Pop Art - grade 7

It's been suuuuch a long while since I've updated! Waiting for a baby will do that you, I imagine.

I'm currently on leave already, and I've thought a lot about how that will change my blog. It shouldn't be too different though - regardless of if I'm crafting with a group of kids or not, I'm always crafting on my own, or working on my house, or doing something, so I'll have lots to share in the year that I am off! Plus, once my baby arrives, I'm sure I'll want to share a few pictures.

This project is one that was done by an art teacher at my school. She's amazing - she works with the grade 7 and 8 classes, while I do the grade 6 art. I learned a lot from her this year. She's very process driven in her projects, teaching a lot about the foundations of an art style before jumping into a project. As a result, the artwork the kids produce is stunning. I have a few of her projects which I'll be sharing over the next while (and still a healthy backlog of my own!)

These popart prints were beautiful, and quite large in person. I'm pretty sure each of the pictures was a full sheet of drawing paper, then they were attached from behind. I can't wait to share more of her art projects!

Stacked Square Optical Illusion - grade 6

This is a project I absolutely love - it always produces great results, it's fairly simple for students to follow, and it's a great lesson for shading and creating a 3D drawing!

I'm not sure what to call this illusion - I've seen it a few times, but there's never really been a name associated with it. to me it looks like stacked squares... soo.. stacked square illusion?

Here's how to do the stacked square illusion:

                       

I begin by giving my students a template that I've made with three lines, as you can see in the first picture. I like to give them a starting point, because students can get really caught up in drawing the lines straight or the perfect dimensions apart. Instead of having them use the side with the lines, I have them work from the backside of the paper, so they can faintly see the three lines through the paper, but they aren't actually a part of their final project. (I hope this makes sense.)

The first thing students do is connect the lines at the top and the bottom of the pate, and identify roughly where they thing the center of the shape is.

                      

The next thing they do is start drawing pairs of lines. If the pairs are above the center mark they drew, they point them upwards (if possible, I have them point the lines more gradually upwards as they go.) The other thing they must do is close the sides of their pairs of lines (since they're working from the backside of the paper, they won't actually have the three dark black lines that we began with, they'll just be seeing them from the other side of the sheet.)

                      

This is what they should have once they've worked up one side of the paper. Once they're at this point, they can flip their paper upside down, and do the same thing on the other side.

                           

This is the part that really makes the illusion stand out - under each set of two lines, they draw two nearly horizontal lines going towards the center of the shape. They must do it all for one side of the paper, then flip it upside down and do it for the other side.

                          

Once this is all done, they can begin to color! They need to choose a side that will be dark, and a side that will be light. To keep it simple, I have them pick a marker and a pencil crayon in the same color. The parts in between the colored sections is shaded in using a pencil - dark shading on the dark side, and lighter shading on the light side.

Once they've finished the illusion, I have them color in the background using Sharpie. They all turned out so, so well - I'd love to post them all!

Grade 5/6 totem poles

These are my favorite kinds of assignments - ones with loose guidelines, and tons of creative freedom. I wanted my students to explore mixing mediums, using a wash of a solid color of watercolor (in this case, brown) and then using pencil crayons to add detail, dimension and visual interest. I went with a totem pole theme, because in grade six, we are studying First Nations peoples. However, I encouraged them to stray away from typical totem poles, instead making totem poles based on things they loved - animals, TV shows, monsters, whatever inspired them. Some found reference drawings online, and others worked completely from their head. I adore them!!

Mixed media elephants and Hot Air Balloons - grade 5/6

 Probably every three months, I decide on a new "favorite ever" art project. This one is definitely my favorite ever as of right now!

I came up with this project based on the art of Juri Romanov, a fantastic artist I came across on Etsy. A lot of the art I do with my students is very happy and colorful, and this time, I wanted to try something different. We looked at some of Romanov's art on my iPad, and talked about how these kinds of colors evoke different emotions - sadness, loneliness, solitude. Very different than the kind of emotions we normally go for!

On watercolor paper, students began by drawing their design using pencil. Some of them stuck close to Romanov's inspiration, and others strayed and went their own way. Next, they carefully traced the basic outlines using Sharpie. Students then used a paintbrush and watered down brown or grey paint to stipple their backgrounds. The stippling gave a milky, cloudy look to the paper, which worked perfectly for this kind of design.

Once the paper had dried (maybe ten or so minutes later) students began to color in their detail using pencil crayon. I had originally tried marker for my example, but it didn't get into the grooves of the watercolor paper well enough, so pencil crayon it was!

Students then added in their newsprint details. They used old dictionaries to draw elephants, mountain peaks, and clouds. Once they had glued them in, they went back to their drawing with a fine Sharpie and added any final details - lines on their balloon, swirls in their clouds, or anything else that was missing.

These projects are beautiful. Like, I am lusting after many of them for my living room walls. They are so me, which luckily ended up being something my students loved as well. There was a lot of pride flowing around the classroom after this project, and it was truly one of those days where I felt so, so lucky to get to teach art, even if it's just for part of my days. I went home feeling very inspired.

 The one below reminded me of Iceland - it's just those perfect, grey colors, and I love the single house. So desolate!

 The one below had me laughing - I love the fallen elephant. Such amazing attention to detail!

Rainbow fish - grade 6

Isn't this fish lovely? Today, we had another snow day (I've lost count of how many this has been) and I wanted to come up with something special and fun that my little group could do today for art. While browsing images on flickr, I came across this drawing of a beautiful, colorful fish that I knew my students would love.

I quickly talked to them about how to draw the fish, focusing on droopy fins and flowing lines. They used thin Sharpie to trace their lines, and to add details inside the fish's body. Then, they used pencil colors to color them in. Love them!

A quick little update!

I'm back from Iceland and desperately trying to catch up, so this will be a quick little update on a cute, Icelandic artist-inspired lesson I did.

I found out about a really neat artist from Iceland named Erró. He does lots of these portraits that are half mixed with monster like creatures.

I thought it would be really funny if the grade 3's did this as well, especially since it's a fun way to do self portraits.

Following a lesson on how to draw a face (including dimensions, shapes of noses, mouths, eyes, etc.) students were each given a mirror. They studied the contours of their face, then began to draw a self portrait. When they were done, they colored it in in pencil crayon.

Then came the hard part - cutting their beautiful portrait in half. They were kind of delighted about cutting their work, but also shocked that they were cutting something they had spent so much time on.

They then used half of their face as a guide, and drew a monster or animal on the other side, keeping in mind the dimensions of their head, and the placement of their features.

They repeated the same thing for the other side of the monster/animal. When they finished that drawing, they colored it in in pencil crayon, and cut it in half.

Then, they cut all around their people/animals, and glued them (in this order: person, monster, monster, person) onto a piece of colored cardstock.

Such a cute little project!