Sixth Grade Sixth graders looked at animal sculptures from Oaxaca, Mexico. These sculptures use a lot of color and pattern which were the art content we focused on for this unit. (we looked at these for inspiration) The students were required to use patterns in their animal drawings and reference the artwork of Oaxaca in their drawings. They should be done next week and uploaded here.
Seventh Grade
This week seventh graders worked on two projects at one. Some groups worked on glazing our pottery from a few weeks ago and others worked on designing and coloring templates to create 3D stars.
Eighth Grade In Eighth grade this week we worked on creating letter forms out of cardboard and adding layers of paper mache to them. Next week we will paint them using patterns.
We've finally gotten our animation unit done and uploaded to youtube (LMS art on youtube). I'm really excited about these videos as they are 100% student created. Students were asked to create a short scene or a narrative through the medium of stop motion animation. First we created small cubee sculptures that would serve as our characters in the videos. Next students spent time creating a set for their video, students had to create large drawings that served as a background and floor for their videos (much like a green screen in a movie). Then we got out the digital cameras and the students shot their videos one frame at a time--moving their characters a fraction of an inch at a time. Students then put all 100+ images into photoshop and edited them. Lastly we used windows moviemaker to edit the individual images into one short video. The project took a long time and a lot of work and I am very pleased with the result. Check them out!
For
this project we discussed the difference between positive and negative
space in 2D artwork. Positive space is comprised of the space taken up
by something in a work of art, and negative space is all of the area
surrounding that space. To explore space, students composed still lifes
and took pictures of them using digital cameras. Then we used the images
we took as reference for a drawing. In order to think about the
relationship between positive and negative space we flipped the common
order of a work of art, and left the positive space blank and put a lot
of detail work in the background. This is one of my favorite projects,
and I think this batch turned out excellent.
Sixth Grade In sixth grade art we've continued working on color this week. We finished our landscape paintings (which we used color schemes on) and moved on to some review of all of the elements of art. On Thursday students took a quiz over the elements. Look for the landscapes to be posted in the next day or so, they're really great!
Seventh Grade
In seventh grade we have been plugging away at our grid style self portraits. Friday is the last day to work on these, so we'll see some finished products soon. I can't wait to see them, the progress has been really great so far!
Eighth Grade
Eight graders have been working on a lot of things at once this week. First we finished our positive/negative space still life paintings (images to come soon), then we glazed our pottery, and lastly we talked about the principle of design pattern, which we will use for a project next week.
Digital Art
We have almost finished our stop motion animations! I can't wait to share them with you!!!!
As part of our animation unit, digital art students practiced basic stop motion animation techniques by working on simple gifs animating a lego character that they designed earlier in the year. First the students designed their lego avatars, then we took pictures of the legos which were uploaded into photoshop and edited. Then students chose a background, either from an image they found online or one they drew themselves, and superimposed their lego character onto the background. Then they created an animation which consisted of 10-20 frames. Lastly we used an online gif creator (gifpal) and animated them. This helped us get a better grasp on animation and also allowed the students to create a gif of their own. Stay tuned for our stop motion animation videos, which will be coming soon!
Sixth
graders have been working with the element of art color. On Monday we
talked about color families (primary, secondary, tertiary) and we
watched this video to help us remember them:
Next we talked about color schemes (warm, cool, monochromatic, and complimentary) and students began a painting of a landscape which uses one of the color schemes. The paintings should be finished next week.
Seventh Grade Seventh graders have been working on grid drawing this week. At the beginning of the week they were working on a group drawing where each student gets a square of a larger image and draws that one section. Then as a class we combine the squares to reveal the larger image.
Now we're working on detailed self-portraits using the grid system of drawing. These should be done next week. Eighth Grade Eighth graders have been talking about positive and negative space this week. We've drawn still life compositions which we are painting now. Instead of doing all of the paint in the positive space (the objects) like a traditional still-life, we are doing a lot of detailed work in the negative space. These will be finished next week as well.
Eighth
graders recently finished a short unit on Op art, which we used to
study line, shape, and most importantly value. They used value to create
the illusion of three dimensionality in a flat drawing. By shading in
the edges of each individual shape on their drawing the students create
the appearance that the columns in their drawings are round and have
bright highlights going down the middle. Great work eighth graders!
Sixth Grade This week sixth graders spent their time exploring the element of art shape. We discussed the differences between organic and geometric shapes, and then took that knowledge to create drawings of made up creatures using only geometric or organic shapes.
Seventh Grade Seventh graders finished their abstract drawings from last week, and then worked on Notan collages. Notan is a Japanese design concept which means dark and light. Students took colored pieces of construction paper and cut out shapes along the edges. Then using symmetry students flipped the shapes out of the piece of paper so that there was a mirror image of the shape using positive and negative space. Images to come of these soon.
Eighth Grade Eighth graders spent the week working on their coil built ceramics. The students did an excellent job building a small vessel which we will glaze in the upcoming weeks.
Digital Art
We
finally began shooting our stop motion animation videos. Students have
been working on their sets and characters for several weeks, and it was
awesome to get to finally get out the cameras and begin shooting. I
can't wait to see the finished products!
