Lesson Plan 2 - Outline and Process

The class began by observing artworks that portrayed happiness. We discussed what characteristics helped contribute to the overall feeling, so that we could use those characteristics in our own work. Since this was the beginning of the class, and students were not fully comfortable, I decided to assign a specific form for them to make this assignment- cups. I wanted them to put their own spin on it, though, and to create different forms for their cups rather than what we see everyday. Students then took designs they had made with washable marker, using different aspects of "happy" artwork, and smoothed them onto their damp pieces to transfer the image over onto the clay. Afterwards there was a class critique on everyone's finished cup. Again, since students were not comfortable, I decided to stick to what they liked about each other pieces for now before moving on to more constructive criticism later in the unit.

I learned a lot about my students personalities from this assignment. I was starting to get a sense of Maya's artistic voice in her work, and saw how she liked to work more abstractly than the other students. I could also see that another student, Anna, was used to having a lot of control in her work, and was struggling with the new medium. After talking to all of them about sometimes you just have to work with the medium, and let go of control, Anna really let loose in the class and started creating bigger and better pieces.