quick winter printmaking project for artsonia

My middle school has joined Artsonia this year. It has been going really well. 

I felt I needed to post a winter themed project for my parents. 

I did a quick printmaking project with 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, using 5 x 7 styrofoam.

The theme was snowpeople. 

6th grade had a choice of:

-included a border 

or 

-having a larger snowperson in the foreground and a hill or landscape background 

(see top row below)

7th grade:

I encouraged to draw one or more snowmen from a worm's perspective. For the kids that chose to follow my strong suggestion they came out really great. Some of the kids did other spins on the idea. 

(below)

8th grade: 

These guys have done styrofoam printing with me. I showed them some inspiration examples of different scenes and snowmen illustrations and they could design as they liked. 

(shown in the title image) 

Some of my parents ordered holiday cards and ornaments with the prints which was my hope! 

View the full gallery here. 

4 part still life project - middle school

4 Part Still Life Exploration with 8th grade

on 18x24 paper split into 4 9x12 sections

Students chose their still life object.

It had to be bigger than their hand with limited text.

I steered them away from stuffed animals and fuzzy/furry textures. 

I would absolutely do this project again and keep the order in which I introduced the parts. 

This was wonderful for differentiation-

it allowed all levels of students to learn a lot, better their skills, and feel comfortable. 

1. Realistic pencil drawing of the entire object with shading. 

(2-3 class periods)

2. In the style of Romero Britto. 

(3 class periods with introduction/quick slide show)

Students must zoom in on the object, with the option to abstract it. 

Using marker they broke the section down and filled it in with bright color to make it pop. 

(toaster abstraction)

3. Collage

(3-4 class periods depending on type of collage they chose, with slide show)

Students could choose the composition for this section- with the option to zoom & crop or showcase the entire object. 

I showed LOTS of examples of different types of collages. 

They could choose their materials- I suggested magazine cut outs, newspaper, or tissue paper. 

They had to include a background. 

4. Acrylic painting

(2 class periods with introduction to painting/demonstration)

This was the final section of the four.

Students had to look at their image as a whole and figure out what type of composition was needed in order to make the entire paper feel balanced. 

Most of them have never used acrylic paint before. 

Color options and backgrounds were up to the them. 

Students decided if they wanted to paint the object in colors true to life or not.

Suggestions if you are limited on time:

- you can cut down squares & stripes ahead of time

to collage for stripe or checkerboard backgrounds

- select the objects ahead of time and limit the objects they can choose 

More finished examples to come!

Drawing clothing with middle school

 

My sixth graders produced these wonderful drawings in the fall. 

It was an introduction to drawing pencils, shading, value, drawing from life/observational drawing. To get them engaged right off the bat, students could bring in an article of clothing they wanted to draw (I discouraged ones with large logos/cartoons, or complicated patterning). 

We then hung them from the ceiling! 

The focus was on drawing the folds, wrinkles, and nuances of the fabric. 

I emphasized that clothing without a human body inside of it will look different than if someone was wearing the garment so it was important to draw what they see rather than what they think it should look like. 

Lastly, to add a bit of color, but to continue with the pencil train- the kids used watercolor pencils to fill in the background. They had to choose colors that would blend together. 

Power of Art - Post 1

This past week I attended the Power of Art program at the Lab School of Washington in D.C. and put on by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

It was AMAZING!

I HIGHLY recommend all of you reading this to apply next year. Around 30 applicants are selected each year. I have never felt more appreciated in my life for the work that I do than while I was there for 36 hours. 

And it was an incredibly enriching experience that I can directly apply to my career as an art educator.

I will post more about my experience but wanted to get started by sharing a great interactive lesson that was developed and led by one of the elementary art teachers and one of the theater arts teachers. 

It is based on the artwork of Elizabeth Murray and explores emotion and color. 

Elizabeth Murray, if you are not familiar with her work, creates bright sculptural paintings. 

There is an Art 21 segment about her well. 

As the students were given the option of doing 'elation' or 'frustration'.

We chose a large color paper that we thought showed that emotion.

Then we cut it into a large shape showing that emotion.

And added on oil pastel or crayon. (In the background is a video of the students who took part in the project at school.)

When we were finished we pinned them up on the board for that emotion. We had two big boards to work with one for each emotion. Then we stepped back and examined the composition and could make changes.

 Frustration:

Elation:

Following the art-making we did an an interactive activity. 

This was a

Fluid Sculpture Exercise from Playback Theater:

4-5 people take part for each demonstration

A title is given for the sculpture ahead of time (a suggestion from the audience)

then "let's watch". 

Starting with one participant they create a repetitive movement (that can also include a sound!) that demonstrates the title. 

The first person continues with their motion, while the second person starts their motion, and so on... until all five people are doing their motions and have created a fluid sculpture. 

I will be posting much more and many pictures of all of the amazing artwork the school displayed!

for the love of cats (and art)

Well the Cat Portrait lesson I posted yesterday took a lovely turn. I emailed illustrator Sarah Coyne

 to let her know that we used her Cats in Clothes postcard series as inspiration for our portrait lesson. She replied with a very dear email and a post on her own blog which concluded with art education advocacy. 

So proud of my first graders!

"Cat"tastic Portraits with Personality

My first grade students have been working with the concept of portraits quite a bit this year. 

I came across a set of postcards by a local artist this winter when I was at the BizarreBazaar:

Sarah Coyne of Egg-a-Go-Go

"Cats in Clothes" series

I loved the cats with personalities of people and it reminded me that I inherited this book from a former teacher, "Impressionist Cats" by Susan Herbert:

The kids got a kick out of the cat portraits and impressionists impressions. More importantly though, they were great examples of how portraits can show a close up of a person, a whole body, emotion, clothing, occupation, etc.!

We approached our lesson like the postcards were composed- with an oval shaped 'frame' to draw our cat portrait within and a 'wall paper' background. My goal was to have each student have a closer up portrait and also a whole body portrait- due to severe sickness traveling throughout our student body there are many who only came out with one finished piece- but I still have piles of them and they are hilarious (and genius)!

Finally some finished ones...!

Some of my fifth graders have (finally) finished up their Beatriz Milhazes-inspired projects. 

I was a little nervous they may not follow through all the way to the end full steam ahead - but here are are a few that definitely did not disappoint with their complex compositions! 

Braque and Britto - Part 2... some finished pieces

Here are some of the final results from my Braque & Britto still life lesson using analagous colors, pop art, observational drawing, contour drawing, painting, and other fun elements!

Version A:
Here we worked with the background first... I gave the students the opportunity to choose how they wanted to finish the objects- using black and white craypa.
(I think next time I would do the objects in watercolor.)

Version B:

Here we worked with analagous colors of tempera paint and filled in the objects first. 

The background we filled in with Crayola Slick Sticks---- here I made a discovery**

I had tested these at the Crayola booth last year at NAEA and loved them so I ordered a few packages, I've been very particular about how I use them. 

I was under the impression they were OIL PASTELS... then my students went to watercolor and resist over them... and guess what?... they turn into watercolor paint! It ended up working in our favor, but I had no idea.