For the 7th and 8th grader's animals project we studied two contemporary artists, James Ruby and Starla Michelle Halfman. We then talked about using texture and patterns in our art before the headed off to create their own animals. They found picture inspirations and drew them first, then used either colored pencils or acrylic paint to finish them. They turned out great!
For their first project of the semester the 7th and 8th graders practiced drawing still lives! We practiced working with value and balance before they set up and drew their own still lives. Once they had it all planned out and ready they drew them in the end with either pencil, charcoal, chalk, oil pastel, or colored pencils. I am so impressed with the amount of detail and care they put into them! I'm a very proud art teacher!
This is one of my, and my seventh and eighth graders, favorite projects of the year. For the project the kids get to pick their own artist to study. They find as much information as they can and then write a short paragraph about their artist. Once all of their research is done they then design their very own project inspired by that artist. They pick the supplies they want to use, what they want their picture to be of, how big they want it to be and so on.
We had a LARGE variety of artists/projects picked this year and they turned out even more impressive than the year before. We had students study Piet Mondrian, Georges Seurat, Louise Nevelson, George Rodrigue, Marc Johns, Street art, Alexander Calder, Samantha Hahn, Pete Fecteau, and so many more. They painted with watercolors and acrylic paints, they spray painted, they did paper mache, sculpted mobiles, drew with sharpies and pencils, knotted string around nails, they melted plastic cups and painted and cut water bottles. Admittedly, this is one of the hardest projects of the year for me as a teacher. There are so many different preps for paper, so many questions to answer, and my room ends up in shambles due to the sheer variety of materials being used but it is so worth it! I am so proud of their hard work both on this project and this semester. My kids are amazing. For our food project, the seventh and eighth graders studied two artists, Roy Lichtenstein and Venus Winston. For Lichtenstein, a pop artist, we looked at his paintings in which he had bold foods with patterns in the background. For contemporary artist, Venus Winston, we looked at her use of texture to create realistic paintings of food.
Students were able to choose which artist they would like to create art inspired by and which image, or food, they would like to create. Students who picked Lichtenstein created their pictures using sharpies, and students that picked Winston used a mixture of watercolors and acrylic paints. In the end there was such a wide variety of foods, and combinations done and they did such a great job! I think this project may be my favorite of the semester so far. The seventh and eighth graders second large project of the semester was studying plants, their textures, and how to create balance in an artwork. We looked at artwork from two different contemporary artists; Yvonne Joyner and Elaine Pamphilon. Students who chose to study Yvonne Joyner created artworks using watercolors and crayons. They zoomed in closer to their plants and really thought about shadows and shading as they added color. Students who studied Elaine Pamphilon used oil pastels to create their projects. They did an arrangement of items on a surface and focused more on adding flat color.
I thought they all did a fantastic job creating balanced designs and attempting to create texture with their different art materials. They turned out really well! I don't mean to be a bragger, but my kids are pretty talented. I am SO impressed with how all of their portrait projects turned out... and it was our first project of the year! I can just tell this semester will be full of some amazing artworks getting pumped out by these magnificent artists and I get to the there to see them all get created. I am so lucky.
For this project we studied two artists, Spanish painter (sculptor, drawer, etc), Pablo Picasso and contemporary artist Marion Bolognesi. We talked about how to draw realistic facial features, how to draw different facial expressions, and I showed them a few acrylic and watercolor tricks as well. They then either took pictures of each other, or selected images for their inspiration and got to work! These are just a few of the wonderful portraits that they made. I decided it would be fun to start out the year with a group project so that the kids could get to know each other at their table groups a little better. I remembered a project that my sister and her friends had done a few years ago and decided to give it a try! First, the kids painted with watercolors on a large piece of poster board. They could paint objects, letters, designs, or just random blobs. Then they took sharpies and added outlines, patterns, designs, doodles, and turned some of the blobs into things. I just think they turned out so neat! I love to see what inspires them and what is going inside their heads and this was a really fun way to do that! Plus, look how hard they worked on it!:
For our final project of our 3D semester I let each class choose what they wanted to do as a class. I had one class choose to do a city, one chose to do installation art, and one class chose to do a totem pole. We looked at a couple of different pictures of totem poles and talked about the meaning behind them and the reasonings for making them. We then chose our spirit animals based on a couple of questions that I found.
I showed them a couple of different paper sculpting techniques before sending them off to create their own animals! They turned out AMAZING!! I am seriously so impressed with how each animal turned out. They put so much time and effort into them and I am so proud. This will definitely be a project that I try again in the future! This has to be one of my very favorite clay projects that I have done yet! To start this project we talked about Claes Oldenburg and a few other artists, such as Andy Warhol, and their use of food as a subject for their art. We then practiced a few different hand building techniques before we started our project, rolling coils, balls, and slabs, slipping and scoring, etc.
For the project the students could pick between either making a food item or shoes (most picked food). They then used their hand building techniques that they had practiced and built their selected items. Once they had been fired we discussed the different stages of clay and how to properly glaze a piece of ceramics. I found glaze that the colors can be mixed together to make new colors for this project and I loved it! For the very last step of the project the students built displays for their projects. Their goal was to make their object look as appealing to a potential "buyer" as they possibly could. I am so impressed with how they turned out! They put so much thought into every little piece of the project and it is very apparent in their finished works! If I'm being honest, I was super nervous to do paper mache in the classroom. I had never taught it before and just wasn't too sure how it would turn out, if the 7th and 8th graders would like it, and I wasn't sure how crazy dirty my classroom would get! I remembered loving doing it though as I kid so I figured I would try it out.
For the projectI introduced them to Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, a husband and wife art duo that creates large scale versions of food and other everyday objects and other sculptures as well. We talked about making objects appear larger or smaller than they are to create emphasis based on size. I also showed them a few examples of some faux taxidermy that they could base their projects off of. Once we had our inspiration I gave the kids the task of designing their own project, either large/small scale objects or faux taxidermy. They had to draw a diagram, explain how they would make it, and create a list of materials that they would need. They were encouraged to build their bases out of recycled materials or other objects that they could find laying around their homes. We then got to work building our sculptures and coating them in gluey paper. I also had the students design a 2dimensional version of their work to go along side it in the end. They could use their choice of materials. We had so much fun with this project in the end! Paper mache was in fact a little bit messy but it was 100% worth it. The projects turned out so great and they students worked so hard! Here are a few highlights from the project.. |
The artwork of the HES & HMS artists.
Art Projects by GradeArchives
December 2015
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