Lessons in Unit: After facilitating the inquiry based, motivational introduction addressing the themes, context, composition, aesthetic,

and creative processes and mediums in William Kentridges art, students will engage in a series of projects designed to conceptually and artistically/technically prepare them for the culminating project Lesson 1: Transformation of an Object in Space - This introductory lesson gives students the opportunity to brush up on still life drawing skills (charcoal and pastel) while exploring the concept of transformation - Students will choose two unrelated objects and create a series of five charcoal drawings (8.5x11) depicting stages of transformation of one object into the other Lesson 2: Mechanisms of Vision - This lesson draws on Kentridges interest in machines that make you aware of the process of seeing and aware of what you do when you construct the world by looking. - Students will discuss different inventions throughout history that have changed the way we see the world (binoculars, telescopes, microscopes, glasses, cameras, motion films, color films, 3D films, etc.) and actually look through some of these things- viewfinders, binoculars, phone cameras, magnifying glasses, sunglasses, eyeglasses, and create a drawing or series of drawings to represent multiple ways of seeing. Lesson 3: Figurative Transformation: Gesture Drawing - In this lesson students will review the basics of gesture drawing (learned in prior unit), by layering quick gesture drawings one on top of another, each in a different color pastel, on a single sheet of newsprint; students will take turns modeling for the class - This lesson addresses William Kentridges use of figurative gesture to convey meaning and emotion in his art and deals with issues of transformation, temporality, and perception: by layering figure upon figure the forms meld together into a single image that morphs each time a new gesture drawing takes form. At once a process of becoming and disintegration (both of which are elements of transformation), this process of spontaneous, layered gesture drawing is an exercise in awareness of the temporality of perception. This lesson relates to the culminating project because the immediacy of the transformation in this drawing exercise approaches the kind of instantaneous transformation and motion captured through animation. Lesson 4: Personal & Social History Narrative: Mixed Media/Collage - This lesson gives students the opportunity to think about an event in recent history that affected their lives and in some way transformed the way they perceive the world. - Students will create three mixed media/collage compositions to visually explore the intersection between personal and social (or we could say public) history. The first collage will depict the way the students perceived a person/place/concept/issue before the significant event took place, the second will depict the event in progress, and the third will depict how their perception of the chosen person/place/concept/issue changed as a result of this event and how it affected them personally Lesson 5: Character Creation: Exploring Dual Aspects of the Self through Fictional Characters - Students will view a short film segment in which William Kentridge discusses the development and significance of Felix Teitlebaum and Soho Eckstein, recurring fictional characters in his 9 Drawings for Projection and other animations, and discuss how Kentridge represents dual/multiple aspects of the self in his art. - Students will invent two characters to represent two different aspects of themselves;

students will develop the characters through drawing and writing, creating personalities and narrative personal histories for the characters; characters must interact- there must be an intersection between their personal histories; a final acrylic or water-based oil color painting will depict that narrative interaction of these characters (i.e., the representation of the interaction of dual aspects of the self). Lesson 6 (Culminating Project): Animation as Transformation: Charcoal-Drawing Animation - Students will view and discuss the drawings and charcoal-drawing animated films of William Kentridge to analyze them in terms of theme, context, composition, aesthetics, and creative process and medium - Students will create an 18x24 charcoal/pastel composition from which they will develop charcoal-drawing animations; compositions will depict the transformation of a landscape/cityscape/environment in the face of a natural or catastrophic man-made disaster; students will reference actual disasters (tsunamis, oil spills, atomic bomb, earthquake, etc.) in their projects and engage in discussion about the impact of those disasters on the environment and human life; students will incorporate figurative representations of themselves as witnesses of the event, emphasizing how gesture conveys responses, reactions, emotions and how the figure interacts with the environment. - Students will develop their compositions spontaneously, facilitating a process of visual transformation modeled after William Kentridges animation technique of drawing, erasing, re-drawing on a single sheet of paper and photographing every mark and erasure to record the transformation of the image and development of the narrative. - Students will emulate Kentridges minimal, selective use of color to emphasize elements of his compositions - Students will use imovie to transform their still images into a short animated film. - Students will set their short films to music and write narrative statements/responses about their films; this projects combination of drawn images, animation/film, music, and written word gives students the opportunity to create a truly multimedia work of art. - Students will print a selection of 24 film stills from their animations to present in a mini portfolio that will also include written the narrative/statement/response and a CD of the actual animation film. Extensions: Beyond Charcoal Mixed Mediums of Perception: A Multimedia Group Production (Collage, Hinged Shadow Puppetry/projection, Sculpture, Body Sculpture/Costumes, Set/Background Design) - Students will integrate collage, hinged shadow puppetry/projection, sculpture, body sculpture/costumes, set/background design, music, and spontaneous and scripted narrative to create a multimedia production of either an original work or an adaptation of a historically significant theatrical or operatic work. - This would probably take an entire semester, if not a year, and perhaps be better suited to an after-school theater/arts club Tapestries: I like the fact that a tapestry is like a frozen projection, a portable mural that you could role up and carry to the next palace. William Kentridge - Students will view film segments about Kentridges collaboration with a team of skilled textile artisans in creating tapestries, using highly specialized, traditional methods of production. - That Kentridge sees tapestries as frozen projections suggests that the loom, like the

camera for the artists films and videos, is a mechanism for achieving a larger dimensional view of his original paper images. Along these lines, the loom can be one of the many devices to which Kentridge refers when he says in William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible, Im interested in machines that tell you what it is to look, that make you aware of the process of seeing, make you aware of what you do when you construct the world by looking at it. Film and video would obviously seem more effective (or at least more popular) means of achieving this in our contemporary technologically-sophisticated time. But Kentridge pushes viewers to reject conventional ideas of tapestry as antiquated and to instead see the form with a digital frame of mind. (from commentary at:
http://www.art21.org/anythingispossible/resources/essays/freeze-frame-william-kentridge%E2%80%99s-tapestry-projections/).

Printmaking: - Students will view and discuss a selection of Kentridges etchings, photolithographs, and mixed media monotypes and experiment with various printmaking techniques to develop their own body of work