Throwback: My Art, the Blue Horse, & Octopus

Here's the story about a piece of artwork from my college days and an example of how I used Art to teach Science and Science to teach Art in my classroom. 

-----

An art class while working on my Masters degree changed me in an unexpected way.

At the time I was going to school full time with six kids all still at home. While Craig and I shared the parenting/home responsibilities, it was probably the busiest time in my life. I knew how to multitask, how to streamline, and how to get things done quickly and efficiently.

The art class was the polar opposite of that. Twice a week we had two hours to create. I found it difficult to not go-go-go through my projects - and as a result, I always finished early and there was no joy in the journey. But as the class progressed, I began to understand the value in slowing down and taking my time.

And then something magical happened - I created a piece of art. And I had to slow down to do so.

We'd been given a piece of clay and told to create whatever we wanted and then given two hours to work. The professor fired our projects and then the next couple of classes were spent painting and glazing. 

The rationale behind that college class for teachers was that incorporating art into lessons is a wonderful way to educate kiddos. I loved that experience and vowed to incorporate art as much as I could into my teaching.

Fast forward two years and into my classroom. It was there that I found that teaching science through art engaged my students and enriched and broadened their learning.

One way I did that was through Gyotaku, a Japanese art form that originated as a way to study fish after they died. When my students studied oceans and marine biology, I'd go to one of the Asian fish markets near Purdue and buy frozen whole octopus.

We would lay them out on paper and ink their bodies, carefully place rice paper over them, and then lift up that paper and set it aside to dry.

We would also carve our own chop marks and add that to the octopus print. 

I'd rinse all the octopus off in my classroom sink and put them into the refrigerator for the next day's science lesson - dissecting those octopus! 

Believe it or not, even though a few kids were hesitant or even squeamish at first, I never had a kid not jump into the activity. I didn't force those who were unsure about dissection - I told them that they could just watch - and every time, those who hung back eventually could not resist the lure of seeing what was inside an octopus. (Try nine brains and three hearts for starters!)

I also learned (the hard way) to NEVER EVER EVER let the body parts go down the sink during post-dissection clean up. The year I learned that lesson, my classroom smelled like octopus for days and we had the windows open even though it was cold outside!

I no longer have my blue pottery horse. When my dear friend and penpal Sue Seese's husband died of a brain tumor, I sent it to her as a gift. But the lesson I learned when making that horse - to slow down, to enjoy the process of creating - is still with me.

------

There was another piece that I created in that college class that I was especially proud of. I gave it to my mother. She displayed it in her home until she passed away and then I inherited it back. I hope to share pics of that soon but I need to pull it out of storage and take some photos first.

I'm also working on my guess for the BreyerFest Mystery Surprise Horse and will share that soon, too.

Stay 'tooned!

 

Octopus Dissection!

One of my favorite activities, and one that I have done since I began teaching, is octopus dissection. This past week I cleared Thursday morning and brought in the octopus!

Without telling them what we were going to be doing, I wrote this on the board:

That sure got their attention! (And it's true - the drains will stink for days if body parts are flushed down them!)

 I love the expression on Sophie S.'s face - she is not posing. That's a genuine reaction!

 I used paper plates that I already had instead of buying pie pans to save money.

And using yellow paper to protect our desks instead of newspaper made it easier to see the organs that we dissected out of the animals.

Mrs. Fields, my principal, was in the room doing my annual observation and she took photos for the Hershey Facebook page and Twitter account.

 The kids, as usual, really got into the activity.

 One group found a tiny shrimp tucked up inside their octopus' head!

 Only scissors and toothpicks are used in our dissection - no fancy tools needed!

 I gave the kids a diagram of the internal organs of the octopus and let the kids go after a few short directions.

 Note to self - have some hair bands next time for girls with long hair!

 That hole in the center of the tentacle mass is the animal's mouth.

 I love the intensity on the kids' faces - only one child got a bit green around the gills during the dissection.

 I had nine octopi, so we had groups of two with one group of three.

 Every kid was on task, even my two boys with Asperger's Syndrome.

I walked around the room watching, answering the occasional question, but staying back and letting the kids explore without my interference.

 They were really absorbed in what they were doing!

 The beak has two parts.

The yellow paper worked well as the children identified the parts they found - they just placed them there and wrote the labels directly on the paper.

We worked for nearly an hour and then had to go to our special, but we resumed when we came back. It was a very worthwhile activity, and made the morning fly by!

Chops Printing

The final step for our Gyotaku prints was adding our chops to the prints. In some Asian cultures, men and women had their own chop (similar to a seal) which they used to identify artwork they owned (sort of like how we put our names on our assignments!)

When the piece was sold or given away, the new owner would add his or her chop to the art. That's why, when you look at Asian art in museums, you will often see a vertical line of red printed symbols. Those are chops and a history of who has owned that particular piece of art.

We made our chops in the classroom using squares cut from egg cartons. We had to remember to make a mirror image of what we wanted the chop to look like.

BW holds up her finished chop, all ready to use for printing.

Mrs. Ryan demonstrates how to add the chop to our artwork.

Rolling the red ink out on the plexiglass with the brayer.

GCD makes a practice print - perfect!

More practice - we want them to look beautiful!

EP seems to have the printing process perfected.

Time for the real printing - we were a little nervous. AM, GH, EP, and JB.

JS and PH do one more practice print.

JR, who is studying Mandarin Chinese, made his name in Chinese characters. Here he shows off the final product - Gyotaku with a personal chop applied.

Octopus Dissection

"It's now octopus dissection time!" There's a phrase guaranteed to grab the kids' attention! 

On Tuesday, after a discussion on the differences between dissection and mutilation, and the reason we would be treating these animals that had been caught for food with respect at all times, the children got to work.

Each table group was given an octopus and diagrams of the internal anatomy of an octopus. (Photo by Sue Scott.)

MM, EK, JB, and HS (hidden behind JB) dove right in.

SY found the smell a bit much, but AH, FR, EW, AM, and SJ were riveted.

Using the diagrams of the internal anatomy of an octopus, the kids were to try and identify and then dissect out as many internal organs as they could. EP, MCM, NM, PH, TM, and BW.

Now FR is finding the odor a bit much!

KR, LW, LT, GH, and JR are working hard - you can see they have removed some parts from their octopus and set them on a white sheet of paper for identification.

GH, LT, ZH (hidden behind LT), LW, and KR. (Photo by Sue Scott.)

A close up of the kids and the animal. (Photo by Sue Scott.)

MM, JB, HS, and EK asked me to help them clip some tissue. (Photo by Sue Scott.)

ZH, JS, SS, AY, and GCD cut carefully with their scissors. We also used toothpicks to tease tissues apart.

Sue Scott, formerly a news anchor for WLFI and now TSC's publicist, took some shots of our activity for the Hershey web site. She turned them into banners for the Hershey web site.

Although one or two students needed to step out into the hallway for fresh air, the worst problem we had was an eyeball that was dropped on the floor and lost. (We looked, but finding a tiny brown eyeball on a brown carpet is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack!)

The dissection took almost an hour and a half and wrapped up just before lunch. Believe it or not, all the children reported that they'd eaten lunch as usual!

Gyotaku - Octopus Printing

Yesterday was the day we did our Gyotaku - an ancient scientific method of preserving specimens for study and, more recently, a Japanese art  form. We had six octopus from an Asian grocery to use for our printing project.

At first, the kids were a bit hesitant to touch their animals.

But they soon warmed up and were grabbing their octopi out of the bags and preparing for the inking process.

We carefully laid our animals out on paper and dried them with paper towels.

Tentacles needed to be untwisted and artfully arranged.

JS discovered that the suckers on the tentacles still had suction!

After carefully arranging the octopi, we used brayers (and fingers!) to ink the animals' bodies.

Brayers worked best on the larger parts of the octopi.

Mrs. Ryan, our Art teacher, helped us with the project by loaning us her room and supplies. She even got to help with the printmaking, too!

The children worked in groups of four and five.

When the inking was done, we had to put tiny bits of paper over any stray ink marks so that they did not transfer to the rice paper during the printing process.

A close up of an inked octopus and the small bits of paper covering the stray marks.

After each octopus was thoroughly inked from head to tentacle tip, we laid rice paper over it and patted gently to transfer the ink from the animal to the paper.

It took two people to lift the completed print off the octopus - this helped prevent smearing the inked picture.

JB and AH hold up their finished print and are ready to take it to the drying tables.

We will let our Gyotaku dry over night and then add our chops tomorrow. These will be displayed for Parent/Teacher Conferences - they'll be mounted on rail board and hanging in the hallways!