Art Making and Meaning:

Understanding through Questions

The Human Touch – Technical Features        

Question for Understanding

What tools, materials, and processes did the maker use?

Art Making Question
If you were making an artwork, what tools, materials, and processes do you think you might use?

Objective
Students investigate tools, materials, and processes used to make art.

Activity Ideas for All Students

Show the DVD segment, “The Human Touch,” asking students to watch for specific tools, materials, and processes the artists mention or demonstrate. Give students practice and feedback by using some or all of the interactive “The Human Touch” CD activities, which you can project for an entire class or which individual students can view in a computer lab. Students can use the CD to 1) review what they learned on the DVD, 2) apply what they learned to their everyday visual world, and 3) recognize how inquiry about technical features applies to old and new art.

As the basis for a written report, class presentation, or demonstration ask students to interview someone about how he or she makes something (construction worker, quilter, cook, car detailer, auto worker, computer chip worker, writer, musician, etc.).  Students should identify specific tools, materials, and processes used by the makers they interview.

Activity Ideas Art Students
Ask students to review art media with which they have worked, identifying specific tools, materials, and processes used in each medium (for example, charcoal drawing, watercolor, or tissue paper collage).

Complementary Activities from Stories of Art
A K-12 curriculum resource from CRIZMAC
The theme, Technology, is based on “Ellorna’s Puzzling Case,” the story of a young woman whose inventiveness with tools and materials helps her and her mother support themselves during difficult times.

Supplementary Online Lessons
“Protest and Persuasion” – Printmaking and Mural Making Tracks
“Images of Me” – Lesson Two: Mass and Space and Lesson Three: Refining Ideas and Making Choices
“Who Cares for Art” – Lesson Two: Tools and Materials
“Celebrating Excellence in Ceramics” – clay types, forming, firing, and finishing

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