This Week in Art: November 3-7

Please note: There are no student bloggers this week due to my absence on Friday for the IAEA convention.

6th Grade Art:

Andrew adds pattern to his classical posed photo.

Today was the last day of art class for sixth grade "B" term classes! We spent our last week of class studying a new artist, Kehinde Wiley. We watched a short clip from the Today show to learn about the artist, and then read some articles in Scholastic Art magazine.

We learned that Kehinde Wiley poses his models in classical poses after Baroque-style portraiture. We chose poses from classic paintings to be photographed in, and then used colored pencil to add detailed patterns to the background of the printed photos, a la Kehinde Wiley. The results were so cool!




7th Grade Art:

This is my work-in-progress... sorry, I forgot to take a pic of 7th graders in action before they left!

Seventh grade students continued to work on their pop can evolution drawings this week, and today (the last day of art for "B" term classes), they were turned in at the end of class. It was fun to get to drink soda in art class on the first day of the project, but even more exciting for me to get to see these observational drawings come to life! I think the seventh graders always surprise themselves with how good these images turn out!

8th Grade Art:

Dylan makes a clay pizza slice, and demonstrates how to securely attach pieces of clay together.

This week, 8th grade students continued to work on their ceramics choice unit. Students had the option to make:

• A monster "pot," with real grass hair planted inside
• A functional glazed mug - dishwasher safe!
• A sculptural or functional box in the style of Robert Indiana
• A figurative sculpture

We've been hard at work on these projects all week. If students finish early, they have the option of creating a second clay project of their choosing - I've been collecting clay inspiration via Pinterest and such, and put all the photos into a clay binder of ideas for students to flip through. Above, you can see Dylan's pizza slice sculpture. This will look really cool when it's fired and glazed!

Next week, we'll finish up our clay construction and get thinking about our next major project, which will involve colored pencils.

In other art news...
Did you know that the Mona Lisa has an Instagram account? It's pretty cool.

I'm out of the building today at the IAEA state conference, where I'm presenting to other art teachers with my husband. Fingers crossed that all goes well!

On Saturday morning, there will be a reception for the IAEA Student Art Show, where 8th grader Jack R. has an artwork in the exhibit! Congrats Jack!

You can follow my IAEA adventures this weekend via Twitter! #iaea14

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art! May 12-16

6th Grade Art:


This week, 6th grade students applied paper mache to their cardboard block letter sculptures! It was messy, gooey, gross, and super fun! By Friday, students had finished applying the paper mache layers to their projects. Today, students are using puffy paint to create a raised texture design to the front face of their sculptures, which will be painted next week.

This week, we also began our second sketchbook assignment, a 1-point perspective room design drawing. You can watch a playlist of videos on my YouTube channel all about perspective here to help you with your drawing. This sketchbook drawing will be due on Friday, May 23rd.

7th Grade Art:




Seventh grade students worked pretty intensely this week on their monochromatic self-portrait paintings, as you can see from these animated gifs we made earlier in the week! We hope to get these finished up next week, and maybe even move on to a new fun project before the year is over!

On Thursday, I introduced the second sketchbook project, which is a black and white design that incorporates contour drawing methods to make it look like your hand is popping out of the paper! You can view some drawings from students earlier in the year (on Artsonia) here. This sketchbook assignment will be due on Wednesday, May 28th.

8th Grade Art:


Eighth grade art is in the second half of their 8-Bit/Pixel Unit right  now, which is all about creating designs using pixels! Students are creating designs on graph paper using squares - as you can probably see, we are very much inspired by 8-bit video game design. Once students design four possible compositions on graphs, one of the designs is then created and printed out using Excel on the computer.

If students have ALL of their other artwork completed and turned in, they will then get to move on to the most fun part: creating their 8-bit design using perler beads! These tiny plastic beads are placed on a peg board, and then ironed together, which melts the plastic to fuse the design into one plastic piece. How cool!

Next week, we'll finally be photographing and uploading pictures of our ceramic mugs onto Artsonia, and having our mug celebration. After that, we'll take them home!

In other art news...


We're in the news! Find us in Suburban Life today.



Crochet club yarn-bombed my skeleton! They surprised me with it down in the art room after school on Thursday. I LOVE all of the colors! Crochet club has named him "Bob," and some students have already started taking #selfieswithbob - ha!



Ms. Skinner (art teacher @ Churchville) and I have started making art how-to videos for clay projects. We hope to use these next year with 8th grade. I enjoyed getting to test out my new iPevo articulating stand, which I won from their Wishpool program. I shot the entire movie on my cell phone!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.

This Week in Art: May 5-9, 2014

Remember: Ms. Heuel is currently our student teacher in the art room until May 9th. Mrs. Leban will still be blogging about what's happening in the art room in the meantime, but the day-to-day happenings and lessons are all being run by Ms. Heuel!

6th Grade Art:


This week, 6th grade students turned in their first sketchbook assignment (their 1-point perspective name design drawings), and began work on their block letter sculptures. Ms. Heuel has already begun to grade, photograph, and upload sketchbook drawings to our Artsonia gallery! Don't see your work? Make sure that you turned it in! Check your grade in Powerschool here.

Next week, Mrs. Leban resumes teaching art classes. We'll start applying paper mache on our cardboard letterforms, and we'll begin working on our second sketchbook drawing.

7th Grade Art:


This week, seventh grade students turned in their first sketchbook drawing (2-point perspective surreal landscapes), and began work on their monochromatic self-portrait painting unit. Ms. Heuel took photos of students with the digital camera, and students used Adobe Photoshop to alter the photos into only 4 levels of value. These 4 levels will be translated into 4 values of paint color that the students custom mix, and match up like a paint-by-number. We spent time on Thursday and Friday transferring the outlines from these printouts (shown above) onto white paper for painting, which will begin next week, when Mrs. Leban takes over classes again.

8th Grade Art:


This week, 8th grade students closed out a whole bunch of projects! Pixel portraits were turned in, large clay mugs were glazed and fired, and today, students spent the class working on sketchbook #3: a master copy. Check out this cool gif we made of Hollie working on her master copy! Mrs. Leban had fun showing students how to use "auto-awesome" on Google+ to take photos in succession and create an animated gif automatically! Sketchbook #3 is due on Monday, so don't forget to finish this weekend!

Next week, Mrs. Leban takes over classes, and we'll be starting a whole new project!

In other art news...

Our tent at Art in the Park raised $571.43 for the United Community Concerns food pantry last weekend! 

I want to make sure that I acknowledge 8th grader Ellie’s important contribution to our efforts. Ellie’s crocheted donuts are responsible for approximately $200 of the money that we raised. Also of special note is Mrs. Nancy Bensfield, who crocheted coffee cup sleeves for our tent sale, and who volunteered hours to man the tent on Saturday. Additional parent/student volunteers over the weekend were: Ellen & Beth Fazzio, Wendy & Natalie Rinchiuso, Betty & Mary Kritikos, Evan, Riley, & Shari Haug, Mary Brynn & Mollie Rosenstein, and Teresa & Amy Roberts.

I am overwhelmed and amazed with the generosity of our Sandburg community, and proud to be able to present the UCCA with such a donation!

Thanks for another great week!
- Mrs. L.