At Home with the Artist: Art Teacher in Italy!

I know, I'm the worst at posting in the summer! However, this year I have a great excuse! After our Peru adventure, I spent two weeks in Italy learning landscape painting en plein air! It was amazing, and I learned so much. I ate amazing food, saw amazing sites and generally fell IN LOVE with Florence, Italy. Here's a taste of what I saw and my work while I was there.

On my way to my first day of my painting workshop. I was so nervous! Unfortunately, there are not many pictures with me in them because I made this trip on my own. And the ones with me are all selfies, of which I am not usually a fan. I apologize in advance :)

On the first day we learned a lot from demos from our instructor. We spent the first whole week in one location and there was a huge learning curve for me! But I learned so much and got much better

Here is my under painting for our first landscape. I gotta say, I was not impressed with myself at all! In fact I was feeling very down because I didn't seem to be getting it.

But as the week went one, I worked at it and really this first one came around. See how it was finished later in the post.

I saw so many amazing sites!

 The Duomo and Vecchio Tower

San Miniato al Monte and the view from Piazza Michelangelo

Another image of the Duomo, by far my favorite building.

I also loved the attached cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

You better believe I climbed up that dome!

Here's the door to my apartment for the weeks I was there!

I saw David's Michelangelo and visited Venice

Santa Croce basilica and Santa Maria Novella

Now back to the more important stuff! The painting! It was all about masses and value, and once I got that, it all kind of sunk in and the image came a lot easier.

Finished product!

The second location we painted at was on a side street and we only spent two days there so this one is a bit unfinished, but you can see where I was on the first day and where I got to on the second day.

Our last location was up at Piazza Michelangelo where we got to paint a view of the city! It was an amazing view and this is my favorite painting!

Finished product!

Overall, my Italy adventure was the trip of a life time and a dream come true! Painting in Italy! I would recommend several weeks in Florence for anyone who is an art lover!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Drawing and Shading Practice

Our first unit in Concepts and Materials is all about drawing realistically through the use of value, proportion, shape, line, perspective etc... The kiddos are working hard to learn these different skills that will help them to draw more accurately. Some whine, but I know all of them will appreciate it at the end of the quarter when they see how much they've grown! Check out their work so far:

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!!