Art and Design Junior Badge: My Review

 

This year's new badges include a series of Art and Design badges at the Daisy, Brownie and Junior levels. I have reviewed the Daisy badge and the Brownie badge already. This post will look at the Junior badge.  

Requirements

According to Badge Explorer, the requirements for the Junior badge are: 

Examine and explore different styles and elements of art and design.

1. Discover art and design around you
2. Make art about a subject
3. Experiment with the elements
4. Explore composition
5. Design an art display

When you've earned this badge, you'll know how to turn ideas into art and design projects

Opening Activity, Meeting One

VTK recommends having the girls choose an animal and create a piece of art about it, and then sketch something they could build to help the animal.  These are to be quick projects. During the opening discussion you cover some of the vocabulary words.

Discover Art and Design Around You

The first VTK suggestion is to "Examine Makers in Art and Design". The talking points for the leader include the vocabulary words and then the girls either do research on a maker (artist) or talk to one (guest speaker). 

As an alternative, girls can "Get Insired by a Medium or Style"  After a discussion of various mediums and artists, girls are given some medium to work with and they are supposed to pick a person, place or thing and either create art about it or design something for it.  

The third choice is to "Search for Art and Design". After using pretty much the same talking points as in the first two choices, girls search their surrounding s in person or virtually for examples of art and design. 

Experiment with the Elements

To Experiment with the Elements, girls can "Explore Line and Texture". After a discussion covering such words as elements, line, and texture, the troop plays "I spy" with the leader spying things with different design elements "I spy something green, rough, fluffy etc. Girls review a provided handout and talk about the elements seen. Then the girls use the materials provided to create a piece of art focusing on lines and textures. Suggested project ideas are string art, contour drawings, sculpting clay or creating a collage with different textures. 

The second option is to "Explore Color and Saturation".  The initial discussion is the same as above,  with the addition of talking about primary and secondary colors and adding white and black to change the saturation.  Then the girls do an art project focusing on color choices.  Suggested projects are painting a sunset, knitting or crocheting an item using three colors of yarn or taking photos and editing them to adjust the colors. 

The third choice is "Explore Shape and Form" and this time the discussion and art project focuses on the use of shape and form.  Suggested projects are sculptures made from found materials, doing a design consisting of overlapping circles painted various colors, designing and building a model home using boxes or blocks (wonder if legos would qualify) and making a mosaic. 

Opening Activity:  Meeting Two

The opening activity for meeting two is to trace some objects and then create a drawing or design made from shapes.  In the opening discussion they share their drawing and talk about how they incorporated texture, color, line and other elements. 

Explore Composition

The first suggested activity is "Get Some Perspective".  Leaders discuss some more new words, with a particular emphasis on perspective.  Then the girls create a piece of art showing a landscape.  Suggested activities are creating a collage of things cut from magazines, photographing things from different perspectives and sketching buildings from different perspectives.  

"Experiment with Light and Shading" begins with a similar discussion, of course this time focusing on light and shading.  Before the meeting the leader is supposed to set up several different still life arrangements in the room and have the ability to light each from different directions. The girls then sketch on of the arrangements, and then, after five minutes or so, the light is moved and the girls sketch it again. After they have three sketches, the girls talk about how lighting made a difference and then turn one into a piece of art. 

The third choice is "Size It Up with Scale" The opening discussion is much the same, but focuses on scale and how artists use it.  Then the girls thing of a subject such as an animal, object or place. They use provided materials to create either a miniature or large version of their object.  A suggested project is drawing an outline of your miniature or enlarged object and using it as a pattern to cut fabric for a pillow, which you then embellish.  Another suggestion is creating a diorama.  Finally you can draw, paint or photograph  an object as if it was huge and you were small, looking up or down at it.  

Design an Art Display

For the final requirement, Juniors come up with a way to share their artwork.  They either host and event, create a portfolio or make some merch.  For the event, the girls can design invitations, make frames, arrange the artwork, create a guide and more.  To create the portfolio, they make something in which to keep their artwork and talk about sharing it.  For creating merch, they sketch what they want and talk about design elements.  

VTK Resources

VTK includes these resources for leaders:'

• Make it with Style:  A sheet showing four different types of art which gives the girls the words for the style and describes it. 
• Words to Know:  A vocabulary list of nineteen words plus definitions
• Project Idea:  Make String Art.  Directions for string art project
• Making for Families: Handout on this year's new badges
• Get Making with Girl Scouts: Seven page handout on Makers, Making and Makerspaces
• Badge Overview (four printed pages)
• Meeting plan for each meeting (8 pages each)

My Comments:

We meet for an hour so it would probably take me four or five meetings to get through these projects, but in general I like this badge.  There are a variety of projects offered and yet you aren't limited to them. I like the way it is designed in a similar manner to the Daisy and Brownie badges so that multi-level troops can all do the same projects.  You could do this series of badges every other year, using different mediums each time. 

I like the way the VTK scripts lead the leader into teaching about art and design--they don't just give a list of projects.  My main criticism of GSUSA's badge program overall is that its outcomes and goals are so vague and there are no clear indicators that a goal has been reached, so the usual procedure is to do five activities and call it good.  While I realize leader Facebook groups may not be a random sample of Girl Scout leaders, VTK still does not seem to be popular planning option so I wonder how many of the troops that do this badge will actually have any exposure to the vocabulary, and how many will just do four art projects and go on a field trip/have a guest speaker. 

I just wish the series extended to the older girls. Well, maybe next year.