8th grade challenge

Our version of a 'quickfire' or 'short cut challenge'... create a paper landscape that includes a fence, an animal and a tree.

Click to see some student examples.

Some of the artists examples we looked at include:

Richard Sweeney

Jen Stark

Peter Callesen

Nishimura

Laura Cooperman

Su Blackwell

           

5th Grade - Paintings of objects

Wow - the 5th graders have done a great job painting the still life set up in the art room. A still life gives the artist a chance to study a subject and offers a great way to practice observation and drawing skills. The still life was set up to look for line, texture and form. The students were able to change the color of an object in their final painting.

Click on the link to see some more student examples.

4th grade landscapes - watercolor techniques

Playing with paint on paper to create different effects. Techniques we are experimenting with include:

wet on wet,wet on dry and dry brush

8th Paper Sculptures

Task: with a sheet of heavy-weight drawing paper and a pair of scissors, create a sculpture. This opens up a great discussion on what does the term 'sculpture' mean. A collaborative definition leads us to 'a 3-dimensional artwork created by molding hard or plastic material.'
What makes paper plastic? All the ways you can manipulate it:

• cutting
• creasing/scoring/folding
• curling
• tearing
• piercing
• weaving
• winding
• wrinkling/crumpling
• layering
• joining
• modeling
• casting
• decoration
• combining with other media

click on the link to see student samples.

Some more fun with color...3rd grade

Are you familiar with the song 'Colors' by Kira Willey?  "I am green today, I chirp with joy like the cricket's song".  You may know it as the music in the Dell commercial.

What color are you?

If you could only have 3 colors...

...to paint a beautiful flower garden, what three colors would you ask for?  Pink, turquoise, green, orchid... those were some of the answers. After listing some student choices on the board, the students were able to vote for the ones they wanted.  Strategy among the tables led the students to the grouping of red, yellow and blue.  The primary colors.  After some fun with food coloring and water - we made a color wheel on the board and in our sketchbooks.

Check back next week when we experiment with color mixing.

Pictures Tell a Story

The fourth graders spent some time thinking about places they have been and starting a landscape sketch in their sketchbook. Thinking of a landscape in the simplest of terms as 'an expanse of scenery that can be seen in a single view' they drew a place special to them. The next drawing is to zoom in and capture themselves in the scene.
Vocabulary included landscape, background, foreground and midground. Next week we will look at examples from other artists.

Use of Tools and Materials

The 5th grade is starting the year by covering some rules and procedures for painting.

• How to use a brush
• The parts of a brush
• Cleaning the brush (Why is this important? Watch the video to find out.)
• Using the paints (make sure you keep them neat for the next person)

They are using the classroom still-life to practice drawing. Then they will use their sketch as a map for their painting.

Video:

Young Sloppy Brush by Fugleflicks

First Full Day of School

First full day - Thursday classes.
The 8th graders are working on still-life drawings. A still-life is set up in the art room and it is almost overwhelming... so to help the students zoom in we began working with viewfinders and composition.

Other drawing tips:
Sighting - using points of reference on the viewfinder and using their pencils for angles.
Proportional reasoning - again using the viewfinder and establishing quadrants, looking for relationships between size, forms and placement.Drawing the negative space - sometimes we bring too much previous knowledge to the task. We all know that the seat of a stool is round, so when we add perspective to the drawing we have to fight the urge to draw what we know instead of what we see. Sometimes it is easier to draw the space around a teapot than to draw a teapot.

The 6th graders started with lines on paper. After looking at each other's paper, the students were able to generate a 'line dictionary' based on the examples they saw in the drawings. The list described types of line (curvy, zigzag, thick, thin...), orientations/directions (horizontal, vertical, perpendicular, intersecting) meaning (sad, happy, soft, shy) and representational (a butterfly, a marching band, clapping.) More next week.