7th grade happenings

Since I am mostly teaching 8th graders this semester, I have not spent much time blogging about what 7th grade students have been creating during our one class together (next semester will be the opposite of this semester). So, as to not forget about the great work these guys are doing, here is an overview of the ways in which we explored perspective for the last project. 

I have been teaching perspective for a while now. It can be a tough concept to teach at times because it is very rule-based and I always tell my students that in order to be successful at it, you kind of have to turn your brain off and accept that you are limited to the rules of drawing either vertical, horizontal, or orthogonal lines. I also try and reinforce those concepts using more than one kind of method. So, here are some of the works we did while playing around with the concept of perspective, but you can always view the full gallery here. 

Hallway Drawings

When we do this drawing exercise, I have students go into the hall to pick their point of view. Beforehand we go through various ways to use perspective by creating a generic hallway. Here are the results of putting that practice to work: 

Colton B - area by Mrs. Gustafson's room

Caiden B. - area by the gym and cafeteria

Jordyn M. - area by Mrs. Stevenson's room

Name Drawings

Students were also asked to use perspective to draw their name. Here are some of the results. 

Photoshop Hallways

The last way students were asked to explore perspective is through digital means. They used images I had taken of the various hallways and using the pen and brush tools in Photoshop, they outlined the vertical, horizontal, and orthogonal lines. They then used various fill tools to complete the pieces. 

Joey S.

Eli G.

Phat P.