This Week in Art: September 16-20

6th Grade Art:

 

Sixth grade students finished their letter sculptures this week, and even photographed and uploaded the images to Artsonia - all by themselves using the art room iPads! Artsonia has a new feature this year, called "Classroom Mode," that allows students to upload their own photos to selected galleries.  The teacher then gets to review/approve photos before they are posted publicly.  It's super fun for students to be able to use the iPads in class!

Today, our second sketchbook drawing (the interior design/room drawing) was due.  So be on the lookout for updated grades and more Artsonia masterpieces real soon!

On Thursday and Friday this week, we started learning about drawing techniques using markers.  These new skills will be incorporated into a special comics-themed assignment, which we'll complete next week - because next week is our LAST WEEK of "A" Term art class!  Eek!  The time went way too fast!

7th Grade Art:

 

Seventh grade students have been hard at work on their "Pop Can Evolution" drawings.  We've been really focusing on our observational drawing skills, and practicing the steps to break down an object into simple shapes in order to draw more realistically.

Next week is the LAST WEEK of "A" Term 7th grade art, so we'll be finishing up our can drawings, and completing a quick version of the sketchbook #3 assignment before next Friday.  I can't believe the term flew by so quickly!

8th Grade Art: 

On Tuesday, eighth grade students turned in sketchbook assignment #2 (scene from a book).  These drawings have already been graded (check your progress on Powerschool!), and are awaiting photography/uploading via Artsonia.

Most of the week was spent working on our "pixel portraits" project.  These colored pencil portraits will (hopefully) be completed sometime next week.  On Wednesday, sketchbook assignment #3 (a copy of a "master" work of art) was introduced, and we spent time finding & printing out artworks to try to copy in a drawing.  This sketchbook assignment will be due on Friday, October 4th.

Thanks for another awesome week!
-Mrs. L.

Week in Review: March 4-8

This week was ISAT testing week!  That means that art classes were very short - less than 30 minutes each day for 7th & 8th graders!  So most of our days were spent on the "less messy" arts, like drawing and using computers!

6th Grade:


6th grade students are working on their second sketchbook assignment (we're taking a hiatus from our letter sculptures, but we'll get back to them next week!) - a "dream room" design that uses our knowledge of 1-point perspective from our first sketchbook assignment.  These drawings will be due on Monday, March 18th (so there's still another week to work on them!).  The photo above is the display of this same assignment from last term's sixth grade art classes.  Don't they look great?

7th Grade:


Seventh grade is also working on their second sketchbook assignment: a drawing inspired by Op Art and Zentangles!  These black and white drawings are intricately patterned and use drawing techniques that we previously learned in 6th grade: hatching, cross-hatching, stippling, and doodle techniques.  We also learned some cool new contour line tricks for giving our work a 3-D effect!  These drawings are due March 18th.

8th Grade:


Eighth grade students are using the computers and iPads to create Papercritter sculptures as part of our paper sculpture unit!  We have 15 laptops in the classroom that use the Papercritters website to design and print out our creations.  We also use our three iPads and the Papercritters app to do the same thing!  Because the iPads are so popular in art class, we had a "raffle" to pick which three students would get to use the iPads to make their Papercritters.

Each student is required to design, print out, and assemble one Papercritter for this assignment.  If students finish early, they are allowed to make additional Papercritters just for fun!  These paper sculptures are due this Monday, March 11.

Students are also working on sketchbook assignment #4, which is a design for the cover of the program for our 8th grade promotion ceremony!  Not only is this an assignment for a grade, but the winning design (as voted on by 8th grade teachers) is used for the 8th grade program cover!  Whee!  This drawing is due next Wednesday, March 13th.

In other news...

March is Youth Art Month!  Celebrate by doing something art-minded!


Thanks for another great week!
-Mrs. L.

Weekly Update: January 28 - February 1st

This week, we have an institute day on Friday, February 1st.  I'm going to be attending a meeting all about using iPads in the classroom, so I'm super excited and hopeful that I'll learn a ton of new ideas for using our art iPads!

6th Grade:
This week, we finished our paper mache sculptures!  I'm not going to post any photos until they're up on our Artsonia gallery - wouldn't want to spoil the surprise, but they're AWESOME!

Our 1-point perspective room drawings (aka sketchbook #2) were turned in on Thursday, so those have been graded and are currently awaiting photography and uploading to Artsonia.

Also on Thursday, we began learning about drawing techniques: hatching, cross-hatching, stippling, and doodle.  We'll be using these techniques in our next major assignment, which is a pen and ink drawing!  Exciting stuff coming up!

7th Grade:


On Monday, we started a short still-life drawing unit.  Students brought in canned beverages (soda, lemonade, iced tea, etc) and drew the cans (the best part was getting to drink the soda in class on Monday at school!).  Then, we crushed them 1/2 way and drew them again.  Then, we crushed them ALL the way and drew them a third time!  These drawings will be finished up at the beginning of next week.

On Thursday, we turned in our Op Art-inspired drawings.  These have been graded (check your grade in PowerSchool!) and are awaiting photography and uploading to Artsonia.

8th Grade:


This week was spent on two things: finishing up the clay construction on our clay mugs (they are now awaiting a kiln firing), and starting the planning process for our faux taxidermy animal heads!  Students had to research, find, and print out two photos of their animals: one front view, and one side view.  They then sketched out their vision for their sculptures.

On Monday, we'll begin construction on the armatures for our final pieces.  Also, sketchbook assignment #3 (the "master" copy) is due on Monday, so don't forget!

In other news...

This week brought a super awesome surprise!  The iPEVO company sent us three iPad folio cases with bluetooth keyboards for our iPads!  It was all part of the iPEVO "Wishpool" project.  You can view my wish here.  This company makes the coolest little gadgets, so check them out!

I can't wait to start using these keyboards to write up our artist statements for Artsonia!

Thanks for another great week!
-Mrs. L.

Using iPads in Art: Still Life Photos

Today we tried something new in art class, which was arranging and photographing still life compositions for our painting project, which we started talking about in class on Friday.  Students took photos of our collaborative still life arrangement using the iPads!  The iPads are great for selecting and cropping a portion of a composition because looking at the screen is like looking at a framed photo.  What the students "see" is what they "get."

We ran into problems with Photo Stream though.  I tested it out on Friday, and it was working just fine.  The plan was to use Photo Stream to print photos off the desktop PC in the art room after students took their photos.  Maybe my PC is just too old, but Photo Stream kept saying we were logged out of iCloud (we weren't) and our pictures weren't showing up.

My workaround (man, that was stressful!) was to create and share a Photo Stream on a website that can be accessed from any computer.  Of course, this means individually downloading and printing each photo one by one... but the important thing is that it WORKED!

Here's the links to our galleries:

7th Grade Period 1 Still Life Photo Gallery

7th Grade Period 2 Still Life Photo Gallery

Remember that we are only beginner photographers and that this is our first time shooting with the iPads!  But we are trying.

-Mrs. L.

iPad animation.

Sorry I haven't posted in so long. Life gets busy when you're teaching AND raising a 3-month old! In the meantime, enjoy this animation I made using the iPad and the Animation HD app.

:)

Masterpiece Me!

Last week, I gave the art room iPads to a few eighth grade students who finished their work early.  One of the apps we had a ton of fun playing with is called "Masterpiece Me!" and you get to put your photo into a famous work of art!  Here's a little gallery of some of the photos that were made:

Can you spot Mr. Leban as the Mona Lisa in the photos above?