Throw around a few cool words

photo

I've been pretty busy lately, teaching art every day of the week so far. Weirdly enough, I haven't been called in to sub for RVUSD yet. (REM: call personnel coordinator tomorrow about that) There are several things I want to blog about, but I haven't had the time to wrap my head around them yet so they'll have to wait. Until then, here is a story from today that I thought was quite awesome.

Art student: "I don't like coloring. Coloring sucks. I don't really like art but my mom made me take it. Coloring is the part that I like the least." (he says all this and more ALL THE WHILE COLORING HIS ART. kid, if you are going to stick it to the man, at least have a little more backbone about it.)

Later, same art student as above: "I'm done."

Me: ::takes a look and turns to him with a serious face:: "Do you know what you did today?"

AS: ::looks at me sheepishly, probably thinks I'm going to call him out on his whining and shrugs::

Me: ::turns his paper to face him:: See how you only used one color but with different values, or shades? This is called monochromatic art (ok, so I was making this part up - I'm an elementary teacher, I'm allowed to do that - and monochromatic DOES mean "composed of one color"). Most often you'll see shades of gray, which some people call black and white. This here is called sepia, since you only used shades of brown.

AS: ::takes a closer look at his own work, confused that something he did by accident actually has an official name:: But I only used one color.

(note: I wish I could write well enough to describe his incredulous tone here. He WANTED me to scold him, was expecting it, and ended up being praised for his creativity with color pencils.)

Me: Yeah, it looks kinda cool. Almost like one of those old photographs from the Gold Rush you sometimes see in museums. (he's in 4th grade; 4th grade social studies content standards revolves around California history; I assumed he had at least reached the Gold Rush by now and chose that to tap into his schema - whoa, did you SEE that strategic maneuver there? remember this when hiring me, please)

Art student #2: Let me see. ::looks, and is genuinely impressed:: yeah, that does look cool.

AS: ::takes another look at his own work, this time with a more appraising eye:: Are you going to put this in the office? (for display)

Me: Yes.

AS: Ok. ::walks away somewhat confused but in a good way::

I'm going to ask him in a few weeks what he thinks about art and see if his opinion hasn't changed. =)