Monochromatic Tree Silhouettes

My 6th grade A day classes started their monochromatic tree silhouette paintings. They began by drawing their background grid and I told them to "place different shades and tints of your color in random places". That did NOT work with them... They acted so lost and they ended up not making enough shade changes. And many of them honestly did not know how to properly mix paint. They would dip their brush in the black, then the white, then the color itself. Then they would get upset when it came out looking like "mud". After many tears were shed, I decided to spend a day practicing monochromatic scales, something I should had done to begin with!

Also I decided for paint palettes to just use Styrofoam plates. I was blessed to find a massive amounts of washable paint palettes last semester and I used them every time my classes did painting. I will go ahead and admit it, the cleaning process with those palettes was TERRIBLE. It took SO much time and effort to wash out those things and half the time they weren't even washed properly (amongst middle school kids too- surprise, surprise). I decided to put those aside and just use plates. We just throw them away once we are finished (after we save the leftover paint of course). I know in the end I'm saving more money by reusing the plastic palettes but, to me it's not worth the headache.

Op Art Cube Display

I decided to brave it and hang these up just outside the cafeteria. I already had to scold three 8th graders because they started to touch them. I hope they will survive long enough! I still have several more to put up and it will all be complete. But here is just one section of them.

**I should note that I have had SO many compliments on these from all the other teachers. The kids love them too!

 

Upcoming Lichtenstein Portraits

7th Grade is now studying Pop Art and we are emphasizing the style of Roy Lichtenstein. Their upcoming project will be to create a Lichtenstein-style portrait. Now I'm at a cross-roads here. I can't decide whether I want them to do a famous person or themselves. I think it will be a little easier to do famous people but it will benefit them better if they do a portrait of themselves. And it will also be a little bit more work for me bringing in my camera and taking snapshots of everyone. Hopefully I will make that final decision tonight...

Either way, to get them into practice mode I had students draw smaller style drawings of famous people (they had a coloring sheet to look at). Here are a few samples of their practice rounds..

Nicki Minaj

 

Justin Beiber

 

Taylor Swift

Op Art Drawing display

I finally went and bought myself some bulletin borders for this bulletin board I have outside my class. But I did not get ENOUGH. Way to go, Mal, way to go. I am going to look into getting 2 more boards this size. One for each grade would be great.

Here is the Op Art display (still more to come). I'm overall happy with my kids and their work. This is just a win project for everyone.

8th Grade Zentangles

Here are some of the finished zentangle landscapes done by my 8th grade classes.

Future projects for the semester...

I feel like I am in a creative rut. And it ALWAYS seems to happen during the spring semester. Anytime this occurs I try to indulge myself in research with different art ed blogs, websites, books, Pinterest, whatever I can find that I really like. I hate this sometimes because I don't want to ever get to where I just can not come up with my own ideas and projects for my kids. I know that teachers shouldn't feel bad taking stuff that others have done. That is kind of the beauty of our jobs, our success is meant to be shared but as someone who strives to be original, these ruts are hard....

NEVERTHELESS...

I have been finding some wonderful project ideas to do for this semester. So just in case you are curious as to what will be coming up in art class----

6th Grade.

Positive/Negative Space Object Drawings

Value Drawings

Monochromatic Colored Trees

7th Grade:

Lichtenstein Inspired Portraits

 

"Sweet Still Lives" Pop Art inspired paintings.... I am so pumped for this one!

And finally, a Chihuly chandelier! Courtesy of Mr. E at Tulip Grove Elementary. I can not WAIT for this project! It will be a group/class assignment.

Keep checking back to see our progress!!!

Mrs. G

Op Art lately..

6th and 7th grade have been working on Op Art all this week. 7th grade is making the cubes and 6th grade are making the "tubes" (yes, I DID just rhyme!). I have been finding SO many different lessons you can do over Op Art. Here are just a couple of shots from class.

6th grade working on their Op Art project and sketchbook assignments.

And here are some finished Op Art sketchbook assignments. Looking good! Below you can find the instructions sheet that explains to you step by step how to draw this design.

 

 

7th Graders working on their Op Art tubes. They are very involved with this project it's amazing. I was afraid they would rush through it since the designs are on a smaller surface but for the most part they are being very particular and precise with how neat and organized their designs are!

 

 6th grade Op Art sketchbook assignment instruction sheet:

 

Lots of good things going on!

-Mrs. G

Art Club Bubble Painting

Our after school workshop today was called "bubble painting". This was another idea I stole from Pinterest. We bought cheap bubbles from Dollar General, filled them with different food colorings and blew bubbles onto white paper causing a cool abstract design. First and foremost, I can not tell you how much of a MESS I made getting the colored bubbles together. My hands are so stained right now I dread having to get all the coloring off! But they had a blast with this! It definitely is messy but it's manageable. No messier than regular painting. Be sure to tell them to blow slowly and also that if they get too close to the paper, the bubbles WILL splash in their face, giving them colored freckles. hahahah!

Some snapshots of the day. As you could tell, we had a full house!!!

Olivia showing off her awesome work. 

We were pretty crammed in my room but we made it!!

Cade showing off his awesome black and green painting!!!

Kinley and Ellie posing their work.

Some of the finished products.

Now time for A NAP!!!!

Laterz!

-Mrs. G