Mason Hamlet Act 3

Here are my drawings for Hamlet Act 3. I was shocked as I read how alone everyone seems to be. In their secrets they cannot share they distance themselves. Hamlet has to act crazy to figure things out and his secret causes him to lost his girlfriend and everything. Claudius surely feels alone with the murder of his brother. Then Gertrude is stuck in the secrets and has to be aloof and alone from her brother-in-law husband.

I wanted to draw Hamlet standing alone with a crowd of people and no one looking at each other, but then I decided to just draw him in a long hallway completely alone. Here you are. Hamlet Act 3

Mason's Response to Melanie's Lesson

So this lesson plan was a lot of fun. Bascally what it was asking me to do was to think of a symbol that went along with Hamlet and draw it three different ways. I got to look at both the drawing and the object as much as I wanted. I got to look at both but less at my drawing, and third, I only got to look at the object and never my drawing.

Full Control

Half Control

No Control

The object I chose was a painting of three skulls featured on my lesson outline. I figured skulls and death really symbolized Hamlet well, what with the whole Yorick thing and then everyone dying other thing.

It was really cool because the whole lesson was on control, that nobody had control or at least full control. Doing this excercise really made me think. The first time I drew it was easy. The second time it was harder and a little frustrating, and I wasn't happy with my results. The third time was almost laughable at how helpless I felt and the end result is laughable as well. If it was that frustrating to just draw a picture having minimal control,  I can now sympathize with Hamlet who has no control while trying to avenge his father and put his whacked out life in order.

Very fun. Nice job Melanie.

This didn't work too well... (Erik)

So,  I tried to start working on Angela's lesson plan, and I realized that I wasn't so good at creating illusions in art. I am not very good at accuracy, I have found. We'll keep working on it, though... This is supposed to be an optical illusion, let's just put it that way.

Cassandra's Artworks for Acts 2-5

I am so glad that we had Thanksgiving break to complete this....because (at least for me) it was a ton of work. However, I really enjoyed reading and doing art at the same time, especially focusing on the tone or mood of the play while doing the different artworks. Some of the pieces are a little more fleshed out than others, but I figured that to keep to our schedule, I would throw them up here.

Act 2

This feels like the act where everyone begins to really spy on each other. Polonius introduces this when he sends Reynaldo to secretly check up on Laertes through lying about his character to others in France. Thus, he says, "your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth." So, I have a maze that has many different beginnings, but no clear way to the end, as well as things stacking up, almost reaching a boiling point.

Act 3

For this act, I kept thinking about people being coerced or cornered. Hamlet tries to "catch the conscience of the king" with his play within a play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are accused of trying to "play" Hamlet as they keep questioning him and his motives (since they are in the service of Claudius), and Hamlet is summoned to Gertrude's chambers so that Polonius can spy on him and find out what is going on. So, in my first work, I have visualized different ways of feeling cornered, surrounded, or coerced like the characters in Hamlet.

I wanted to focus a little more on the scene in Gertrude's bedchamber as well, so I drew what I think is the tense moment before Hamlet figures out that Polonius is behind the arras. Polonius is hiding and thinks he is safely spying, but Hamlet is a bit out of control. I think this described by Hamlet's small soliloquy in the previous scene when he says, "tis now the very witching time of night...my thoughts be bloody."

Act 4

Here I took a transfer drawing that I did to represent Ophelia and used watercolor to paint the different flowers that she gives out when she goes mad. I wanted to capture the feeling of introspective, tragic madness that I think Ophelia has. She is not going crazy like Hamlet, but is really a tragic loss in this play. She says as she is giving out her flowers:

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts...There's fennel for you, and

columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me. Me may call it herb of grace on Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died..."

Act 5

I guess I really feel bad for the tragic death of Ophelia, but I really liked when Gertrude says, "Sweets for the sweet," and throws flowers in her grave. So, I did a play on that and not only represented a flower going to the dead, but also a modern-day sweet.

The last act is definitely the bloody one. Not only is there blood from Hamlet and Laertes wounds, but I always picture the drink blood red as well. So, red is flying in the last scene of Hamlet. I wanted to represent both the ways that those left died, and I realized that Hamlet not only got stabbed by the poisoned sword, but asked Horatio for the cup as well, so as to speed up his already mortal fate. I like the line that Hamlet says right before he dies: "I die, Horatio, the potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit!" And thus, Hamlet ends.

Interpretation of Hamlet as a Whole (replacing the act III sketch)

This is the famous "to be or not to be act", and I wanted to honour it with a piece of music.... ahem:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0eU6X1mO1mMZDE1NTM4OTAtZWFlZC00Y2ZiLTkxMGMtYjdmMjdkMGM2ZjBi

The magical flute playing was done by my wife, Tabitha, and I was on the organ.

I feel like so many times Hamlet is just so indecisive. The repetitiveness and attitude I tried to put into this piece of music hopefully will express that better than I can say it in words. I believe the biggest battles are the ones we wage in our own souls;  I tried to convey in this piece longing of finding out what one should do, as if waiting for an answer to come, or hesitation in taking a certain direction.

Angela's Lesson Plan

Explore the theme of acting through art.

Learning Outcomes:

 The students will explore the levels of acting within Hamlet through creating a piece of art that encompasses this theme.


Materials:
- paper
- colored pencils, markers, erasers, pencils, and pens
- paints and brushes

Lesson Guideline:
   Cover the different levels of acting throughout this play, including:
      - the play within the play (the actual stage actors)
      - Hamlet's play of madness
      - Claudius' acting sincere
      - Polonius' way of spying on Laertes
      - Ophelia's possible act of madness

Discussion Questions:
      - How many characters in Hamlet are not trying to specifically act and appear a certain way?
      - Do you sometimes find yourself feeling like you should act a specific way to achieve specific
            goals?
      - What sort of customs do we have in society today that would make you feel obligated to act a
            certain way?
      - How do you think Hamlet would have acted had he not feared acting against societal norms?
      - Do you think Hamlet was using madness as an excuse to act however he wanted?

Refer to the following quotes to help develop discussion:

Hamlet: "I'll have these Players

Play something like the murther of my father

Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;

I'll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,

I know my course... The play's the thing

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.

Claudius (talking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

about Hamlet's madness): "I entreat you both

That, being of so young days brought up with him,

And since so neighbor'd to his youth and havior,

That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court

Some little time; so by your companies

To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather

So much as from occasion you may glean,

Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus

That, open'd, lies within our remedy."

Claudius (in the act of praying):

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go."

Polonius (speaking of how he is going to spy on his son):

"See you now-

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;

And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,

With windlasses and with assays of bias,

By indirections find directions out."

Vocabulary:

      - Dandy. n.

            1. A man who affects extreme elegance in clothes and manners; a fop.

            2. Something very good or agreeable.

      - Illusion. n.

            1. A false idea or belief.

            2. A deceptive appearance or impression.

Historical Background:

      - Dandies were men who placed particular importance on physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with an appearance of nonchalance. in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Britain, a dandy often strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle despite coming from a middle-class background. Explain how dandies were trying to become something they were not by altering their appearance and lifestyle into a mode of imitating others who seemingly had a better lifestyle.

Illusionist Artists:

      - Explain how illusionist artists tried to capture the idea of something appearing different from what it was. Show the painting for a brief moment and have the students write down what they first see, and then show it a second time and have them write down what they saw the second time around.

Jos de Mey

Rene Magritte

Melanie's Lesson Plan Draft

Here's my lesson plan. Let me know if it's all right or if I need to change anything to make it better or add anything (because I've never made one before). I enjoyed this opportunity though. Enjoy!

Lesson Theme: Control

Learning Outcomes/Objectives

• Learn how Shakespeare demonstrates the theme of control in the tragedy Hamlet.
• Apply what they learn about control beginning with creating artwork.
  

Materials:

• Colored Pencils
• Markers
• Crayons
• Pencils
  
• Paper
  

Procedures

• Discuss that there are two different types of control that Shakespeare demonstrate the theme through: Physical and Mental.

• Who has physical control in the play? The monarchy: Hamlet is a prince, Claudius is a king; Hamlet tells the acting troupe what to play; People kill each other with poison, drowning, and swords.
• How is mental control showed? Who has mental control? Hamlet going crazy, Hamlet not acting upon his thoughts of revenge, Ophelia after her father dies, Gertrude and her lust, Hamlet telling Guildenstern that though he's been trying to control him he can't.Processes

Processes

• Creating Artwork: Create three images observing one object three different times using contour line. Allow the students control over the object being drawn (must be from life) and the medium being drawn with. Suggest that the student choose an object that demonstrates their understanding of Hamlet.
  

1. Complete Control: The student observes the object and draws it how they like.
2. Partial Blind Contour: The student is only allowed to look at their drawing occasionally, but during most of their drawing they are looking at the object.
3. Blind Contour: Don't look at your paper after placing your drawing utensil until the drawing is done.
   

Vocabulary

• Contour - a line that traces the outer limits of an object or surface
• Blind Contour - A blind contour drawing is a line drawing that is created without the use of constantly looking at the paper. Instead, one concentrates intensely on the item that he/she is drawing. These types of drawings enhance one’s eye-hand coordination and create a better awareness of changes of form and space.
• Control - a : to exercise restraining or directing influence over : regulate. b : to have power over : rule
• Theme - a subject or topic of discourse or of artistic representation

Discussion Questions

• What can we control in our lives? What things do we have no control over? (We always can control our actions; we have no control over others actions or the consequences to our choices but we can control our reactions to these things.)
  
• Who is really in control? Does anyone have control or is the world in the hands of fate?

Assessment
Students will be graded on their drawings based on if they followed the rules while creating them. They may be graded on answers to discussion questions.

Hamlet Act 3 Sketches

Here's my act III stuff. I didn't have anything for act II, so I apologize for that. And hopefully I'll get up the lesson plan soon, so don't worry about that.
My thought process for these art pieces are just little snippets from the text that I read and saw an image for so I wanted to see them out on paper. They aren't very deep, just a visual representation of what I was reading.

First, the pencil sketch:
Ophelia:
"O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword,
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
...O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!"

Next, Hamlet insulting his friend:
"Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal."
And so I drew a man, but no one in particular, and therefore a silhouette, because he is just a man. And a man, all alone, with nothing but his own thoughts.

And this one was just because I really wanted to use my white charcoal pencil: "Lights, lights, lights!"

And then we have the really depressing one that comes from this quote from the play inside of Hamlet:Hamlet: 'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'

Lucianus: Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.

And the last one:
"Forest of Feathers"

Cassandra's Lesson Plan

Hopefully this can be read. If it is too difficult for you to make out, just let me know and I can type it all out on a blog post instead of attaching screenshots of my lesson plan. Happy art making!

Mason's Lesson Plan

Death Themes in Hamlet

Lesson Purpose
Inspired by studying death in the play Hamlet students will react creatively by making a work of art of the themes of death brought up in the play.

1. Create a work of art about death
2. Support their creative reasoning behind their art, how it portrays themes of death in Hamlet

Vocabulary
Symbolism in art history

Lesson

• Explain that death is a major theme throughout Hamlet. It is constantly on Hamlets mind and also seems to be the end result of most of the characters. Shakespeare seems to be asking us to address the concerns and questions about death and mortality.

Killing and Characters

• Point out that most characters die. Ask who died? How did they die? Answers may be:
• Hamlet Sr.-poisoned in his ear
• Hamlet Jr. -poisoned sword
• Polonius- stabbed
• Claudius- poisoned sword/drink
• Gertrude- poisoned drink
• Laertes- poisoned sword
• Ophelia- suicide
• Yoric- has been dead
• In discussing these deaths you may want to ask students what they think of them. Were these deaths or killing good answers to problems or situations? Important deaths and the effects they have that you may wish to bring up are:
• What effect does Hamlet Sr.’s murder have?
• Starts the whole play off
• What effect does Polonius’ murder have?
• Point of no return. Hamlet is sent away. Ophelia goes crazy. Laertes is angry.
• What effect does Ophelia’s death have on everyone left?
• Speak about the funeral scene pointing out the reactions of Hamlet and Laertes. Possibly point out the reactions of the lay people to Ophelia and her death.
• While most people seem to see death as the answer in the play isn’t it interesting how Hamlet stops Horatios suicide at the end. Why?
  
  HORATIO (Speaking of drinking the rest of the poison)
  Never believe it:
  I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:
  Here's yet some liquor left.
  HAMLET
  As thou'rt a man,
  Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.
  O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
  Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
  If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
  Absent thee from felicity awhile,
  And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
  To tell my story.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?

To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause:
                      -Hamlet

·         This is a question that many people think about. What lies after death. Richard Matheson is an author (Wrote books like I am Legend, Bid Time Return( also known as Somewhere in Time)  who was inspired by this line to write a book, What Dreams May Come, where he takes a fictional character through the after life? Ask the students what they think lies beyond death?

·         At the end of the play who finds peace in death?

o    Nobody.

·         Can one find peace in death? How?

Inspiration For Art:

Explain to the students the Symbolist Art Movement and how death was a major theme studied and depicted. Use examples of their works and help the students take their ideas and reflections on death and turn those into a visual representation too.

Symbolist artists:
Symbolism was an art movement that began in 1885 and reigned through to 1910. The Symbolist movement was a reaction against the literal representation of objects and subjects, where instead there was an attempt to create more suggestive, metaphorical and evocative works. Symbolic artists based their ideas on literature, where poets such as Baudelaire believed that ideas and emotions could be portrayed through sound and rhythm and not just through the meaning of words. Symbolist painter styles varied greatly but common themes included the mystical and the visionary. Symbolists also explored themes of death, debauchery, perversion and eroticism. Symbolism moved away from the naturalism of the impressionists and demonstrated a preference for emotions over intellect. The Symbolist period contributed much to the development of the abstract arts of the 20th century, and is a crucial step in understanding consecutive periods. Famous Symbolist artists include Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon and Gustav Klimt.

Gustave Morea Death offers the crown to the tournament victor

    

      The Apparition

      by Gustave Moreau 

Death’s Head

by Odilon Redon

This isn’t done by a symbolist artist, it is a painting of Ophelia done by British painter John Everett Millais. Explain that Hamlet and Shakespeare have influenced the art world.

Erik's Mad Lesson plan (draft)

Target Audience

High School student art classes, years Freshman to Senior

Lesson Purpose and Outcomes

Students will engage Shakespeare critically and creatively; by analyzing and interpreting a series of Hamlet's soliloquies they will gain fluency and fluidity with Shakespearian ideas and themes (madness, in particular), after which they will be prepared to express their reactions to the same themes through projects involving mixed media. In particular, they will:

1.      Gain familiarity with 3 soliloquies

2.      Develop team communicative skills as they discuss their ideas

3.      Learn principles of abstract art

4.      Expand their vision of art to the usage of many materials

Materials

Teachers will have to ask students to bring in their own materials from home; once the principles of abstract art have been taught, encouragement can be given to think creatively in terms of the types of materials that they bring from home.

a.       Glue

b.      Tape

c.       Paint

d.      Paper

e.       Scrap materials of any kind

Vocabulary

Abstract Art

Artists

Shakespeare

Kenneth Braugh (Hamlet’s Soliloquies cinematic versions)

Theo van Doesburg

Piet Mondrian

Fernand Léger

Procedures

Part 1 (1 to 2 class periods)

1.      Divide the classroom into groups. Tell the students that they will be placed in these groups that they might be able to be free in expressing their creative views in our class discussions.

2.      Give an introduction to the theme of madness we will be following in Shakespeare: Being sensitive to individuals’ opinions and backgrounds, begin the first discussion about what we consider to be sane and what we consider to be irrational or crazy, and why. Using the discussion questions found below, guide the students in continuing their own conversations.

Discussion Questions

“How do people react when they encounter a person that has a physical or mental handicap?”

“Can we as individuals adequately fit into the shoes of others who have some mental       disability?”

“Are the mentally infirm aware of the fact that they are crazy?”

“What might we do to show that we are sensitive to their concerns?

3.      As a means to transition the current conversation over to an application inside a Shakespearian context, engage the following passages of Hamlet, his soliloquies (via text, or via youtube):

 a.  “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!” (Act I, Scene II)

b.   “To be, or not to be, that is the question”  (Act III, scene I)

c.  “Oh what a rogue and a peasant slave am I” (Act II, scene 

 4. Engage in a teacher-led discussion about what contributes to Hamlet’s progressive madness.

         Part II (3-5 class periods)
         1. Organize materials
         2. Give a brief introduction to abstract artists and their styles
         3. Give instruction for abstract art and creating principles-- by personal preference
         4. Allow students to respond to previous class(es) on madness by creating their own interpretations with abstract art, based on their own imagination
         5. Circulate and discuss with each student the feelings they put into their respective works

Assessment

1.      Allow the class the opportunity to present their respective abstract works with explanations to their classmates

Extensions

The above lesson could be applied to any theme of Shakespeare or literature

Sources

Shakespeare’s Hamlet,

???

Lesson Plan Examples

Hi group. As promised, I am attempting to post some other lesson plan examples. Basically, we should all try to have similar elements to our lessons with subjects such as: Lesson Theme/Purpose, Learning Outcomes/Objectives, Procedures, Vocabulary, Discussion Questions, Assessment, Extensions/Adaptations, Sources.

Also, I think it is an excellent idea to edit one another's lessons. I think we should come to class having already read each others' lessons so that we can help improve them while we are creating our informative video.

Anyways, the first lesson here is a Utah teacher's from Freedom Academy, and the second is another one of mine. If you need any specific help on your lesson plans, by all means, comment on this post and let me know if I can help in any way. Happy lesson planning!

Idea Development

Working as a group to try to collaborate all of our ideas has not been an easy task... We all thought that we understood each others' ideas, but ended up getting more and more confused. As Mason put it well, "we're all visual people, let's draw this out".


And so, here was our first sketch of how to put together an art curriculum, an art gallery that corresponded to it (taking the art for the curriculum and displaying it, that is), etc. The relationships drawn on paper might not make sense to the casual beholder, as a warning.

I think each bubble represented an individual act and piece of work, but I am not sure about all of the relationships (ah! Mason, help). When we ran into more trouble of understanding the depth and breadth of our project, we drew up another plan (back to the drawing board seems like an apt description).

NOW, we are each creating a lesson plan based off of a chosen theme. We will each respond to one other by the art we produce. We will continue to engage the text and respond artistically act by act, and  further research the venues for producing it. This is coming together. We now just need to finalize Gallery location and post the whole thing online (once we get the artwork done and do the video!)

Act 2 Erik Multimedia

Wax, printed paper, styrafoam on white paper

 

Newspaper, ink, matches, and wax on white paper

Two Interpretations: Is Hamlet Growing Mad?

"Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i’ the throat
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this, ha?
’Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous,"

end of Act II

In these two pieces I tried to combine many common media in a sculpture-like way, very abstract, to try to represent that Hamlet is growing insane because of his plot. The paintings are like a glimpse into his mind... that was what I tried to achieve.

What I felt was that Hamlet slowly starts to disintegrate. While making these pieces of art, the same theme was relevant in the materials I chose to use: Candles were melted, paper torn, whole Styrofoam undone, and the combination of these created a mesh of confused layers, edges, color, etc. I even blew up a pen to get the ink. This is what I feel is happening to Hamlet. All his whole mental parts are being undone, mixed, and confused.

Visual Thinking

So I finally broke out and did some visual thinking with act 1 of Hamlet. I had a hard time getting into it, firstly taking notes on my thoughts and visual images of things. But then I started to see actual images that I could create and I decided to put them on paper.

The first thought I had was of Hamlet being obedient and loving to his mother. It sounded very hypocritical that he was doing it to get away from his uncle's control. But isn't his mother kind of driven by her lust for Hamlet's uncle? So isn't she controlled a little bit by Claudius? So the image I thought of was someone walking a dog (in this case a child) and that person also being on a leash and being lead/controlled by the biggest person.






Next I decided to put out Hamlet. I got the ideas straight from the text:
"nighted color" and "inky cloak" and "solemn black".










The last one I did was a representation of the ghost of Hamlet the former King. "My hour is almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself." And so comes the clock in the midst of fire. he also mentions later on a river from the underworld (Lethe) thus the penciled in river in the background that you can barely see. I felt like it went along nicely with the theme of the ghost being dead and going to the underworld.


From this first reading of act 1 and thinking visually about themes I came up with a couple themes that may exist through the whole play that may be interesting to look into. First of all the theme of reality versus what is in your head. Hamlet seems to have a lot going on in his head. How much of it is real? How much is self-created anxiety? Another theme is control. Who is really in control? Does anyone have control or is the world in the hands of fate? (since fate in mentioned in the first act).

Research

Hello everybody,

I saw this and I thought that it was really cool.

Basically, this is an art education blog, and one of the activities was making Shakespeare masks. It called my attention, though, because I hadn't even thought about the possibility that part of the art "curriculum" has the potential maybe to do the artwork for production purposes itself. I mean, especially for the younger grades, this would be something really cool. With High School students, I think our plan is the best, but for littler kids, I think we could still achieve some of the same objectives this way: have them make the masks or props, etc. They still put their emotions/interpretations into it, I mean. Coo, huh?

Mason: Hamlet Act One

To Faithful readers outside our Shakespeare Group:

In our group we are going to make a curriculum which proposes to teach Shakespeare and help students better process and understand by reacting creativly to the ideas and themes they find in the play. The play our group is doing is Hamlet. We are all reading through the play and looking to make our own connections and how they inspire us to show these things through our own creativity.

Horatio and the Ghost

The play starts out with the guards and a ghost. Interesting that an apparition that may or may not be there is how the play begins. A substanceless manifestation. The men are so scared of a being who cannot hurt them, " it harrows me with fear and wonder." Hamlet Sr. seems terrible and great but is unable to actually do anything in his ghostly state. This seems to be the same way Hamlet Jr. is. He is all sad and dramatic but it all seems so empty. In fact, empty words seems to be a family trait as Claudius gives his speech about how sad he is about the death of his brother, "Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death the memory be green, and that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe." Let's be honest, he killed the guy, he doesn't care. Hamlet seems to see empty actions and words in his mother who hung so close to Hamlet Sr. but turned her back so quickly after his death.

Words without substance seem to be common despite Hamlets protestations of what "seems".

"Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe."

This all just moves on and on. Laertes tells Ophelia that Hamlet might be fake, she tells him not to be a hypocrite and give her advice that he doesn't keep. Polonius give's tons of advice and says lots of nice things seeming a good father but then turns and says mean things to Ophelia about her boyfriend, the prince-should-be-king Hamlet Jr.

"Empty" Family

The plot and everything moves forward and everything, but beneath the plot, or trancending the plot, however, seems to be a theme of falsness or "words without thoughts".


So I made these two sketches shown. The first one is Horatio and the Ghost. I tried to make Horatio look more substantial using a thicker marker, he just looks silly. The ghost is supposed to look like air. if I were to it again I would not do the Horatio thick marker thing. The second sketch is Gertrude, Hamlet, and Claudius. Gertrude is in half funeral dress and half wedding dress. Hamlet is all emo, and Claudius is a little silly looking with pajama looking things on (I am ashamed). All three of them have holes through their chest showing that they are empty, insubstantial, just like their words. 

Proposal

So, I don't mean to be pushy, I just noticed we aren't really getting anywhere. I feel like we don't really have a plan because everyone has their own ideas of what our final project should be like, yet we're trying to put it all together into one. So, here's a proposal for everyone:

First, we can each make one or two lesson plans for the curriculum using different themes found in Hamlet. This could come off a list we create and each person could take one or two. Then, if they have time or energy they can create a piece of art for that individual lesson.
      Then at the gallery we will then have one area where all the curriculum material will be displayed and where we can show any teachers who might be there. This will also make it possible for us to circulate it around the schools without having to move a whole gallery.

Next, we can each have our own project(s) that demonstrates our learning and will specifically focus on our process of going from the text to the image. This will be things like Eric's organ piece, Mason's scene-by-scene sketches, etc. At the beginning of our project I feel like this was the main idea, but we needed a theme to piece the pieces together. I feel like we could go off of a "Words, words, words!" theme. We can have actual clips of the text (finding interesting ways to incorporate it along with our artwork) and so as you go through the gallery you will see a continuous stream of words. However, it wouldn't be boring and overwhelming as we could actually interpret the words in our own ways and incorporate the artwork through all these words.

   

So, for an example, I would have something like my word collage along with my preliminary sketches and then a couple other final images with particular quotes that fit the piece.


This would give us a curriculum for teachers to be able to incorporate in their classrooms and would also give us an actual gallery. The gallery wouldn't simply be about our great art skills though, because it would also be showing others how we (and thus, how they) can take a difficult text like Hamlet and apply it to our lives through creating images or different forms of art that makes it more real to us.

What does everyone think?

Research

So as part of the final project some research is required to see if anyone else out there has done anything like what we're doing. I just searched a little bit on Google and came up with this website: Early Learning Through The Arts. This one isn't so much art and Shakespeare but I think the objectives are what we are trying to achieve, in a way, and the themes are similar, too.
Then there's this other website that really looks like they are more along our lines of thinking, mainly putting Shakespeare to the tune of art (or applying it to other subjects). Here it is: English: Shakespeare across the Curriculum. I clicked on the link at the bottom (Shakespeare across the Curriculum). I found that it explained a lot about what they were trying to do and maybe we could look at it and take a few ideas or use it to help us simplify our current plan.

Black and White

So here are some sketches of the first act of Hamlet. It's not in color, so if I work on this further, I'd make it larger and add the color. I'd also do several perspectives to help people see what it would really look like if you were there viewing it. The first one is just some of my brainstorming and the second one is just fleshing out the details. Sorry my scanner cut off parts of it. Oops. Oh, and further along I would put up an explanation to point out several key aspects of the design as well as to include the quotes that directly affected this design.