This played out like an Emmy award winning soap opera including crying, hair pulling, world ending panic, laughter, elation, and love, but I digress and need to get back to the subject at hand.
After a full day of shopping for gowns, I needed a glass of wine and my daughter needed some downtime with her childhood best friend. So we headed to our old neighborhood where she met up with her dearest friend and I met up with one of mine for a glass of wine.
I worked with my friend for years running our elementary schools' Art Docent program. As we usually do when we get together, we began sharing projects that have done very well in our studio and she mentioned how much fun her students had creating black out poetry.
She was adamant I just HAD to give it a go with my students.
And so I did.
As the school year classes are coming to a close this week, I was trying to think of something special to do with a group of girls in the Tuesday class that they could enjoy throughout summer.
And I quickly thought of what my friend had said about the black out poetry and knew it was the perfect project.
The first week, I handed them some old books I had picked up at a church sale.
I pick up grocery bags of them for three dollars. I just look for old books with lovely hard covers, I really don't care what the subject matter might be as I usually make use of them in mixed media projects anyway where the words become inconsequential.
I put of few out and told the girls to choose one.
Then I brought out a variety of materials and had them create a painted book cover to make it their own.
13 year old
When this student finished her butterfly, she realized she had painted it with the book upside down. It really doesn't matter because who's to say which way a butterfly flies off one's lap? I love that she did not fret much about it at all and didn't even want to change it when she realized what could of been perceived as a mistake.
9 year old
I really try to get the students to move away from symbolic drawing. However this student finds a lot of comfort there and really wanted to go with that style. After a bit of explaining why I'd like her to try to use reference and move away from a symbol style drawing, I told her as an artist the final choice was hers as she was the one who needed to love it.
To be honest, I am really glad she was confident enough to go with her instinct as I really like the finished work in the end. It truly does reflect her personality-energetic, outgoing, and completely unique.
9 year old
And finally a student who decided to focus on a Koala Bear in anticipation of a trip she will be taking to Australia. What an interesting perspective to be looking at the bear from behind! This is why it is always so exciting to work with children, their perspectives are refreshing and inspiring in my own growth as an artist.
10 year old
Once all the paint was dry, I put a matte varnish on them for protection as my hope is the books will be carried around and used this summer.
For the last class, I showed them examples of Black Out Poetry.
I told them to first circle lightly in pencil words that "jumped" out at them and then go back and create something out of the words. It could be a poem or a story. A simple sentence even.
Once they were happy with their chosen words, I gave them a black pen to circle them with and they gently erased any words they didn't want. I even told them if they didn't want to do black out poetry in the book, they could just smear paint across a page and use it for a drawing journal.
you can see the "pathway" she has marked on the page before finishing
and a second page she will be using for a drawing
Then once they had a path of words that worked together, create an image or black out the rest of the words so that the page became their poem.
"He was so ugly to look at and he spoke nothing for all of his life"
Black Out Poem in progress
9 year old
Here are the results in all their glory. The are poignant, funny, and thought provoking.
"the figure of a dozen beast drove the dog beyond the hills"
9 year old
"I did children investigate father"
9 year old
"you want to give them a whole summer"
9 year old
You can tell this child has grown up in Vancouver all her life since she relates rain to summer!
10 year old
Funny story, this student picked, "The Catcher in the Rye" as her book of choice and opened it up and immediately exclaimed, "It has bad words". This of course immediately led to the other girls wanting to see the "bad words" and a fit of giggles.
The bad words she discovered immediately were "hell" and "crap". What it is about kids and their uncanny ability to zone in at the speed of sound on the inappropriate?
Anyway I suggested finding another book and she was, of course, hellbent on keeping the one with "bad words", so I did what any art teacher would do (and father) and told her she needed to call her mother for approval.
It turns out her mother's major was in Literature and this was one of the first books she studied and so was quite OK with her daughter's book choice...bad words and all.
"no horse had the chance to turn suddenly as Blue Streak and Dapple Gray"
13 year old
How brilliant is the above student? She is always thinking outside the box, one of the traits I love most about her. Instead of creating her poem from the top down, you read this one from the bottom up.
How did she make sure you knew where to start?
She added the start and finish line! So dang smart.
Does dang constitute a bad word? Look at me, right up there the writing prose of Catcher in the Rye.
The girls had a great time creating poems and stories and then adding visual interest to their words. What I find wonderful about this activity is that you can get lost in creating a page over a long period of time, creating something quite detailed, or by just simply blacking out everything but the words create something quite quickly.
In reality, these students will need nothing more than a pen or pencil to create something quite wonderful. And given that most of the books used were at least 50 to 60 years old, there is something fragile and precious about what they hold to use for their creations. There is a built in "special" quality to their books that makes them even more dear.
My hope is that they spend time with them over the summer and enjoy creating artwork. It will be a great way to keep exercising their brains while at the same time enjoying a carefree summer. One day I hope to see them again filled with their own personal words and pictures.
Enjoy your summer girls!
THIS IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!
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