"Oh my God, can you believe we made this?"

The 8th graders are amazed at how their hard work is paying off.  We still have a few final steps to go but they are certainly impressed with themselves. 

Leaving a Legacy: the beginning

The mural begins!  One section of 8th graders has been working on a very special project - a piece of public art for the middle school.  As the first "graduating class" from the middle school, this work has a lot of meaning.  

This project began with students looking at 38 different mural examples from around the city.  Next we watched and discussed 5 short videos showing the purpose and meaning of murals as well as practically how they are made.  Then each student submitted a design and we voted on our top 5 favorites, had a critique and developed a design "team" of the 5 strongest artists to combine all the ideas into one final design.  While the design team was busy at work, the rest of the students divided into the "supply & inventory" team that assessed the cost and supplies needed to complete the mural, the "fundraising" team who generated ideas of how to receive money and supply donations to make our mural, and the "presentation" team who worked on developing a catchy commercial like presentation for the principal, head of school, and other important people to get approval.  In the end, we got approval but were never granted wall space to paint our mural.  So, in a moment of creative thinking, I bought a 6 foot by 8 foot piece of canvas and a 5 by 7 foot stretcher and cross beam!  This weekend, the Spanish teacher and I went into school and prepped the canvas so the kids could start drawing and painting on it tomorrow.  We have one week to finish but I know we can do it!

Priming the final edge

Can you find these creatures?

Our camouflaged creatures have come a long way.  Camouflaged creatures is a three part lesson- first sculpting the creature, second creating and painting a pattern or environment that it blends into, and thirdly photographing them (we have yet to do this section).  Below are some paintings with creatures hidden- see if you can find them!  I'll admit some are easier than others but I like the variety of styles and results I got.  Some are abstract patterns, some are based on real life, some are neatly and precisely painted while others are more messy.  At the bottom are photos of just the creatures.  This is just a little less than half of my students.  I'll post the other half next week.

Camouflage

We are in the midst of a camouflage project, do you see the hidden lightning bug above? We started by creating clay creatures.  Next we isolated 5 shapes we found in our creature (both/either organic and geometric) and 4 colors we could use to camouflage it and to create our own original "camo" patterns.  It was a little bit of a rough start but hopefully we will have some good results soon!

A few blossoms

I love love love that everyone interpreted the cherry blossom assignment differently!  These are from 8th grade.  Art elective blossoms should be out by next Wednesday.

Being an artist

In my art classes, I introduce students to the artistic process. First we brainstorm ideas, then we create preliminary sketches, critique our work and finally create a final draft.  Below you can see evidence of this process with a sketch, critique sheet (peeking out underneath the sketch) and a final draft.  This is the 6th grade abstract action painting. Can you tell what action this student is representing?

Fabulous Sea Life Watercolors!

I have a new project- the sea life watercolors!!!! I had no idea these would be so fantastic.  Last Weds, students began drawing and coloring underwater scenes using oil pastels.  This week, we started with a 4 panel experiment (first picture) where students learned about 4 different watercolor techniques: plastic wrap textures, wet-on-wet painting, salt scars, and wax resist.  Then students applied these techniques to their sea life paintings.  Can you spot the techniques in the watercolors below?