may 17&18
April &may - color theory! We played with Ethan’s spin art machine he made! We also did low relief sculptures using foil and cardboard. Look at those gorgeous hydro dipped mugs too!
Mug hydro dipping using water ans nail polish was a hit!
THE FINISHED PIECES!! I’m amazed !! students worked on these for about 3 weeks total. They had to produce their own colors and could not use any secondary colors from a bottle. Each color was made by them. In this project students had to make two boxes complementary colors and two of the boxes monochromatic. they learned so much and gained confidence in their art abilities.
Color wheel, color mixing with acrylic, caring for our brushes, color schemes and value scales.
my high schoolers are using all this knowledge to slowly work on an acrylic painting using monochromatic and complementary color schemes.
March - April
It has been a while since I've updated this blog and we have done even more art. We've had Saint Patrick's Day, start of Spring, and have been playing with color A LOT. We've learned about the contemporary artist, Jen Stark and her drip art .
We are now concentrating on color theory starting with the color wheel. Through this lesson, students are also learning how to mix and paint with acrylic paints.
For Easter, students made CHOCOLATE! Well, they learned how to make molds of them and make chocolate bark. We learned the process of how chocolate is made which they loved. We then packaged the chocolates and made their own labels.
My high schooler, student A. , has started her own art business where she redesigns shoes. She's doing amazing at this and many teachers and students have had their shoes made into art pieces. Below she did her fellow classmate's Nike shoes with drip art.
Paper Mache Updates!
Feb 22: Students are working this week on painting their paper mache projects. Here are some updates of what they've been doing each week:
Week 1:
Students designed their characters. Gave them names and wrote details about them x2.
Week 2:
Students built their box structures. Some made out of wood sticks while others made from hard cardstock paper and cardboard for anything that stuck out of the boxes, like ears or tails. All structures were wrapped in tin foil.
*Some high schoolers chose clay handbuilding
Week 3:
Students made paper mache paste. IF you do this at home make sure to add a TON of SALT! Otherwise they'll mold, and nobody likes a moldy sculpture.
Week 4:
This week! Students will paint their characters following their designs they did in the first week. (They will make the Mine Craft ones look pixelated.)
Valentine's Day Card Making !
I just love this holiday (mostly for arts and craft purposes)! We had a FABULOUS week of making custom Valentine's Day cards.
Bouquet Cards: I wanted students to create paper for their cards that was interesting, so we whipped out the shaving cream and food dye and had a ball! I had all students wear gloves and we had stations. One station students would dip their paper into the shaving cream and food dye mixture, scrap it off the paper and have these beautiful red/pink marbled papers for their cards. The second station students made the flowers by crumpling coffee filters up and painting them with watercolors. We then glued them into a "bouquet wrap" and hot glued them to the marbled paper card. For a finishing touch we added glue and gold glitter to the flowers for a nice POP!
Geometric Heart Cards & Custom Cards: LOVED this one! We traced out a heart first, then we created points all around the heart's border. Then using a straight edge we connected the dots to make geometric shapes. After that students traced their pencil lines with ink and used gouache to paint inside the shapes. The stamps were a fun way to play with text. Will do this again one day!
Stickers: Using my sticker machine I allowed students to create their own stickers. We will use this again in the future when we create logos/branding next year.
Mine Craft Paper Mache Sculptures
This winter we have been working on creating sculptures from paper mache. It's been a great process where students are taking there time to plan out their custom mine craft creatures. From sketching their design, building the structure and eventually doing the paper mache process, it has been a true learning experience of how artists work with intentionality. We will be doing paper mache the week of February 15th and I cannot wait! It will be a messy week for sure, but for sure one of fun! For students who may not enjoy the texture for sensory purposes I will be providing gloves or they may do Modge Podge collage work over the top instead.
In addition: Some students do not play Mine craft or are not allowed to, so I gave them an option to create animals/food. :)
Some students chose to make their characters using clay. We have another still in the works as he is making his using the coil process. Below are some finished painted ones by two different students. So proud of them!
Photos coming soon!!
Space: Element of Art
Artist: Rene Magritte
We learned about famous artist, Rene Magritte, who is known for making art based on ordinary objects depicted in unordinary spaces. In this case, we looked at his work called, The listening Room. This artwork is a painting of a GIANT apple in a room. It engulfs the space. We also watched a virtual reality video that showcased this artwork and talked about the meaning we interpret and how artist uses space. We then created our our objects that engulf the room.
Not all art works shown- to be added.
Space: Element of Art
2 Pt. Perspective GAME WORLDS
Zoom Meeting
We have covered 1 pt perspective and have moved on to 2 pt perspective. My high schoolers are grasping this somewhat mathematical art technique quickly!
This week we are making 2 pt perspective drawings of a made up game world/scene.
Ms. Lacey's example (digital example due to being on Zoom)
Space: Element of Art
1 Pt. Perspective
Zoom Meeting
After learning about Space in terms of art, looking at art examples, and going over different vocabulary terms to know, like Horizon Line and Vanishing Point, students practiced creating 1 pt. perspective cubes. They grasped this quickly!
Christmas Pet Portraits
Students took photos of their pets which they then painted portraits of.
Van Gogh Inspired Self Portraits
Students have not yet learned how to draw faces/self portraits. This is on the horizon. However, I loved the idea of them creating Van Gogh inspired self portraits so we went for it! Many students decided to use the light box for tracing purposes while a couple worked on their observational drawing skills. I gave them the option for what medium they chose to color and complete their portraits. Many chose markers or colored pencils which proved a bit harder to achieve Van Gogh's mark making technique. However, I am happy with this experiment and will definitely try it again with paint in the future.
Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Recreated by students
Students worked together to create a mural of the famous painting, Starry Night. I was impressed with their work ethic and team work. We had a couple students take on leadership roles naturally and help others to complete the project. They really practiced Van Gogh's famous mark making techniques and worked on observation. So proud!
Value Scale Paintings/Artworks
This November has been all about Value! Students have been working and taking their time on their value paintings. I am so proud of the effort they are putting into their pieces. Not all are finished but I am encouraging them to slow down with their art making.
Value Scale Crystals
Students have been learning about VALUE- an element of design. Value is light to dark. We are learning about shades, tints, hues and more. After my students practiced creating value scales with graphite and paint, they began their crystal value drawings.
Silhouettes- Negative and Positive Space/shapes
Students learned about negative and positive space. We mixed this with our Halloween theme of the month and they made some really great art pieces that demonstrate their understanding of positive and negative space/shapes.
Sugar Skulls- Day of the Dead
Learning about Dia De Los Muertos was very enlightening for the students. We learned about the history of this Mexican Holiday, how it differs from Halloween, about the cartoonist Posada who influenced the skeleton artwork in the holiday, and how to create our own art made sugar skulls.
Quarter 1 & 2
Daily Sketchbook
Name Symmetry Creatures
Surrealism- Exquisite Corpse Game- Group Project
Surrealist Paintings of our own
Elements Of Design: LINE
Practicing Blind contour, contour, cross contour lines
Cross Contour Optical Illusion Hand Art
Pointillism
Made our own Pointillism landscapes/designs
Kandinsky Concentric Circles- INTERNATIONAL DOT DAY
Still life- Fruit bowl drawing- Paul Cezanne
Personal Still life watercolors
Yearbook
Interviewing skills
theme ideas
cover ideas
page ladders
Still Life- Personal/ Describe Who You Are
I asked students to take photos of things from their home that describe them. Some students chose this route while others chose to re-create a still life that inspired them online/assemble objects they found online. I noticed students who do not regularly draw were putting their new knowledge of observational drawing to use. I am proud!
Still life painting inspired by Paul Cézanne
We learned about the famous artist, Paul Cézanne, who created hundreds of still life paintings in his lifetime. Using an actual still life set up of a bowl of apples and a watermelon, we drew these using observational skills. I just love all the colors, details and variety that the students used to make their still life watercolor paintings.
Concentric Circles Inspired By Kandinsky
In celebration of International DOT DAY, a holiday us art teacher's love, we created concentric circles just like the master artist, Wassily Kandinsky. We touched on the topic of primary and complimentary colors as we dived into the box of oil pastels.
Pointillism & Artist George Seurat
Students learned about the artist George Seurat and created their own Pointillism works using fine tip art pens. This takes quite some time to accomplish. We worked that week till our hands tired. What beautiful works! These were done on notecard size drawing paper.
Cross Contour Hands- Optical Illusions
Students are beginning to learn about drawing, which starts with line. From Blind contour, cross contour, contour and continuous line drawing, students have been dabbling with line variety and quality. They worked on an optical illusion of a hand with their knowledge of cross contour lines. These are simple projects but great for learning about line and form.
Exquisite Corpse- Collaboration- Surrealism
Created after inspiration by Salvador Dali who took the impossible to the canvas! We learned about Salvador Dali the Surrealist artist and how Surrealist enjoyed different art games, like the Exquisite Corpse. Much like Mad Libs but in drawing form, students were asked to create the head of a make believe human, creature or animal, hide their art, pass it to their neighbor and the next person would complete the torso and so on. At the end we revealed our creations. This is a great and popular artists game that promotes collaboration and creative thinking.
NOT ALL WORK IS SHOWN
Name Symmetry Creatures
One of our ice breakers was learning each other's names in a creative way!
