One of my biggest pet peeves is when a student throws away a perfectly good piece of paper because it has a small rip, wrinkle, smudge, hole, or even a scribble. A few years ago, I happened across Barney Saltzberg’s book, Beautiful Oops! (Workman Publishing Company, 2010). I knew it would be perfect to read to my students at the beginning of the school year and make the point that a mistake is not the end, but an opportunity.
Left: Justin, ink stain transformed into an extraterrestrial being. Right: Brad, crumpled paper transformed into a rooster sculpture.Rowan, hole in paper transformed into the mouth of an octopus.
The Idea of Mistakes
Before sharing the book with students, I prompt them with some questions: “Has anybody ever made a mistake before?” “Does anybody like to make mistakes?” “Can mistakes be a good thing?” Then we read the book and look at the illustrations together. Saltzberg takes rips, holes, and crumpled paper and uses his imagination to turn these common mistakes into works of art. I love the last pages of the book, which read, “When you think you have made a mistake, think of it as an opportunity to make something beautiful.” We end our reading with a discussion about what the book meant to students and how we can change how we think about mistakes in art or other areas of life.
Let’s Make a Mistake
We brainstorm a list of ways a piece of paper could become “messed up.” We make a list on the board that usually includes things like rips, smears, stains, holes in the paper, bent corners, scribbles, shoe prints, and drips.
Students are given a piece of 9 x 12" (23 x 30 cm) drawing paper and instructed to create one small mistake of their choice. The paper must stay in one piece and only one small mistake should be created. It is important to specify that the whole paper shouldn’t be destroyed.
At this point, some students suspect that they will transform their mistake into art and will try to manipulate their mistakes into something they want to work with later. Then, much to their surprise, I collect their papers.
Working with the “Mistakes”
When all the mistakes have been collected, I announce that students will choose a classmate’s mistake as the start of their artwork. I always make a few extra mistake papers so students have a variety to choose from.
At this point, I show them a few examples of other students’ projects that started as mistakes to get them thinking about possibilities. Once they select a paper they think they can work with, we talk about rotating the paper to see things from a different angle and talking to other classmates to see what they might see in an ink splat, stain, or scribble.
Students choose from an array of media to fit their ideas. The only rule is that they must somehow use the mistake they received to create their artwork. Students busily discuss ideas and explore media choices as their work begins to evolve.
The Results
Upon completion, students write a reflection that includes what mistake they received and what they created from it. When asked if I should do this again with new students next year, almost all students responded that they believe there is great value in what they learned from this project. My own satisfaction with this project grows throughout the school year when students dig through the scrap paper box, or “mess up” a new piece of paper to trade with another student as inspiration for a new project. My classes don’t throw away nearly as much paper as we did before we read Saltzberg’s book. I love to hear one student say to a classmate who thinks they have made a mistake, “You just made an opportunity!”
Sarah Chaffee is an elementary art teacher at Sacred Heart Academy in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. SChaffee@mpps.edzone.net
National Standard
Creating: Conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work.
This issue introduces various ways to address advocacy through different lenses, ranging from cultural perspectives to embracing mistakes and self-expression. Young students use art and creative thinking skills to connect with themselves and the world around them, elementary students turn mistakes like rips and smudges into beautiful works of art, middle-school students make clay puzzle pieces with symbolic objects representing their interests, high-school students create detailed fabric portraits of someone they look up to, and more.
