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. 

Color Wheel Aliens

Color theory is one of the most important design lessons I teach in middle school.  Colors can influence our moods and as many fashion and advertising experts know, our purchasing habits too.  When I was in college, my first painting professor challenged us to make as many shades of black using only the three primary colors.  This exercise taught me to really recognize the different tints, shades, and tonal subtleties in colors. 6th graders learned some of the basics about color theory.  We discussed what primary and secondary colors are, and even went further into tertiary and analagous (friends on the color wheel) colors. 

Students were given the task to use the three primary colors (red, blue, yellow) to make an entire color wheel.  They mixed the secondary and tertiary colors using only the primaries.  To make it a little more interesting, we decided to add some fun and make our colorwheels space-themed.  We splatter painted the backgrounds to look like stars and galaxies.  I'm very proud of how well the 6th graders have retained and displayed their new color knowledge.

Peter Max inspired paintings

Welcome back from Spring Break!

Prior to break our talented 8th graders learned about the popular artist, Peter Max.  Peter Max was made famous by his work with the legendary Beatles.  His artwork is characterized by bright, vivid colors and lots of repeated symbols.  Middle school students seem to "get" his artwork and like the use of hearts, stars, and peace signs.  I challenged the students to create a Peter Max-like artwork using their hands (either traced or to challenge themselves by drawing from life) and to use symbols to create a personal theme in their work.  We experimented with different water-color techniques (wet into wet, dry brush, gradations, salt etc..), but some students found watercolor a very challenging medium to control.  Overall, I think the results turned out stunning.

6th Grade Abstracts

Mrs. Styza worked with our 6th graders to create these very exciting and sophisticated abstract art works.   The students viewed and discussed many different abstract artworks that artists have created.  They then tried their hands at "blind contour" drawings.  I was very impressed with the beautiful drawings they did.  The last step in the process was painting.  Our students really seemed to enjoy picking out their own colors and changing their compositions with paint.  Well done 6th grade!

7th grade Dream Houses

Mrs. Styza worked with our 7th grade students to create these Dream Houses.  The students looked at a variety of real and imagined fantasy houses.  They were challenged to draw from an interesting perspective (birds-eye, x-ray, blueprint).  They then used watercolor and permenant markers to complete their creations.  It's obvious to see our Panther artists are very imaginative and creative.