Value Scale Pop Cans

Quarter 2 Drawing Artwork, a little less Simon Says and Follow my lead, but still having students practice skill and technique.  We loved this one!!  Students were challenged and engaged, I was able to create one with them and show my example with my Lady Bug and technology in the classroom.  My mom and I saved pop cans for a few months (we don't drink that much pop!) and students learned about the different values in pencils (2H, HB, 2B, 4B, 6B).

We started with a regular pop can for the first drawing, then we squeezed it for drawing #2, then crushed it for drawing #3.  One thing I learned, and I struggled with this as a grade student as well, was that students are so intimidated to go dark!  They are so afraid of those 4B and 6B shades and making it "too dark".  I remember my high school art teacher making such dark shadows on my artwork and then forcing me to "shade backwards" to make it work.  I didn't mark up my kiddos artworks, but I did take a picture of their pop can and then change the filter, to black and white so that they could see (one) how their technology could support their artwork and (two) to show how dark that pepsi blue is!!

All in all, it was a success and definitely going to try that one again!

Here are some student examples as well as my demo.  Enjoy!!

My demo example

Zentangle Still Lifes

For our Drawing Artwork in Quarter 1, we created Still Lifes with soft pastels, sharpie and zentangle designs in the background with markers.  They all look the same because we drew them with pencil first following my lead, then we added the soft pastels to the fruit while adding a light source.  Some added stippling for extra value and shading.  We also learned about line, movement, pattern and rhythm with the zentangles in the background.

Some students appreciate the Follow Me and Simon Says activities because they feel "accomplished" and able to "do it right".  However, some students would like the freedom to "do whatever" and make their own creation.  As an art teacher, I'm torn sometimes between the ones that want to follow and build confidence versus encouraging the "process, not the product" and fostering creativity, not "do as I do" artworks.  I know parents also want to see a nice product in the end, but doesn't our world need creative and innovative thinkers?  Not lemmings?

As I reflect on this, I ponder changing my curriculum (yet again) to encourage, build skill and technique and let little artists be little artists.  Yes, in the grand scheme of things, 8th graders are still little artists.  I'm 35 and still think of myself as a little artist.  Grand scheme people, grand scheme.

Here are some of our Still Life artworks.  Enjoy!

Elements and Principles Puzzle Pieces

At the beginning of the Quarter, I always review the elements and principles with students to make sure we have a good understanding of the vocabulary that we will use for the next 9 weeks.   I try to find things that one, are interesting to the students, two, are interesting to me and three, something for a display.  

For this Quarter, I was going through some letters and font that our librarian sent out as options for display letters and I came across a puzzle piece alphabet.  It was perfect!!  I printed a puzzle piece template and we did elements one day, principles the next day and we were good!  The above image is a display our librarian put together with the puzzle pieces also featuring Masterpieces of Literature!  

Literacy Pumpkins

Chi's Sweet Home

Quarter 2 started a few weeks ago and it was really close to Halloween and I really wanted students to get a chance to paint pumpkins!  So, our school librarian and I came up with an idea to display Literacy Pumpkins in the library!  I had all of my classes (except 4th hour) work on illustrating their favorite book.  We learned our Painting Vocabulary with elements and principles and then painted our pumpkins!  

It was a success!  Students really enjoyed it and had a fun time!  I think the only drawbacks/concerns I would have for next time is one, my room looked like a pumpkin patch for a couple weeks!  There were pumpkins everywhere!  So make sure you have enough storage, thankfully I had lots of shelves! And two, the yellow paint dried and chipped off.  I did not know it would do that, so there were several Simpson's and Spongebob's that crackled and fell apart.  

All in all, students were engaged, we have a nice display and it was really neat seeing the books that the students are into!

Totem Spoons

Quarter 1 students created Totem Spoons for our Clay Unit.  They really enjoyed this activity!  We learned specific elements and principles vocabulary and all the detailed info that comes with clay!  We looked at examples and determined what we wanted to do with our artworks.  It took 1-2 days for vocabulary, 2-3 for working on our spoons, then it was time to air dry.  During the air dry time, we started our next unit, or you can try and time it for a long weekend (hint: Thanksgiving and all those 3 day weekends)

One of the biggest challenges was the importance to slip and score, wrapping the clay in plastic bags to 86 air flow and NOT glazing the bottom!  I think next time, I need to spend a full day on writing your name on the bottom and give every table buckets and sponges and making sure they wipe the glaze off the bottom!

All students made a spoon and then created objects representing their interests!  We had sports, video games, palm trees, UK (Go Cats!), school items like instruments and paintbrushes!  It was really fun to see all their interests!  This was great for all grades (6,7,8) and really kept them all engaged!

Here are some pics!

Painting with a Twist at SECC

I had the opportunity to lead a painting activity with our Youth group at church!  We had a great time and everyone left with smiles and a covered canvas.  :)

Kiln firing, Perspective and Still Lifes

First full week of school and we are super busy!  My first hour Ceramics class has finished and dried out their Zentangle slabs and they were firing in the kiln when I left Friday.  I loaded that baby Thursday night, got in early Friday, started it at 8 and when I left at 6:30 it was 1580 degrees!  I found our Custodian and let him know, he wasn't leaving until later and said he would keep an eye on it for me.  So super nice!  Fingers crossed that we don't have any blow-outs!  So this week, we get to glaze our Zentangle tiles, finish our Coil pots and Intro pinch pots.  We had discussed the history of Ceramics and I let the class vote on which culture/time period they would like to explore further for some Art History.  Surprisingly, they picked Mesopotamia, Modern and Native American!  (I think they just wanted to see if they could spell Mesopotamia!)  I can't wait to get in there and open the kiln  in the morning!

6th grade students are learning about Linear Perspective this week.  We practiced 1-point and 2-point and then I let the students pick which one they liked the best and complete an artwork using our process of horizon line and vanishing points.  Here's one in progress.

7th and 8th grade students learned about Still Lifes, skulls and Stippling.  (I really want a skull now for my classroom, so ya know, if you have one laying around...) Here is a still life in progress.

I am also working on a painting for our lovely Ms. Janda in the front office.  I feel really bad because it's totally overdue but I do appreciate that students get to see their Artist-Teacher working on her art as well!  I think it gives me Art Cred with my kiddos.