Lesson #3 | paint to the music
We are going to teach participants to create paintings that are inspired by music. Participants can each choose to add one song to the pre-made playlist. Participants can express music visually either through symbolism or abstraction, using paint on canvases.
Essential Understandings:
- Understand how artists and designers explain connections between auditory and visual art
- Understand how artists and designers explain/discuss their process
- I can explain how I interpret music visually
- I can discuss how art across multiple mediums have similarities
- Understand how artists and designers explore how their interpretations manifest on the canvas.
Objective/Outcomes:
Students will be able to...
- Describe how music makes them feel
- What emotions are evoked from each song, why?
- How can we use symbols, colors, and images to depict emotions?
- Identify connections between auditory and visual art
- Explore paint as a medium to portray other ideas or other forms of art
- Explain/discuss their process
- I can explain how the music makes me feel
- I can explain how I portrayed those feelings visually
- Use painting as a tool for expressing music. I can use paint to express how a certain song makes me feel
- Investigate connections between visual and auditory art. I can express music as a painting
- Process a prompt and respond to it. I can explore a prompt.
Skills:
- Creative thinking
- Flexibility with open-ended prompt
To see the lesson plan, click here.
Reflection
What worked well for this art experience? Why?
In preparation for this project, we placed a table easel at each chair with the materials necessary to complete the project: 3-4 brushes of various sizes, a water cup for rinsing brushes, and a paint pallet. The way we had everything all set up before the student arrived was effective in managing time, alongside making sure all students had all the necessary tools--besides paint--to avoid any upset. We had them come up to one table and form a line to choose their paint colors and then dispersed that for them--avoiding mess and waste of materials. The organization of materials made students curious and excited for the project and allowed for time to be spent in places other than setting up.
We also let each student choose a song for the playlist--making them a part of the decision making process. It gave them something to look forward to during class, whether it was their song or hearing what songs their peers chose. The music kept all students engaged the entire class. I think the use of music even as “white noise” makes it easier for students to concentrate. I know one student gets hung up on what they hear people saying--so drowning out any little conversation around that student helps them focus on the task at hand extremely well.
Turning the canvases after each song pushed students to fill up their canvas, build on what they had, and see what they just painted in a new light as they rotated it around. I also suggested a “full canvas” policy before being given a new canvas, and that worked well! Students often times just want to produce, produce, produce instead of filling the paper. Rotation of the canvas seemed to be key in implementing the policy and really pushed students to see what else they could add.
Rotation, change of music, and speed with that music change also provides a sense of freedom from planning or feeling pressured to make specific imagery. One student felt nervous they could not look up imagery on their phone for reference, but as class progressed their artwork became exceedingly abstract, explorative, and dynamic. The student was not worrying about how it looked necessarily but how it felt to create.
What didn’t work well for this art experience? Why?
This art experience was our most successful thus far. Overall the creative process for the students seemed, if I may say, perfect! Everyone was engaged and some did not want to stop when we went to explore everyone’s work! This created a little “let’s be respectful in listening to other students talk about their piece” issue, but once told to finish up it went okay and they were focused on the peer speaking. Really the largest issue was clean up. We discussed this problem in our last reflection and continue to struggle with it. We had tons of paint trays and brushes to clean at the end of the day, even after telling students to clean up. The fact that there is only one sink and students have to wait on one another to rinse their brushes and trays ended in students just dumping their supplies in the sink, unbeknownst to us until the end. Other than that just minor issues of a water cup spill and phone use. One student likes having their phone nearby but it becomes a distraction once in a while--and this time students at their table were distracted by it as well. I had to tell the student a few times to put it away. Once being “please put your phone away”, then “put your phone away or set it face down”, “put your phone away as it is distracting to you and those around you”. After the third time they put it down.
What would you do differently? Why?
As far as art experience goes, I wouldn’t have changed anything. The experience went extremely well. Clean up is the biggest problem--maybe next time we should have students wash up one by one and call them to the sink? I am a little lost as how to deal with that. They have little patience to all use one sink, but I don’t want to cut anyone’s creativity time short.
The phone issue was bothersome and in a longer time period classroom I might implement a no phone rule in project creation time--only okay in planning session. But for this situation I believe next time as soon as I see that particular student take their phone out I will ask them to leave it in their bag and not bring it into the creative space. It was too distracting to the student and slightly disrupted the creative flow and attention to painting at their table.
-AP
In preparation for this project, we placed a table easel at each chair with the materials necessary to complete the project: 3-4 brushes of various sizes, a water cup for rinsing brushes, and a paint pallet. The way we had everything all set up before the student arrived was effective in managing time, alongside making sure all students had all the necessary tools--besides paint--to avoid any upset. We had them come up to one table and form a line to choose their paint colors and then dispersed that for them--avoiding mess and waste of materials. The organization of materials made students curious and excited for the project and allowed for time to be spent in places other than setting up.
We also let each student choose a song for the playlist--making them a part of the decision making process. It gave them something to look forward to during class, whether it was their song or hearing what songs their peers chose. The music kept all students engaged the entire class. I think the use of music even as “white noise” makes it easier for students to concentrate. I know one student gets hung up on what they hear people saying--so drowning out any little conversation around that student helps them focus on the task at hand extremely well.
Turning the canvases after each song pushed students to fill up their canvas, build on what they had, and see what they just painted in a new light as they rotated it around. I also suggested a “full canvas” policy before being given a new canvas, and that worked well! Students often times just want to produce, produce, produce instead of filling the paper. Rotation of the canvas seemed to be key in implementing the policy and really pushed students to see what else they could add.
Rotation, change of music, and speed with that music change also provides a sense of freedom from planning or feeling pressured to make specific imagery. One student felt nervous they could not look up imagery on their phone for reference, but as class progressed their artwork became exceedingly abstract, explorative, and dynamic. The student was not worrying about how it looked necessarily but how it felt to create.
What didn’t work well for this art experience? Why?
This art experience was our most successful thus far. Overall the creative process for the students seemed, if I may say, perfect! Everyone was engaged and some did not want to stop when we went to explore everyone’s work! This created a little “let’s be respectful in listening to other students talk about their piece” issue, but once told to finish up it went okay and they were focused on the peer speaking. Really the largest issue was clean up. We discussed this problem in our last reflection and continue to struggle with it. We had tons of paint trays and brushes to clean at the end of the day, even after telling students to clean up. The fact that there is only one sink and students have to wait on one another to rinse their brushes and trays ended in students just dumping their supplies in the sink, unbeknownst to us until the end. Other than that just minor issues of a water cup spill and phone use. One student likes having their phone nearby but it becomes a distraction once in a while--and this time students at their table were distracted by it as well. I had to tell the student a few times to put it away. Once being “please put your phone away”, then “put your phone away or set it face down”, “put your phone away as it is distracting to you and those around you”. After the third time they put it down.
What would you do differently? Why?
As far as art experience goes, I wouldn’t have changed anything. The experience went extremely well. Clean up is the biggest problem--maybe next time we should have students wash up one by one and call them to the sink? I am a little lost as how to deal with that. They have little patience to all use one sink, but I don’t want to cut anyone’s creativity time short.
The phone issue was bothersome and in a longer time period classroom I might implement a no phone rule in project creation time--only okay in planning session. But for this situation I believe next time as soon as I see that particular student take their phone out I will ask them to leave it in their bag and not bring it into the creative space. It was too distracting to the student and slightly disrupted the creative flow and attention to painting at their table.
-AP