Audiovisual – Motion Graphics
Editorial
Photography
10 methods
Project-based learning pedagogy
Method 1. From one to many
This type of project starts with one element and ends with a bunch of them. Each student’s work can be assembled to those of others, scaling up in the process. From one origami to a decorative curtain; from one house to the model of a neighbourhood; students start working individually and continue planning with their team, until the whole class exposes the final results.
Example 1. The art of paper // Project done with grade 4 students
Origami, or paper folding, has allowed students to make their first 3D project. First, they learned to make two animals, a butterfly and a bird, and in the following week they had to make a flower with their partner, by folding, sticking and assembling petals. Finally, students were able to gather all their productions on garlands to display in the corridor.
Example 2. An art district // Project done with grade 5 students
For three weeks, students became architects and urban planners by designing a neighborhood inspired on 798 Beijing's Art zone. They started to draw models of paper houses, then deciding in teams where to display each of them on a street. At last, they had to add up other elements such as trees, cars, sculptures, pedestrians, among other things, to embellish their street and those of the other teams, thus making possible the model of a new Art district.
Example 3. The 56 cultures of China // Project done with grade 5 students
The Ruixiang primary school is well known in the district as the school of minorities, referring to the 56 ethnic groups that compose China's demography. Students had to draw one or two cultures to then describe and present them in group. The final exhibition took place in the school's corridor.
Example 4. A book of Art // Project done with grade 4 students
At first, students learnt to create a more or less abstract figure using geometric shapes that they had previously cut out, thus being able to constitute an object, a person or an animal. Then, they had to draw colored lines to decorate this figure's background and, in the third week, they were asked to draw a story with their partner in order to make the common thread of an art book that talks about shapes and colours.
Method 2. From plane to volume
Real objects and spaces may be observed, analysed and represented in many ways. They may also inspire new designs to be drawn and shaped, in a process that moves from 2D to 3D, from plane to volume. The project starts with a 3D element, a real object or space, and then students move from 2D, a drawing, to 3D, a model, to 2D again, an explanation of the model's use. Hence, all phases are interconnected all along.
Example 1: My chair // Project done with grade 5 students
Students first learnt how to draw a chair by measuring the one they use in class while analising the different materials that it was made of. This led them to draw a new one to make a 1/6 foamboard model, later embellished with crepe paper. Students had to finish their model and to reflect on different ways of using their new chair.
Example 2. My ideal room // Project done with grade 4 students
In the first week, students learnt how to draw a floor plan of their ideal room by placing walls, doors and windows as well as the furniture imagined within the space. In the second week, they started to make a model of that room by using a cardboard box and foamboard for the structure while starting to make the furniture. In the third week, students had to finish the whole by decorating all of it with other materials such as wood and cloth. They had to describe the different elements composing their space and to reflect on its everyday use.
Example 3. My cardboard box // Project done with grade 6 students
Students learnt how to make a box by reusing pieces of cardboard and following the instructions of a simple box pattern. Once the box was finished, students had to embellish it by putting into practice the technique of collage, which is also an artful way to reuse materials. At last, students had to present their boxes while reflecting on how to use it.
Method 3. From fusion to creation
The combination of two distinct elements may produce an unusual result. These projects encourage students’ inventiveness in drawing differently while learning how to present their ideas to a wider audience. In this creative process, there is an addition of elements, although a subtraction or multiplication of shapes could also be carried out.
Example 1. Astérix in Beijing // Project done with grade 6 students
By discovering the world of French comics, students started to draw in teams the cover of a new Asterix album, imagining the main characters visiting a Beijing monument. They also had to add the title and the authors' names to present the illustration to a competition.
Example 2. The multifunction object // Project done with grade 7 students
Carelman's catalog of unfindable objects (1976) has enabled students to become inventors of complex objects that have multiple functions. They had to illustrate their object and explain its uses by drawing and writing a short text. All objects put together led to create a new catalog and an exhibition in class.
Example 3. Imagine a monster // Project done with grade 7 students
Monsters have always aroused passions and have been a source of literary and artistic creation. Chimeras of ancient mythology, Middle Ages or recent decades have inspired students to metamorphose an animal. Once the monster depicted, they also had to represent the different stages of its transformation. Studying the shape of different animals parts allowed this project to establish a link with the science and French lessons, by aiming to develop a bestiary and to expose the drawings in the school corridor.
Example 4. Bike and nature // Project done with grade 6 students
By studying biomimetics, the discipline that imitates nature to design objects, spaces and systems, students have invented a new bicycle, whose parts are inspired from the natural world, whether it is by form, function or colour. They started drawing their invention from different points of view and then focused on technical details. At last, they had to describe their drawing by explaining their idea as simply as possible.
Method 4. From still to motion
The project starts with one still image and ends with a series of images depicting movement or change. The main element changes step by step and the result reveals the frame by frame process in all its details.
Example 1. The lines of an object // Project done with grade 7 students
Inspired by the bulls of Picasso and the successive stages of abstraction of the animal, students had to choose an object and start drawing all its details, lines and shadows. In the second lesson, they had to simplify their object while showing the different stages of that line deconstruction. In the last lesson, students were asked to debate about whether their drawings could still be more abstract without loosing the shape's meaning.
Example 2. Water Lilies // Project done with grade 6 students
Students observed different opening states of water lilies and they learnt to draw them. They thus discovered Monet's waterlilies paintings in Giverny and they continued their work by drawing a water lily and painting it with watercolors, without dismissing the background.
Method 5. From history to symbol
When one studies ancient cultures, their material and immaterial heritage may bring up topics to reflect in art projects. These topics always have a distinctive element that may portray well the culture and may in turn induce a group research, in which information is simplified, structured and presented.
Example 1. Peking opera // Project done with grade 5 students
While studying Peking opera and its characters, its costumes, its instruments, its theaters, students had to draw and paint a new face on a cardboard mask. From there, they made a research on the opera to arrange a presentation in which the mask took center stage.
Example 2. Hutong of Beijing // Project done with grade 5 students
Students were introduced to the hutong, their characteristic architecture and the social life that reside between their walls, through photographies found in a fantastic book of 1989. Thus students had to draw details that one could find in these narrow streets by using the pencil and then the charcoal. In the second week, they learnt how to draw a street in one point perspective by copying other pictures of hutong. At last, they had to finish their drawings and choose the best one to be exposed in a group presentation. This last part of the project was carried out with the French teacher, allowing students to do their own research by extracting information from texts describing the hutong to then write some words and sentences that could accompany their drawings.
Example 3. The Chinese gate // Project done with grade 4 students
In the first week, students learnt how to draw the Chinese gate of Guozijian 国子监牌楼 by reproducing the principal structure and its decorative patterns while paying attention to the symmetry of this architectural piece of art. Then, in the second week, they were given a big piece of paper representing a piece of the gate and they had to draw Chinese patterns on it with a pencil and a black marker. In the third week, students had to continue their work by coloring the patterns to make the whole composition visually appealing. At last, each piece of paper would be joined together to shape the gate of the class.
Method 6. From near to far
It is only a matter of scale. One may observe an element from close up, in all its details, and then from farther until seeing the whole. It may also work inversely and as result, it seems that time has stopped.
Example 1. Leafs and flowers // Project done with grade 4 students
By observing nature, students learnt to draw a plant's leafs on close-up. Then, they had to draw the whole plant with its background from further away. At the same time, students could appreciate and comment famous artworks where plants and flowers are depicted.
Example 2. From closer to farther // Project done with grade 5 students
By studying for the first time different movie shots, students worked in groups to represent two portraits and two still lives art works, well-known in art history, from closer to farther drawings according to the original painting. For near shots, students had to enlarge an area of the artwork, while for far shots students had to imagine the space in which it could have taken place. Each sequence of images thus told a different story.
Method 7. From concept to poster
Some ideas are worth being presented on a poster. In this process, students learn about visual communication by including textual and graphic elements to make their results eye-catching and informative. Posters may be used for many purposes: to promote invented objects, an event, a movie, to do activism, or to communicate a complex message.
Example 1. My favourite animal // Project done with grade 6 students
Students had to choose an endangered animal and draw it with a pencil, a black marker and a charcoal. Thus, they learnt how to make a poster by adding the WWF logo and a slogan to make people aware of the loss of biodiversity that has increased dramatically in the last decades. Students finally had to present their work in front of the class.
Example 2. I invent an object // Project done with grade 5 students
Students had to first choose a lamp, a shoe or a trash bin to work on, to then draw the chosen object with different shapes. Later, they had to choose their best invention and do its technical drawing, by writing its measures and explaining its uses. Finally, this whole process allowed students to make a poster of their object as if they were going to sell it.
Method 8. From mess to order
It is fascinating to look at the world and to find messy information that can be classified and structured in groups through objective parameters. Topics have their own subtopics, which may be studied very differently by each person. As such, results are varied in their approach.
Example 1. My material // Project done with grade 4 students
As it was students' first art project in the french program, they had to learn how to draw, say and write the material they were going to use in class. In the first week, students learnt how to draw their own pencil case by paying attention to its lines, details and shadows. Then, they had to draw four tools with four different techniques. In the third week, students were asked to work in groups of four and to combine their drawings to expose them on a single paper, which was carefully decorated to finally be presented in front of the class.
Example 2. Shapes, colours and letters // Project done with grade 4 students
In this project, students' imagination was triggered in associating real-life objects to shapes, colours and letters. They were first asked to draw several objects with the shape of a circle, a square, a rectangle and a triangle. Then, they had to draw objects that are red, blue, yellow, orange, purple and green. At last, they had to bring letters to life.
Example 3. Information design // Project done with grade 7 students
Students chose a question related to their daily student life to create, as a group, a data graph that could allow other classmates to interact and answer the question using post-its.
Method 9. From reality to Fantasy
Inspired by Bruno Munari’s book, “Fantasy” (1977), there may be real situations considered normal that go through different forms of changes to then become surrealist scenes that are new to everyone.
Example 1. Between reality and fiction // Workshop done with grade 7 students
How to imagine an unreal situation in a photo that represents reality? Students had to choose an image of their school or Guanzhuang street, on which they placed a piece of paper to draw the surreal scene that they had imagined.
Example 2. Workshops: Changes
1. Change of scale. Students had to enlarge and shrink people, animals or objects in a real world scene. Then, they had to compare their two drawings.
2. Change of function. Students had to choose an object to then imagine and draw five different functions that it may have, from the most common to the most innovative.
3. Change of shape. While discovering the world of collections, students had to choose an object to then draw it several times with different shapes.
4. Change of material. Students had to draw different objects and change their materials through a collage. Then, they could imagine new possibilities in 3D by using cotton.
Example 3. What does it look like? // Project done with grade 5 students
While studying Archimboldo's portraits and reflecting on visual affinities, students had to imagine a face composed by different elements, then the body, and the house of that invented character. In this project, they could vary their techniques by drawing and making collages to present their ideas.
Example 4. Workshops: Imagine a story
1. Imagine a living object. Students imagined an everyday object that comes to life by drawing a story of its day. Some have used paper clips or chalk to continue their work in 3D. Interestingly, objects can speak and are drawn as if they were humans, with hands and feet.
2. How to make a pencil? Students had to imagine how a pencil is made by drawing the production steps of the lead, the wooden part and the eraser. They were free to imagine what they wanted knowing that they would see, at the end of the lesson, a video that shows them the real phases of pencil production in a factory.
3. The world upside down. Students had to imagine a world where there is an upside down situation. Cats have human pets, pencils write with humans, etc. They also had to think how the entrance of that world would look like. This project is part of a series of projects on "changes".
Method 10. From problem to solution
There are plenty of small daily life problems that can be resolved by inventive students. Once the need is defined and analysed, solutions may be presented through drawings or prototypes.
Example 1. An everyday object // Project done with grade 6 students
How to improve an object you have at home? Students had to analyse an object and write down its technical attributes while explaining its uses. Then, they had to think and draw how it could be improved in the future.
Example 2. Workshops: Problems and Solutions
1. The blackboard and the table. Students had to resolve two problems that they often find in their classroom: (a) the upper part of the blackboard is hard to clean and (b) tables are often tilted. They had to think and draw two inventive solutions. Most of them had ideas that matched with the real solutions taken in pictures one year earlier.
2. Egg Packaging. Students had to make a first structure that could safely contain an egg and a second one to cover and transport it easily. They had to measure the egg's dimensions, cut and paste pieces of paper to finally achieve a successful result after half an hour of arduous effort.
3. A trash bin in Mars. When the first recycle bins appeared at their school, students were taught how to recycle during many weeks. For this exercise, they were asked to invent the appearance of a trash bin to use in Mars, far from their daily reality.
4. I'm using LEGO. After seeing the diverse possibilities to work with LEGO, students received a bag with different pieces and a card indicating the object to build. They were able to present robots, chairs, bridges and towers meeting practical and aesthetic needs.
Example 3. Orienteering workshop: Animals of the Forbidden city (October 2019)
While visiting the Forbidden City of the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, students of all levels had to search, observe and represent different animals hidden along the site. By using a map and images, they could find lions, dragons and other fantastic creatures on roofs, doors, or courts from all corners of the imperial palace.
How did all started?
My first lessons in 2018
1. How to make paint? While understanding how the first shapes of art appeared in the caves, students had to reproduce ancestral processes similar to those of prehistoric men, by painting with natural pigments crushed in a mortar. They had to use their hands, sticks and tree leaves as painting tools to represent bulls, horses or more abstract shapes.
2. The clay sphinx. Students had to design a pencil pot with clay, shaping the head and body of the Egyptian sphinx.
3. Geometrical and natural shapes. Students had to choose one geometrical shape to then reflect about what does this shape make them think about.
4. Exhibition June 2018: A drop of colour. Chaoyang's Art teachers had to present their students proposal for the exhibition "from 2D to 3D". Our students experimented with the marbling technique to make a large amount of abstract compositions. From the results, they had to make three geometric patterns that gave a colourful 3D illusion.
