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.

Creative Expressions Club

It has happened, the Geisler Art Room has morphed into a room of creative endeavors and creative expressions. Last week Thursday we had our first Creative Expressions Meeting and then last night we reconvened for another wonderful night of creativity. We will be meeting every Thursday from 3-4 to have fun, snacks, and lots of artistic activities. This week we created cards for soldiers and veterans which we will be sending to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well as troops overseas. Some of students began making large paper snowflakes and other students participated in chime choir.

Feel free to join us for more fun next week.

Fall Fun - 6th Grade

6th grade students started this project off by reading the following poems. Students were asked to sit quietly with their eyes closed and think about what images did the poem bring to their thoughts. They then quietly wrote down 10 images that came to mind, we then discussed them as a class, there was no wrong answer however some students suddenly were talking about things like Chucky and Twilight which led to vampires and Taylor Lautner. These weren't necessarily wrong answers but definitely out in left field. As a class we brought the discussion back to the poems and how could we create a picture that represented them.

HALLOWEEN by Richard Anderson

A gentle breeze rustling the dry cornstalks. A sound is heard, a goblin walks. A harvest moon suffers a black cat's cry. Oh' do the witches fly! Bonfire catches a pumpkins gleam. Rejoice, it's Halloween! THEME IN YELLOW by Carl Sandburg I SPOT the hills With yellow balls in autumn. I light the prairie cornfields Orange and tawny gold clusters And I am called pumpkins. On the last of October When dusk is fallen Children join hands And circle round me Singing ghost songs And love to the harvest moon; I am a jack-o'-lantern With terrible teeth And the children know I am fooling.

Students began the art portion of the project by sketching out a design and then drawing that design on a piece of black paper in pencil. Students then traced their pencil lines in white glue as carefully as possible. After the glue lines dried they colored in all of our spaces with chalk making sure to focus on value and blending. As part of this project the students were learning how to use chalks but also how to blend colors to make interesting shadows and highlights. Before turning in the project we sneaked outside and sprayed down the artwork with hairspray to keep the chalk from dusting off. I'm pretty impressed with their work and can't wait to do another one using a poem from Robert Frost.

Students were graded on the following requirements:

    - Create a scene that properly demonstrates the poem

    - Create Contrast through the use of value

    - Neatly use chalk to color image

    - Glue used in a neat manner

    - CRAFTSMANSHIP

Chuck Close Portraits: As we work - 8th Grade

We have been working away on many different projects in the art room.  We have so much going on and as one of my students stated I "am running around the room busy all the time." Each grade has been working on some really cool assignments and after a good morning working with the other art teachers in the district I am able to say that I have some really fun ideas for future projects.

Right now, 8th grade is making large portraits using the process of Chuck Close, we used a grid to draw our images on to the paper. We then began adding in the facial features, this always seems to be the most difficult process and many students are struggling with it but as you can see they are coming along beautifully. Some students have begun to add in the details that are so unique to Chuck Close. Initially we were going to add them to the entire portrait but because the students were doing such a beautiful job with their painting we decided to only add in the shapes and designs into the background.

Students will be graded on the following requirements:

   - Using the grid system to create a portrait that is in proportion

   - Maintaining the look of the grid through the use of Chuck Close's shapes/patterns

   - Blend colors and values to create shadows

   - Layer colors in the shapes in the background to create interest

   - CRAFTSMANSHIP (Clean and Neat Painting)

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The students worked so hard on their portraits and they turned out amazing I am so proud of what they have accomplished. Here are the images finished.