What's Going on in the Classroom- Mixed Media Paintings

Have I mentioned that I love our painting unit? Not only are students sitting quietly and working hard, but they are producing some amazing images! After creating a watercolor composition, we moved into mixed media pieces. For this piece I limited the subject matter a little bit. Each student had to incorporate hand into their mixed media composition. That hand had to be interacting with an object or item. So it was somewhat limited, but the object or item and how the hand interacts with it is up to the student to decide. We spent some time taking our own reference pictures of hands with objects and then we practiced how to draw a hand. I made up a little worksheet to get them started, it looks something like this...

After this basic intro to figure drawing, we talked about how to draw the different hand positions that each student wanted to use. This was mostly done individually between myself and each student. The steps after this were to draw the hand and object lightly with pencil on illustration board and then do light watercolor washes of basic colors to fill in the image. Then student could the choose to use oil pastels, chalk pastels, and/or colored pencils to had shading (depth) and details to their image. Here is what we have so far... we're spending the rest of the week on it as well so these aren't quite done yet.

Practice drawings and sketching out the final image

Finally starting to do some painting!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Surreal Hallway-One Point Perspective

As I mentioned last post, we are moving from value and shading into drawing things more as we see them. The first stop on that road was lessons on one-point perspective. Again, I am borrowing this idea from Patti Fields, a fellow art teacher.
Student's assignment was to draw the hallway outside our room. We discussed how to draw the most prominent parts, the floors ceiling and walls, the lockers, signs, etc... Students were then unleashed on the hallway to spend time doing observational drawing.

The next day, we talked about Surrealism. I showed students famous exemplar works by Surrealist painters and we talked about what makes art Surreal. I also showed some examples of hallways that had been made into Surreal art so that everyone had a clear picture of what was expected. Students did some brainstorming about how they would like to turn their hallway into a Surreal piece of art.

Last step was to add value. Student's identified a light source and then shaded each object or part of the hallway accordingly. Man! Were some people mad that I wasn't letting them use color! However, adding value is a skill and practice makes perfect. Check out these amazing Surreal Hallways!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Applying Value and Perspective Drawing

Hope these first weeks of school have been going well! I know they've been flying by for me. I'm kinda in love with teaching high school. My husband and I moved into a new house which is much closer to the school, so my mornings aren't nearly as early as I thought they'd be. Also, the students are so creative and talented. I'm enjoying not having to always be quieting kids down.

In my foundations class, we started with a quarter on drawing. I had the students do a pre-assessment drawing which I will use for showing growth. Then we talked about value and light and how to place value (they prefer to call it shading). We have since moved into perspective and are working on a cool one-point perspective project, creating a Surreal hallway. (Thanks Patti for the idea!) More to come on that project later. Students are having a great time, and their skills are improving, it's fun to watch!

Just a quick catch up on our Photography class as well. Student's first assignment was to take pictures of the Elements of Art and Principles of Design. Then in groups, the students worked on sorting the elements and principles without knowing which one was which. We picked our favorite examples of each one and they are proudly hanging in the hallway. On to shooting filming and developing!!

Update on the Art Room and a Wedding!

That's right folks! I got married! Sorry sorry for the lapse in posting that has been going on for awhile. But I just got bogged down in trying to move and then finish planning the wedding and then actually get married! All while only taking a two day break from teaching all my little angels how to make art!

So here's an engagement pic for you all :) Awwww!

And here's an update on what's been happening in the art room!

Kindergarten students are learning about shapes and using them to help draw pictures. We just finished a series of observational drawings using block towers to inspire us. Now they have started on drawing faces using simple shapes. It's been a ton of fun!

1st Grade students have been painting away. We're making a 3-D color wheel! All we have are stacks of painted plates. More to come soon hopefully!

2nd Grade has been working on drawing self-portraits using a picture reference. We've been focusing on using basic shapes to help us start drawings and using symmetry to give us clues for drawing our faces. I have used this project before, but it works well, helping the students to be good observers.

3rd Grade students finished a Landscape project, using two different landscapes. We then cut them up and attached them to an accordion paper. This allows the viewer to see two different Landscapes depending on how they stand when they view the piece. Now students have begun a fruit drawing, They will be painting them next week using Complementary Colors.

4th Grade students finished their Contour Line Self- Portraits and are now working on a Pop Art piece using Grumpy Cat and Analogous Colors. I've also done this project before, but it's a good one.

And lastly, 5th Grade students finished up their shaded crayons, and are beginning on a painting using Aerial Perspective to show depth.

Art Room at the Beginning of the Year.

So we've really dug into the first couple of weeks of the year and the kids are already working hard to complete their first art projects. It's a time that's full of experiments, both on the part of the students and their artwork and for me as a teacher. I'm learning the personalities of the students and the classes and deciding what will work with each one. It's a stressful time, but also exciting!
I'm especially proud of the 4th and 5th graders who have started the year learning about, and creating projects using some tough stuff. Shading and contour lines. With the 4th graders, we're even trying Continuous Contour Lines! Here's what they've accomplished so far:

4th grade is working on Contour Lines, We learned about how to draw using Contour Lines. We chatted about going slowly, following the line with our eyes as if we were ants crawling, going along the outline, and even trying not the lift our pens! (Check out the video I used to show this, I didn't use it all, but it was neat for them to see) Then we practiced doing a Contour Line drawing of our hands. They were frustrated that their hands didn't 'look right', but it was a good exercise in slowing down and taking our time.

In our next class, I showed them our finished project, which is taking a picture of each student and placing a transparency sheet on top of it so that students can use a Sharpie marker to trace the contours of their face. We also worked on colorful backgrounds to accompany the transparencies when it's all done. Next week we will attach the two and mount it on black paper. I'm excited for this project because it's easy, but they learn a lot and it looks cool! (Inspiration for this project comes from here)

Next, the 5th graders, who have been learning all about shading. We discussed what shading is and why we use it. We came to the general conclusion that we use shading to make objects that are on a 2-D surface appear to be 3-D and realistic. We practiced a bit and then dove right into using oil pastels to shade crayons on black paper. (we traced the crayons the day before we started using oil pastels.) So far so good, although nice and messy so watch out! (inspiration for this project can be found here)