Visual arts activities for addressing the third CIM strand, Create, Present, and Perform: Use ideas, skills and techniques in the arts.

Drawing Fish (15-30 minutes)

Introductory drawing activity that can include an introduction of elements of design.

Drawing Profile Faces (20 minutes)

Introductory drawing activity.

Developing Creativity (15 minutes)

Exploring possibilities related to form and function.

Fasteners (10 minutes)

Introduces the relationships of form, function, & materials in design with problem-solving project suggestions.

Quick Draw (20 minutes)

Introductory drawing activity that focuses on shape and line.

What Do They All Have in Common? (5-15 minutes)

Illustrates that there are many ways to depict an object, and can be used to encourage the student who has created a "personal icon" to expand his/her drawing repertoire.

Strand 3—Create, Present and Perform: Use ideas, skills, and techniques in the arts.

Amount of Time to Complete
15-30 minutes

Preparation
Collect a wide array of fish images (a lot) and objects (a few) (from the realistic to the fanciful; from the decorative to the functional; from fine arts to popular culture).

Materials
Different sizes of drawing paper and markers.

Activity

• Spread the fish images out and gather students around to look at.
• What do these all have in common? (fish)
• Yes they are all of fish, and yet they all look different. So what do fish all have in common? (Write on the board a list of the parts of the fish—eyes, fins, gills, scales, live in water, etc....... this could also relate to a science discussion).
• Compare and contrast the shapes, colors, sizes, location of the parts, and relationships among the parts. (How many different body shapes do you see? Are the eyes generally located in the same place? Also compare the environments in which the fish are placed, and so on.)
• Have students close their eyes and mentally visualize a fish (ask them to think about all of the fish parts, play with how it looks in their imagination).
• Send children back to their desks to draw fish. The only "rules" are: Include all the fish parts and place your fish(es) in an environment. They may take images to their desk to look at while they draw.

This activity could be applied to any object, however, it is best to begin with an object that is relatively "flat" (like fish). Remember that drawing often involves "translating" a 3-D object onto a 2-D surface. Doing this involves learning certain skills, techniques, and rules. This is why it is helpful to begin drawing by looking at 2-D images first.

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Strand 3—Create, Present and Perform: Use ideas, skills, and techniques in the arts.

Amount of Time to Complete
20 minutes

Preparation
There is no getting around the fact that it will take some practice.

Activity

• Start on the left-hand side of the chalkboard.
• Do a very simple profile face.
• Make small changes then in the next face. For example, make the nose rounder. Then make the nose have a bump. Then have it pointed.
• Next, change the chin and lip shapes. Do this several different ways without changing the rest of the face.
• Then try different eyes.

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Strand 3—Create, Present and Perform: Use ideas, skills, and techniques in the arts.

Amount of Time to Complete
15 minutes

Activity

• Choose a common object (paper clip, rubber band, pencil, chair) for your focus.
• In small groups, have students list as many ways they can think of to use that object.
• Set a time limit (suggest five to eight minutes).
• Help overcome roadblocks by suggesting they consider:
  1. the practical and usual as well as impractical or unusual (you could use a paper clip to hold up the hem of a dress or maybe as an earring?);
  2. thinking in terms of a single (one paperclip) and multiples—thousands of paperclips could be linked together to make a partition screen;
  3. thinking in terms of manipulating the shape of the object.
• Share answers.

Note: A possible response to illegal or violent suggestions for use of the object could be: while "this" may be a valid suggestion when we are thinking about possibilities, it does not mean it would be okay to follow through in action.

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Strand 3—Create, Present and Perform: Use ideas, skills, and techniques in the arts.

Amount of Time to Complete
20 minutes

Preparation
Ask students to bring a "fastener" to class (do not elaborate, simply that a fastener holds two or more things together). Collect a range of examples to supplement what the students provide (such as: paperclip, staple, brad, hair clip, safety pin, variety of tapes, glues, rubberband, button, snap, ribbon, nail, thumb tack, and so on).

Activity
Follow-up design projects (problem-solving)

• Can you think of "better designs" for the functional objects? (building a better mouse trap)
• Design a non-sensical object (such as a raincoat for a slug).
• Identify a need, then design a tool/object to meet that need (invention).
• Set a problem, e.g., using only _______ materials to accomplish a specified task. For example: Using only newspaper and masking tape, build the highest structure you can in 30 minutes and the structure must hold the weight of a text book.

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Strand 3—Create, Present and Perform: Use ideas, skills, and techniques in the arts.

Amount of Time to Complete
15-15 minutes

Preparation
Select 3-8 images (slides are best, but large prints can work) that have line or shape as dominant elements. Begin with relatively simple images with few details.

Materials
Broad-tip markers, or brush and ink, and scratch paper (half or quarter sheets). (The focus is on process and warm-up rather than creating a final product.)

Activity

• Tell students that you will be showing them a series of images. They will have one minute to draw that image. This does not mean they should begin drawing right away—best results will come if they take a moment (10-15 seconds) to look at and study the image first.
• Some tips and guidelines.
  1. orient your paper to the direction of the image (vertical or horizontal)
  2. work big, fill up the paper
  3. look for the big shapes and where they are placed (in the top or bottom half; at center or off center, etc.)
  4. begin by drawing outlines and important features
  5. don't draw details unless you have "extra" time
• After 3-8 images, have students look at their work and choose one or two that they think were most successful and hold them up (as a group) for others to see. You may wish to point out examples that followed the guidelines.
• Have students save one or two that they particularly liked, putting their name and date on the drawing(s) to use as a point of reference as they gain practice and skill in drawing.

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Strand 3—Create, Present and Perform: Use ideas, skills, and techniques in the arts.

Amount of Time to Complete
5-15 minutes

Preparation
Select 5-8 images that have an object in common (aim for a range to include fine arts, functional arts, and non-arts items). For example, Birds—a quarter, Sesame Street packaging with Big Bird on it, an advertisement such as Buick Skylark, an Audubon bird print (cards and calendars abound), University of Oregon emblem with a duck on it, and/or Peanuts cartoon with Woodstock in it.

Activity
What Do They All Have in Common? can also illustrate that there are many ways to depict "a bird." And can be used to encourage the student who has created a "personal icon" (meaning they draw the same image repeatedly; for example some girls repeatedly draw horses in the same pose). By showing a variety of horses, in different poses/actions, styles, environments, you can suggest that the student might want to explore different ways they could draw "their" horse. (Also see Drawing Fish.)