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. 

Coffee mug transformation

For the past month I have had the pleasure of working with several advanced art students. These students were able to transform a simple white coffee mug into some amazing sculptures.

Each sculpture is unique and shows a large part of the students personality. I am truly amazed.

A day Mask Study!

The beginning of April marked the beginning of the 4th quarter! And with the beginning of a new quarter comes a new art project! This time it is a Mask Study project with my A day group. This is a group of mostly 8th and 7th grade students but does have one or two 6th graders included. 

They are in the beginning stages of the project but so far I am really excited to see the finished work. 

Once the masks are completed and painted, they will be creating an abstract painting based off of their mask. I found the inspiration for this project on pinterest and eventually this website. I cant wait!

Art Room Update

November! November! That was the last time I have posted! Can you believe it. Well... Since November so much has happened in Art Room 104. 

My group of 6th and 7th grade students completed landscapes in either tempera paint, colored pencils, or chalk pastels. I love the way they came out and I was so happy for my students. Two of them are below.

My group of 8th and 7th graders completed portraits using a grid method to transfer the image to their drawing paper. The kids then added zen-tangles for a decorative background. 

I was really please with the way they turned out and so were the students. 

Opening Centers: Drawing

Between Monday and today I have opened our first art center of the year. The first center to be opened is the drawing center. In this center the students get to use various drawing materials from pencils to colored pastels to ink and calligraphy pens. 

I spent the first day of the drawing center opening explaining to the students what materials were there, what they can be used for and the rules for clean up. Since we are a 1:1 iPad 2 school, once the kids receive theirs there will be qr codes also on the board that will lead the students to various google docs and youtube videos that will help them or inspire them with their artwork.

Below are some of the posters that I have on display for the students in this particular center.

This poster I created to show the students what the materials look like on paper and I even blended some of them to show the students what the materials can do.

One thing my students love the create are 3D letters. Linear Perspective is something that my students have trouble with but they love the outcomes once they are finished with their artwork. 

This particular poster was created by the art teacher that was here before me but I really like it so I had to keep it. The students always want to draw people but tend to always draw stick figures and that is one of my NO NO Rules. 

This is my NO NO Board. These are all the drawing and painting techniques that the students tend to do however they are very elementary and since we are middle school art students, these are not allowed in my room. We spend about 10 minutes going over this so that the students really understand what I am expecting of them. This year I had to add the No Tracing rule to my board since students tend to do this more then anything. 

I hope you enjoyed our little journey through this years Drawing Center.

Free Draw Chaos

I normally would never give my students a blank piece of drawing paper with the assignment to just draw. Doing so is completely out of character for me -- the art teacher who hates chaos. Free draw time or assignments are always a time for students to do what they want and be creative. I just dont like the unstructured time of it all. 

Not having a lesson plan or even a planned idea of what the artwork should look like drives me nuts. Letting the students do their own creative thing is the scariest thing I know of. But having time to be creative is a good thing and can lead of amazing results. 

During Art Club one of my 7th grade students completed an amazing drawing of a flower and asked if we could have free draw time in class this week. Knowing how I felt about this I automatically said no. Then I thought about it. Maybe it wouldnt be so bad. And it wasnt. Giving the students time to just sit and be creative was a great experience for them and myself. So much so that I have decided to let Free Draw be apart of next years project schedule. 

Below are some of the free draw artworks completed by both my 7th and 8th grade students over the past week. 

Klimt Pattern People

This is the third time I have taught this project and usually the students love it. This time it was weird. They seemed to like it but it was like they didn't care. Having students not care is not unusual for a middle school but it is something I don't usually encounter with this project.

For this project the students are introduced to the art of Gustav Klimt and a basic introduction of the Art Nouveau art movement. The main focus is on line, pattern and design. What is really interesting is how the students handle a new medium -- white charcoal on black paper. usually everything we do starts with white paper and pencil. This use of the white drawing on black paper works well and I feel challenges the students a bit.

I am excited to see what the other students say about the artwork. Usually the rest of the school loves to look at these drawings and comment of the patterns, the models/celebrities and the fashions drawn.