6th Grade
Week 2- This week 6th grade is working on Watercolor Birds. They are learning how to do a watercolor wash as a background for their bird drawing. We will talk briefly about John Audubon and the work he did drawing the birds of North America. Students will work from resource photos and use gel pens and watercolor to create a detailed bird painting
Week 3- Things are moving along in sixth grade. We have been exploring combining materials and layering them on a watercolor wash background. Students have become skilled in wet on wet technique and are producing beautiful washes. Most students are finished with their birds and we are now working on a cityscape which combines a watercolor night sky background with buildings that are collaged on, along with whatever other materials we have around. The goal of this cityscape is to use a variety of layers and materials to make the city seem alive and full of texture. I'll post photos soon!
Week 4- This week students finished their cityscapes and begin a study of warm and cool colors. They first used simple art objects to create a painting that incorporated both warm and cool colors with the goal of using the colors to strongly contrast in the same painting. Next were simple self portraits that used warm and cool colors to express emotion.
Week 5- We begin our painting unit today by starting a color wheel and learning about mixing colors. Students are only given the primary colors and black and white. They developed strong color mixing skills and construct a color wheel to use as a tool. They will use these skills in their impressionist style landscape painting where they have to match all of the colors in a landscape resource photo using just the primary colors and black and white.
Week 7- Students have explored texture in a big way this week. First they constructed a texture quilt using a variety of materials. Each individual piece is hung together with both classes to form a beautiful, huge texture quilt. Next, students worked with fabric and burlap, creating their own piece of fabric art. The materials for this project were from fabric sampler books that I got at the Scrap Exchange!
Week 9- Students will finish their texture exploration this week with a small fabric weaving. We have had a great time working with texture and even saw a very informative video on "How Jeans are Made"! We will be moving on to Circles and Arcs next to finish out the quarter. Students will learn how to use a compass and protractor as they create various works of art based on Circles and Arcs.
Week 3- Things are moving along in sixth grade. We have been exploring combining materials and layering them on a watercolor wash background. Students have become skilled in wet on wet technique and are producing beautiful washes. Most students are finished with their birds and we are now working on a cityscape which combines a watercolor night sky background with buildings that are collaged on, along with whatever other materials we have around. The goal of this cityscape is to use a variety of layers and materials to make the city seem alive and full of texture. I'll post photos soon!
Week 4- This week students finished their cityscapes and begin a study of warm and cool colors. They first used simple art objects to create a painting that incorporated both warm and cool colors with the goal of using the colors to strongly contrast in the same painting. Next were simple self portraits that used warm and cool colors to express emotion.
Week 5- We begin our painting unit today by starting a color wheel and learning about mixing colors. Students are only given the primary colors and black and white. They developed strong color mixing skills and construct a color wheel to use as a tool. They will use these skills in their impressionist style landscape painting where they have to match all of the colors in a landscape resource photo using just the primary colors and black and white.
Week 7- Students have explored texture in a big way this week. First they constructed a texture quilt using a variety of materials. Each individual piece is hung together with both classes to form a beautiful, huge texture quilt. Next, students worked with fabric and burlap, creating their own piece of fabric art. The materials for this project were from fabric sampler books that I got at the Scrap Exchange!
Week 9- Students will finish their texture exploration this week with a small fabric weaving. We have had a great time working with texture and even saw a very informative video on "How Jeans are Made"! We will be moving on to Circles and Arcs next to finish out the quarter. Students will learn how to use a compass and protractor as they create various works of art based on Circles and Arcs.
7th grade
Week 3- 7th grade has some beautiful handmade sketchbooks to use in class throughout the semester! This week we have been working on our Overlapping Hands drawing, which focuses on the technique of overlapping to create space as well as systems for drawing hands. We began by looking at our hands and examining how they are constructed. Then we looked at some master artists such as MC Escher and Albrecht Durer to see how they drew hands. We start each class with a blind contour warmup to get ready to draw. After warming up students practice using a system for drawing hands in different positions as well as holding objects. Finally, students will construct a drawing of 5-7 hands that hold objects and overlap. This project is Due on Tues Aug 12.
Week 4- This week we begin our Sports and Art unit with a slideshow about local master artist Ernie Barnes! This is one of my favorite lessons that I do with every 7th grade class. Ernie Barnes was born and raised in Durham and went on to play pro football before becoming one of the best American artists of the late 20th century. As we look at his work we talk about proportion, exaggeration, motion and form. Students will print out resource photos of athletes in motion to use as they create a painting.
Week 5- We begin the week with some step by step drawings of athletes that teach different systems for drawing the human body- a very complex subject. Students do a proportion exercise based on Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" as well a quick sketches of each other in different poses. By the end of the week they will be creating a large painting of an athlete in motion!
Week 6- Students are going great with their Sports Art paintings. They will be completing these as paintings, using color mixing skills learned in 6th grade.
Week 7- This week we begin one of 7th grades favorite projects- Paper mache sculpture. This semester we are focusing on endangered animals. Each student researched an animal on the World Wildlife Federation's endangered animal list. Now we are beginning to create the wire armatures for their sculptures. Paper mache is a long project and we will probably be working on it until the end of the quarter.
Week 9- Students have worked really hard to get their armatures to look like their endangered animal. Everyone should be ready to start putting the layers of paper mache onto their sculpture. It takes three full layers of paper mache to get the sculptures to be hard and ready to paint.
8th grade
Week 3- 8th grade has some awesome handmade sketchbooks to use in class during the semester! They are very proud of their sketchbooks and they cost a fraction of a store bought sketchbook . This week we begin a 2-3 week series of drawing skills exercises. We are getting these skills solid before moving onto more in-depth projects. We will be reviewing overlapping, space and depth. We will explore contour line and using contour line to create form. We will be studying light , value and geometric simple shapes as well as excellent pencil technique. We will be learning color pencil layering and blending techniques. Finally we will be learning how to use a grid to enlarge or transfer and image. That's a lot of drawing skills!
Week 4- Students worked on a series of drawing skills in their sketchbook this week. We finished the week with a study of one point perspective .
Week 5-This week we will work on simple form still lifes and by the end of the week we will be learning how to use a grid to transfer a drawing.
Week 6- Students will be working on a full color object drawing this week. All of the previous drawing skills will come together in one beautiful drawing!
Week 7- Students will spend time in the computer lab this week learning some basic Adobe Photoshop skills. They will be altering a self-portrait photo to use as a resource photo. After that we will move back to the class room and use a grid to enlarge their portrait two times to create a painting. This is the first in a series of self-portraits.
Week 9- Students are finishing their first self-portrait and they look great! Look for them in the lobby display case. They are moving right on to more complex portraits using color. Everyone is working hard and the artwork is wonderful!