Welcome Back!

Hello! Welcome new and returning students! I'm so excited to start the new 2012-13 school year! The staff at WMIS have been hard at work getting rooms and curriculums ready. I spent a good portion of the summer tweaking old lessons and getting new ones ready.

On the first day of class students will receive a letter to take home to their families explaining some of what we'll be doing, the supplies needed (pencils!), and my contact information. Each student is also required to read, take home, and get a guardian's signature on the "Art Contract". The contract explains expectations and grading. If your student has lost his/her contract or letter, please email me at: valentineO@wawm.k12.wi.us

I look forward to all the amazing creativity in the Art room this year. Please check back here often to stay updated on projects, announcements, and recognitions. I try to post weekly and welcome any of your comments and feedback!

Have a wonderful first week and school year!

8th grade High Contrast Self-Portraits

I was nervous to introduce this self-portrait project to my students.  For one, middle school is a very akward time for most of us, perhaps one of the most self-conscious stages in our lives.  Working with these adolescents, I've come to realize how super-critical they are of themselves.  However, it's also a time when they're coming into young adulthood, getting ready for high school and all the exciting changes their lives can take. 
Portraits are one of my favorite subjects to draw and paint personally, and I wanted to share this love with the students.  It's a great introspection to do self-portraits, and the model is always available.  The students studied some of Chuck Close's work.  His giant, photo-realistic portraits, are easier to replicate because of his grid-enlargement system.  First, Mr. Tetting our wonderful librarian and IMC specialist (check out his website here), helped us take digital portraits of the students and edit them to be high contrast.  The students practiced proportions of facial features and practiced grid enlargement.  When they were comfortable, they began their own portraits.  I'm amazed at these fantastic results!!  

Adaptive Art Pop-up Castles

The balloons were a bit of a bust, pun intended.  I just couldn't find a way to get them to stay up.  So, instead, the Adaptive Art class made these awesome castles!  They look fantastic in the third floor display case.

Cropped Animal Linoleum Relief Prints

The 8th graders learned a lot of art vocabulary and new skills in doing this printmaking project.  We discussed how cropping can make a composition more dynamic.  The students understood this concept easily, because most of them are used to cropping photos for their social networking. 

The students were asked to find an animal and crop the animal in an interesting way for their final print.  They were shown how to transfer their image to the linoleum tile, and how to safely, and properly use carving tools in creating their print.  They were then shown techniques for printmaking.  The students were given four days and unlimited paper and ink combinations to create three perfect prints.  I'm once again blown away by the sophisitication these intermediate students show in their art.  Amazing!

8th Grade Face Tiles

Eighth graders completed these "face tiles" last week.  Sometimes the thought of starting clay units with classes is really overwhelming, but I can't seem to leave it out any semester, because the kids just love it so much. 

For this project, the students review the properties and stages of clay, as well as refresh their memories on clay vocabulary.  We then create clay slabs together.  These slabs are draped over newspaper wads to create a "bump".  From this bump students can carve into and slip and score features on to their tiles.  After a tortuously long two weeks, the students get their bisqued clay back and start on glazing.  The end results are really fun!

Yearbook cover

The eighth grade art students were given the opportunity to create the design for our yearbook cover.  Students worke independently at home on their ideas.  I presented six amazing entries to our staff, who voted on which ones to use on the front and inside cover.  Below are our winning designs.

Randy's design below will be featured in the inside cover:

Autumn's design will be the front cover of the yearbook!

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.