favorite part was reading the variety of questions they had for #7.

  • How is this art? (re: screen printing)
  • Is there an easier way to reverse when doing blocks?
  • Could block printing be done on a larger scale?
  • Was styrofoam printing invented by someone on a budget?
  • Who came up with block printing?
  • How do you add multiple colors?
  • What can you do with the collagraph technique?
  • Why is it called collagraph?
  • What is the right amount of ink?
  • How do you keep ink from getting on certain points on the styrofoam plate?
  • What other tools can be used to dent into the styrofoam?
  • How many layers can you do on a monoprint?
  • Do people really use the collograph technique and make a living with it?
  • How can you draw cleaner in the styrofoam?

Here are my thoughts on this activity:

I really think this could be a good way to explore different ways of printmaking.  While I showed the students some examples of final pieces, I don’t think I really let them know “how” different type of printmaking could be used.  They tend to think that each technique must be used alone and don’t consider mixed media, texture, background, layers, etc.  So, I would figure out a way to bring that into the activity for next year.

When it came to leaving some of the work to them…  relying on the example cards I had created the year before, I was hopeful that they would figure it out…I was wrong…most didn’t and they ended up asking me.  Sometimes they didn’t even try to look at the cards and make some educated guesses at what the process was.  This was frustrating to me as part of my philosophy does have the expectation that the students are responsible for their own learning and that I won’t spoon feed them.  I know they are high school students, but that can’t be their excuse for everything.  I did find myself smiling when I would hear a student asking another student.

I think perhaps I could show some videos or require them to watch a video as part of each station so they could see other artists use the technique or see what it could be used for. Then, they could use that as well for more informed reflections of the techniques.

My other thought, and this happens every year since moving to TAB, is how to get kids to actually use printmaking/stamping in their artwork.  Do they really not like it?  Do they not see it as an artwork?  Do they (the students) see it as too much to add to their process when art making?

I will continue to do this Printmaking Exploration Activity, but I will make some needed adjustments to enhance the learning and the take-aways from the activity.  One adjustment might be some requirement of what they need to create from the prints…so they put more thought into what they are doing.

Since originally writing this, I did have one student revisit monoprints and the gelatin plate.  She really enjoyed the process and was glad she was able to use it again when creating a non-objective piece for our “Artists Don’t Represent” unit.