Maori Masks - 8th Grade

Every year I try to do a mask design with my students. I haven't found the perfect combination of ideas but this year we studied the tattoo designs of the Maori tribes. Students then created a mask and decorated with their own tribal designs. Sometimes these translated into very tribal looking pieces and sometimes the pieces became more like abstract art. It was great lesson and gave the students a lot of freedom and opportunity to let their own personality shine through in the creation of their art work.

Elements and Principles: Form, Shape, Texture, Contrast, Variety, Pattern, Unity and Rhythm

Cross Curricular: Social Studies

Project Requirements: 

   - Paper Mache was applied and created neatly. Facial features are still evident.

   - The form was painted neatly with 1 solid color

   - The form was neatly glued to the background paper

   - The mask included a design that demonstrated Contrast and Variety, and showed attention to detail.

   - Design is drawn and colored neatly.

   - Design is continued to the background and blends with the mask.

The Summer Island Series - Searching the Storm by Melinda Martin Knysz

I am an avid reader and love delving into books that interest or could possible interest my students. This is an amazing book written by my girlfriend. I am totally wrapped up in the book and can hardly wait for the next chapter to come out. Please enjoy. Leave comments and read to your hearts delight.

http://summerislandstorm.wordpress.com/

Reflective Name Circles - 7th Grade

The art students studied reflections, color schemes and lettering to create these interesting artworks. I find that this project is really easy to teach and the results are really well. I try to use a thinner drawing paper that  so I don't have my entire class hovering over the window.

Here are the steps to creating the project.

Step 1: Draw your name on the triangle, make sure to use "bubble letters" or letters that have weight.

Then trace your letters using sharpie, make sure to trace the backwards letters on the back on the triangle too.





Step 2: Using a square paper (in our class we used 12"x12") Divide your paper into 8 equal triangular sections that meet at the center.

Step 3: Start tracing your letters through the paper. Slide your triangle name drawing under one triangle of your paper, in this triangle you should trace your name face up. Now flip your triangle over, slide it back under your paper and trace your name backwards but make sure to line up your letters. You may have to fudge some areas where the lines don't meet due to human error. Continue this around the circle till your whole paper is filled.

Step 4: Now using paint or colored pencil choose a color scheme and don't forget to write this on the back of the paper. In class we discussed the following types of color schemes, analogous complementary, monochromatic, warm/cool, triadic.

ELEMENTS & PRINCIPLES: Color, Shape, Line, Balance. 

CROSS CURRICULAR: Math

PROJECT REQUIREMENTS: 

     - Create a repeating pattern, that correctly reflects the letters across the hypoteneus.

     - Use a minimum of 3 letters

     - Correctly Link the letters so that your name is not obvious

     - Choose a color scheme of 3 or more hues

     - Carefully paint each area and blend/mix colors appropriately

     - Write the correct color scheme on the back of your art

     - CRAFTSMANSHIP (make it neatly)

STUDENT EXAMPLES:

A great opportunity for extra credit and artistic expression

Here is a wonderful contest to design a postcard relating to Thomas Jefferson from the Monticello.org website.

Good Luck.

http://www.monticello.org/site/families-and-teachers/postcard-contest

Comic Strips - 7th grade

I love to incorporate other courses into my class. I've experimented with science, math, and English  but English is by far the easiest to blend into the art room. When my students came to me asking to do comic strips I knew that it would be a fun way to incorporate their writing skills. The project morphed some as we worked on it, and some students never used words, some still spelled words wrong or use the wrong grammar in certain places but we made it and have some truly brilliant comic strips. 

Students were graded on the following things:

Did the student...

  -  include 4 or more frames

  -  include a variety of non-linear and linear space through out the comic strip

  -  outline the comic strip with black marker and color with colored pencil

  -  use correct spelling and grammar

  -  create their own original character and story line

  -  make it neat (CRAFTSMANSHIP)

Op Art Hands - 6th Grade

Since we came back from holiday break on a Thursday and as often happens after a break, many students are absent, so starting something large always creates an issue. I decided to use a quick short lesson on op art to fill in the gap. That way we didn't have to jump into a really large project and this allowed us sometime to get back into the swing of things. This small project was a relief, especially when I came down a severe case of strep the following Monday. It was just easy enough that a sub could teach it to the students who trickled in but not something that just wasted time, we don't have time for that in the Geisler Art Room.

For this project students drew their hand (most traced) but some actually thought about the position their hand was in and then drew it. Then using markers and a ruler they drew straight lines until they hit the outline of their hand, at that point they bent the line to make it look like it was traveling over their fingers. We found out that you want to start by drawing a bunch of lines in one color, at various distances on your paper, then switch to another color. By trying to alternate each color constantly across the page it takes too much time and tends to get frustrating but by jumping around with the colors the projects seemed to go faster and was more successful.

Students were graded on the following criteria:
  - Did the lines gently bend over their hand
  - Could you see the hand pop out of the lines with out having the pencil line
  - Did the students use 3 or more colors
  - CRAFTSMANSHIP (was it done neatly)

Color Collision - 6th Grade

The 6th grade art students have been really busy and unfortunately that has meant that I have had a lot less time to write on my blog than I would like. The color collision project is one that I love to make with my 6th graders as it teaches them the color wheel, color blending, and watercolor methods.

For this project we start by talking about and exploring the color wheel. We discuss what colors mix to make primary, secondary, and tertiary (intermediate) colors. We then discuss different watercolor methods such wet on wet painting vs wet on dry painting. We also discuss what the best way to paint our designs to make the colors blend and not create harsh lines between colors. In the end we come up with beautiful designs that have taught us so much about color in art.

Students were graded on the following criteria:

  - The use of organic shapes

  - Colors were mixed correctly, with not line between connecting colors

  - Colors are in the correct color wheel order

  - Design fills the paper in an organized way

  - Background is painted black and painted neatly

  - CRAFTSMANSHIP

The MLK Project - Creative Expressions Club

It has been absolutely crazy in the Geisler Art room, which I love.  With the every other day schedule it seems like we are crawling through each project and with right around 100 students per grade it takes even longer to grade each project.  On top of all our art room chaos we have been creating some wonderful projects in the creative expressions club. Students have been working on various crafts, we started fixing a mural and plan to complete that in our next few sessions. Our newest project however was brought to us by Geisler Middle School's Assistant Principal Mr. Gustitus. He came to us last minute looking for some help with the Geisler display at the district Martin Luther King celebration. Since I have never been able to attend the MLK celebration I am not sure what the display looks like but from what I been told it hasn't been something to write home about. I am hoping that this year with all of the work done by both my students, myself and the creative expressions club we have a better display.
Our concept started with one idea, we thought about taking his image and combining it with phrases from his speeches. However, as often happens in art we started thinking about what we needed and our plans changed. In the end we decided to go with something that represented our unique diversity at Geisler. Martin Luther King's portrait was paired with his words "I have a dream" in 8 different languages, Russian, French, Spanish, German, Persian, Japanese, Arabic, and Hmong. These are all languages spoken by students in our school. While 20 languages are spoken in our school, I only choose 8. These 8 were selected on the ease of student accessibility; these languages are spoken by art students and were written on the final art work by the students and visually less is more. With the project being created last minute size became issue and so to try to put all of the languages spoken by students on the art work would have made the image to congested. Finally, we choose to frame the art work with images of students from Geisler our building really is keeping MLK's dream alive.
Well enough said here is the final product.  I apologize for the horrible image as soon as I get the art work back I will take a better photograph.