Project Runway @ Durban Girls' College

My friend Gaye (who teaches IT "Information Technology" at DGC) entered one of my Grade 9 projects in the Microsoft and Schoolnet SA innovative teacher’s competition. I had forgotten about the entry until last week when one of the organisers contacted me via e-mail and told me that I am one of the finalists and I will be presenting my project at the Southern Sun North Beach Hotel on the 1^st of April (Sunday afternoon).

I thought I would share this project on my blog & by writing about it – hopefully I would gain clarity & be able to speak about it more confidently. 

I first conceived of this idea in 2008 whilst watching Project Runway: an American reality television series on VUZU channel on DSTV which focuses on fashion design. I became very excited when I viewed Episode 11: The Art of Fashion (Series 4).  This episode starts with the designers being taken to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  At the museum they are given 45 minutes to explore three Galleries – Greek and Roman Sculpture; European Painting and the Temple of Dendur (Egyptian Art) They then have limited time to design their outfits (based on what they found inspiring at the museum), choose their fabric and make their outfits and finally put on a fashion show.

I started this project by playing clips from the Project Runway show on YouTube for my students.

I wanted my Grade 9 students to feel like real designers – so I wanted to go through a similar process by researching an art period and getting them to find inspiration in virtual art museums (the Internet) thus extending the learning beyond the classroom. Each stage of the project had time constraints to closely mimic the deadlines that the designers went through in the reality show. 

I didn’t want to listen to traditional oral presentations - I felt each student’s work should stand by itself without verbal explanation.  I also aimed at capturing the excitement of a Virtual Reality show so I designed a project that would include music, visuals and text presented in the form of a PowerPoint show.  Our Information Technology department collaborated with me on this & taught the Grade 9 students advanced PowerPoint techniques.

I wanted the students to mark each other’s work (peer assessment) so each show had to have a made up “designer label” – so each show could be viewed without knowing the author and marked without prejudice.

They had two hours to research specific artists and source fabric swatches on the Internet (virtual Art museums) & one hour in class to draw up the design.

They then worked with specific instructions; this included, creating a designer label, scanning designs, setting timing on each slide (so the viewer could enjoy the show with automatic changing of slides), appropriate music to set the atmosphere, editing images in GIMP, writing a rationale, properly referencing images used in the show, learning how to compress images and finally saving the show to a CD. Click here to download the full brief I gave to the students. I also gave them the marking guidelines I intended using.

I made a PowerPoint show which provided an introduction to specific artists/movements I had chosen as a focus. In 2011 I specifically chose female artists to provide role models for the girls I teach.

I did initially look for South African female artists but the content they explored was either not age appropriate for Grade 9 or would be difficult to adapt to Fashion design. This show also introduces students to the basics of fashion design – creating a more elongated stylized figure and mood boards and provides links to resources on the Internet. A very basic PowerPoint template was also provided to give students a format to start this project.

This show by one of my students represents contemporary fashion design based on the graffiti artist Banksy. (design below)  

Through this process they not only learnt how to research but; learnt how to creatively interpret visuals and text into an original design. They learnt how to acknowledge images in presentations accurately.  The skills given to them via the PowerPoint lessons, has made them technologically fluent.    

I have shared this lesson with other teachers on CD & have thought about how it can be adapted for male students. (I have a colleague who used this at Clifton College)  Instead of Project Runway it could be called “Pimp my Ride” & templates of skateboards, surfboards, cars, motorbikes & even bicycles could be downloaded from the Internet & the same research and presentation done for project runway can be applied.

Pin-board challenge

Students at our school choose subjects for specialization at the end of Grade 9.  I knew, after the Grade 9 students came back to our classrooms after writing exams at the end of the term, most of them would disengage from the subjects that they weren’t taking the following year – including Art. My classroom was looking bare – the Grade 12 students had taken down their artworks from their final exhibition – so I came up with a scheme to entertain the Grade 9’s and – hopefully- make my classroom more visually appealing for the beginning of the school year next year.

I was inspired by a blog post on the “Rag and Bone Boutique” about an artist - Carol Gearin’s paper installation of two hundred paper flowers, three trees and over six hundred paper butterflies into a home.

I thought I could adapt this installation very easily to a classroom project.  I downloaded basic templates from the internet of butterflies, leaves, hearts and flowers. As each class came in to my classroom they were asked to select a template and come up with a specific colour scheme. I handed them three sizes of the templates they chose, a pile of old magazines, a box of scissors and dressmaking pins & let them loose on my pin-boards.

The boards featured here are the best three of the four classes Grade 9 classes I teach.

The above flowers were made from a heart template

Drawing monsters

My Grade 9 students are learning about tone/value in drawing and how to construct forms out of basic shapes. They are going to draw monsters using Graphite pencils and then collage into the background with appropriate images. We will use Maurice Sendak’s drawings of creatures from "Where the Wild Ones Are" as inspiration.  

I have just discovered Mateo Dineen who also draws monsters (that are metaphors for ideas and truths that he finds compelling)

He says:  “They are my actors, playing out scenes that I hope people recognize; scenes that although familiar, are also strange enough to make people stop and think, or feel, something new.” 

I just love the goat in the following pic (especially since my upcoming exhibition has goats as a focus) See more of Mateo's work here.

The Grade 9's of 2010 created the following monsters:

They are by Barry, Hannah and Chia-Min respectively

Outreaching my expectations

My Grade 9 students really responded well to my lesson on Ink techniques and my challenge to decorate their own initials inspired by the letterplayground.  They had to cover their Visual Journals in an appropriate paper surface of their own choice & then paste their initials on to this surface. This helps me easily identify the owner of the Visual Journal and immediately creates an attractive book. I asked them to cover the books in plastic so that the cover drawings wouldn't get ruined by handling during the year.  The following Journal covers are by Paula, Jayde, Keyla and Zahraa respectively. (I have blocked out the girls full names with a white rectangle for security purposes)

Pen and ink inspiration for Grade 9

I have spent this morning updating my Grade 9 pen and ink slide show with images that will (hopefully) appeal to Grade 9 students. The content has remained the same - the principles of good drawing never changes - so the same exercises in hatched, stippled, scumbled line etc. still exist. The images in my show however - were very dated. I managed to find the work of Eric Orchard. I hope the girls enjoy looking at his drawings as much as I have! I especially like this blog header - I am sure I live like the girl in the drawing - with a cat dominating everything I do.