End of the first quarter!

Wow this quarter flew by so very fast. I realized that I never posted any of the images of my students work. 

Here are some photos of 8th grade work with two point perspective tree houses and bone enlargement observational drawings with watercolor backgrounds.

  

  

 

 

 

Observational Drawing: Soda Can Triptychs

8th grade focuses on observational drawing this year in prep for high school next year! For their first studio project the students focused on three different transformations of a soda can. They had to draw a contour line drawing of a perfect soda can, a semi-squished can and a crushed can. 

The students then had to glue the three drawings onto colored construction paper as a back matting. I love the way these came out!  

I am so proud of my students and the work they did. 

Happy First Two Weeks!

 Today marks the final day of the first two weeks of school for us here in Maryland. There are so many new and exciting things happening here in the art studio. 

1. I am now teaching almost the entire school! Yup that is right! 435 7th graders, 487 8th graders and about 80 6th graders make up my class load this year. Now normally I teacher semester classes on an every other day schedule which comes out to about 46 days of class time. But this year I am teaching quarter classes every other day which comes out to 23 days of class time! I am not sure how much I am can get done with these kids during that time but I am going to try. 

2. My brandy new ceramics kiln! If you have read my pervious posts you will already know how excited I am to have this new and awesome piece of equipment ion the art room this year! I have already ran it twice -- once to set the kiln wash on the shelves and another to create test tiles of glazes that I already have in stock! Some of these colors are amazing and I just want to buy more! 

3. As if last night (I made this decision while washing the dishes) I want to plan and host an art show either this April or May. Not sure which month and I am not sure how this will go since this will be my first art show in the five years I have been teaching. 

4. My Dell LCD projector is broken! Now this is not a good excited but rather a OMG now what am I going to do?! But I have to say so far it in has worked out exteremly well. When I was student teaching I never used the projector or the Elmo document camera mainly because the schools I was in didn't have them. But since I started teaching I have become so reliant on the technology that I have forgotten how to teach without it. These past two weeks has helped me see that I am just as good of a teacher without it as I am with it. 

African Inspired Clay Masks

This summer program has been going great -- with only one minor snag -- no A/C during a heat wave where it reached temperatures of over 100 degrees outside the building.  But it has been good for the air dry clay we were using for our African Inspired Clay Masks. 

The 7th graders over African history in social studies class so I like to do a project or two that deals with it. This summer we worked on the basic shapes and textures used by African artists when they create their masks. 

** Warning: this is a photo heavy post! **

After the kids rolled out their slab of clay, they were able to add different textures and shapes using the clay and clay tools. 

Next post will have painted finished photos of these amazing masks. 

Summer Art Program

This summer I have been asked to teach a summer program for our 7th and 8th grade Special Education Students! I am so excited to be doing this. The other cool part of it is that we are holding the program at the high school that we feed into since they are doing major work on our building! 

                                       

Another cool addition --- I got a new ceramics kiln! I am so excited. I have been teaching in this middle school for three years now and the old kiln has been broken the entire time! A now I got a new one and this makes me so happy!

                                       

                                       

I will have more summer sculpture work to show in a few days! Have a great summer break!

Birds Eye View of a City!

A study in mask making

Fantastic Castles

6th and 7th grade students focused on both architecture and pattern for this project. This was my second time doing this lesson and I love the way it comes out every time!