CD Covers

Sixth grade students were lead through an incredible painting/portrait lesson by our very talented student teacher, Ms. Richardson. 

Ms. Richardson showed the students many examples of artistic album covers, and pop art portraits.  Students were limited to four colors, with black being the final addition.  Composition, symbolism, and color placement were all important consideration in these fantastic paintings.

At the end of the project, the class participated in a positive peer critique, or "gallery walk" as we call it.  It's always encouraging to see and hear kids at this age be able to appreciate eachother's talents. 

Pop Art Prints

The 7th graders worked hard on creating styrofoam prints based on popular brands that are marketed directly to their age demographic.  They researched logos and created simple, eye-catching designs.  We studied pop artists, including the famous Andy Warhol, and their use of bold-flat color and repetition.  Students had learn correct printing craftsmanship, were allowed to explore with many different colors of ink and paper.  We mounted the works in groups of four and labeled our work.  The last step was the addition of oil pastels, for an extra *pop* of color.  Extra credit was offered to students who wanted to create their own product and logo. 

The Eyes say it all...7th grade Close-up Drawing

Long time, no blog!  Holy cats is second semester flying by!  7th graders just finished their close-up, animal eye drawings.  The main focus of this art project was to look closely, and draw what you see and not what you know.  The students worked on enlargement and proportions.  In addition, they tried really hard to blend colors by overlapping colored pencils.  Great work 7th graders!

6th Grade Contour Shoe Drawings

The 6th graders learned about descriptive, contour line drawings.  They practiced drawing their own shoes from life.  They gained a lot of confidence in their drawing abilities by drawing directly what they saw.  Many commented that they didn't know they could draw as well as they did.  They then turned their realistic controur line drawings, into surreal fantasies. 

6th Grade Value Snowman

This was a very fast lesson on value (lights to darks) on colored construction paper.  The students caught on very fast as to how to make "realistic" snowmen/women.   We started by drawing in the basic shape of our snowpeople and background.  Then, the students worked from the darkest shade, blue, to the lightest, white. 

Playing Catch-Up!

  Agghh!!! I'm so tardy in posting some of the great stuff we've been doing in Art!!  Time is slipping away.  Before break, the Adaptive Art classes made these adorable slab ornaments for gifts to give to their families:

8th Grade Scratch Art

The 8th graders just finished their cropped, nature-inspired, scratch art projects.  This may be one of the most impressive projects I've seen so far.  I knew the project would be challenging for the kids, because it requires them to think almost backwards.  They are reductively scratching away at black to reveal white.  Prior to starting the project, we worked on cross-hatching and using lines to create value.  We also discussed cropping and it's use in composition.  I am absoloutely blown away by the quality of work the 8th graders created.