Part 3
Teaching art in Bali hands down was the most beautiful art trip I’ve taken this year. There were some teaching disasters that happened and I will get to that below, but first I want share more beautiful things I fell in love with in Bali. I got to experience daily Changa sari offerings everywhere on the island. Chang sari are prayers of peace, for balance and gratitude to different gods of Balinese Hinduism.
I was drawn to the beauty of these once I learned the importance to the Balinese culture. I really began to admired the spiritual meanings. You see them everywhere in the streets, on statues, in front of stores and lined on sidewalks. Every day I noticed women making and delivering them around. Palmaira flowers also grow everywhere naturally. In fact I was walking all the time on top of yellow palmaira petals falling from trees, so beautiful.
The other beautiful thing – southeast asia sea sunsets near the equator. Bali’s 8 degrees south of the equator. Very tropical and humid climate typically. The beaches were wonderful, but I had lots of locals trying to sell me stuff constantly while relaxing on the beach. Very similar to tourist areas in Mexico. I was surprised by how many tourists I met from Australia, I’m feeling like it’s their Hawaii, like Hawaii is to us North Americans.
And of course the balinese art from paintings, carvings, textiles and stoneworks. A feast for my artful eyes. I had a chance to admire carvings and stoneworks being made in local shops around the Island. And I was fortunate to be staying at a museum resort where I was able to take my students on two occasions spontaneously to view balinese art collections. Bali’s an artist paradise. I really enjoyed my trip and plan to return in the near future.
Art Teacher Mistakes & Disasters
Ok, the real focus of this blog is to talk about the ups and downs of teaching art. Believe it or not I too have teaching disasters despite my perfect instagram profile. I did have art mistakes and disasters happen in Bali, which pains me to talk about. So before my trip I did some investigating and found out there was going to be a huge tourist attraction for my students to take in Ubud- a monkey natural habitat with 1000 rescued monkeys. So I planned a clay art lesson to sculpt a monkey as a souvenir to take home, and highlight balinese sculpture.
So I traveled with white air dry clay that usually takes 24 hours to harden, planning two days the activity, make, dry, then paint. Which I’ve taught similar projects with nothing ever going wrong.
Well… not this time!
The day of my clay workshop I showed my students basic clay forming lessons, then I started passing all 30 students their clay to work on for their monkey. About five minutes into it I started to hear comments like “my clays drying out”. Everyone’s clay was drying out fast and not workable. Hands started popping up for my help, I couldn’t understand what the heck was going on. Then I realized the humidity was so high outside it was drying the clay out instantly. I started to panic while helping everyone, plus I was sweating and super hot, I wasn’t use to that kind of humidity myself.
After 20 minutes of me and my assistant trying to remedy the situation, I decided we would quickly collect them to protect them and stop the drying out. I panicked because that was all the clay I only brought, and there were no art stores in Ubud. Now…mind you we had to collect over 30 separate monkey parts that all looked the same and shove them into 5 mini plastic bins as fast as we could, trying to label and remember who’s was who’s parts. I felt bad and told the kids we would change projects, and finish the monkeys tomorrow while I brainstormed what to do about the dried out parts that still needed to attach to other parts.
A huge oversight on my side working outdoors in humidity. Then to move from mistake to disaster, after all the kids left for the day I had the brilliant idea of opening all the bins and spraying inside them with water to rehydrate the parts, which is usually a sculpture trick that’s worked a thousand times before for me.
Nope… Disaster!
So the next day after everyone took their seat eager to work on their cute little monkey parts. As I passed them out to smiling faces I started hearing “gooey, gross”. The water I sprayed over the parts turned them into sticky gooey dough, sticking to everyone’s hands. It felt like sticky baking flour batter, or raw sticky monkey bread! I had ruined everyone’s parts. The humidity baked them into some kind of weird chemistry experiment. Some kids started crying because out of the 30 sets of monkey parts 4 lucky kids survived, allowing them to finish. I had 26 kids trying to scrap gooey clay off their hands and all running towards the bathroom… chaotic!
Why I’m sharing my art disaster?
Because I want you to know how to work through bad teaching times, when kids cry due to your teaching disasters. Have you ever heard of the story book called Beautiful Oops, by Barney Saltzberg? In fact, I highly recommend reading that story to kids the first week of class so you can always gently remind them of the beautiful oops story.
Honestly art making is trial and error with 90% percent of mistakes. Artist are rarely satisfied with their work. As an artist and art teacher I can truly say that’s what art makings all about, experimenting. Art making builds resilience! Which is why I always say in my books and training the process is important, not the product or outcome. I think teaching in the heat, loud kids outdoors, plus traveling got the best of me and I forgot this golden rule myself!
How I bounced back from art disaster?
I was able to bounce back from disaster by saying “Time out everyone! Stop what you’re doing and huddle around me please”. I apologized and fessed up to spraying water and ruining everyone’s parts. I explained how they were not failures, and how I was not prepared for that type of weather. I explained how art making is trial and error, and mistakes happen frequently for the artist. I invited everyone to watch me try to sculpt a monkey step-by-step, voicing my words and struggling right in front of them through the process.
Saying things like:
“I think I’ll try it this way”
“ I don’t like how he’s coming out”
“I think I’m going to experiment with this idea instead of my original idea”
I changed my mind a few times letting them know there’s more than one way to do things, I created something that kinda look like a monkey. Everyone calmed down, got ideas and went back to their goopie clay. They started sharing bits and pieces of workable clay with each other, some kids started making other things like bananas and trees.
What I did wrong, how art teachers can plan better
First off I gave my students perfect images of monkeys to think about, so I built up this idea they would be taking home a perfect monkey. I should have said “I would love for us to explore this new clay and brainstorm monkey forms like ones in the forest tour”. I should have told everyone “I know your image in your head is perfect, but sculpting takes time, practice and patience, and today we will try our best to learn the basic”.
Art lessons should have a series of isolated skills to explore. If a monkey comes out then bonus! When we are teaching children art lessons we need to focus more on the process, brainstorming, innovation, individuality, and studio problems that might arise. Try to stay away from giving kids the perfect image in their head and try to focus on isolated building skills and have them reflect on the experience. I hope sharing my Mistakes & Disasters in Bali helps. I would love to hear if you have thoughts about this topic.
Don’t miss out on my Live Online training this month! Details below and a few days till discount runs out.
Traveling art teacher – Spramani Elaun
Painting Key Lessons 101 Online
| Painting Key Lessons 101 Best for primary and elementary grade teachers, parents and art instructors October Online Art Training CPD hours 1.5 Two Dates to choose from: October Tuesday 29th PST (West Coast) 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. PST 1. 5 hours or, October Thursday 30th ET (East Coast ) 6:30 – 7:30 Painting with kids in Bali How do you teach painting without painting skills? How can painting lessons integrate with your core curriculum? Where do you start, what types of paints are best to buy, how should painting lessons be managed, and how do you get your students painting independently quickly? In this training I’ll answer all these questions, give you guidelines, tips, a shopping list, and share video key lessons demonstrations every student should know. Attending live will give you a chance to get your questions answered. A recording of the main training will be available to all paid customers regardless if you attend live, usually available 24 hours after training. 1.5 PD hours are available to only live attendees. Two dates with different time zones to choose from. Have questions? Need to enroll more than one teacher? Email: SpramaniElaun@gmail.com Enrollment Now Open! Painting Key Lessons 101 Regular Rate $197.00 Enroll in the next 5 days for special discount offer for only $97.00 Enroll today for only $97.00 |