Category: Drawing

Week Nine

3/20/2018

Automata's

STEAM students started Automata's this week. This is my first time teaching this concept and product. It was fun to see students work on this in pairs and connect their understanding of other subjects with this Engineering concept. Students should be finishing up these works next week. I am very excited with their progress and how they are combining their skills and understanding from a variety of areas to make this work!

Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awardee

It was very exciting to learn that one of our Dual Enrollment students, Lauren Doyle, was awarded the Air Zoo Innovation in Art and Science Award. I am so proud to see this student I first met in my 7th grade Art class grow into her own artist combining her love of Art and Science to create pieces featured above and below. I decided to nominate Lauren when I found out about this opportunity. Her work with electroplating made for a unique opportunity to connect Art with Science and I am so glad she was recognized for making this connection with her work.

Lauren will be recognized at the Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awards dinner in April. We are excited to see what more Lauren does as she finishes our 3D class and starts prepping her portfolio for next year's competition season which will include the Scholastic Art Awards.

Spaces and Places

Students finished their second major themed project this semester using the theme of Space and Place as a jumping off point. Here are some ways they resolved imagery to best explore the concept:

Adam: In this project, I made a canyon landscape out of clay. I made little jagged notches in the clay to give it texture. Also, I chose the materials that I used so that I could challenge myself. Working with clay is not easy. I had to slip and score everything that I put on it. I can compare and contrast this piece to an artist of note. For example, it looks like a Nathan Walsh artwork piece. This is because of the amount of detail I used. To add onto that, I over exaggerated the colors just like in his artwork.

Patty: I decided to draw a mountain with an inspiration of the artist Ansel Adams, because he had a lot of drawings and paintings of nature, in gray scale, so I wanted to draw a mountain, and then use color pastel to add some color to it. The background seemed empty so I added some shade from the outside in.

Alex: For this project I decided to use photography. I used photography to help show how from our point of view, far away, we may not see everything that is in a small place. I would compare my work to the work of Ansel Adams. Like him I used photography to show the space and value in the photographs. My work would be different form his in the fact where I use several pictures and put them into one, and I also take a landscape photo of a smaller landscape to really bring out the texture in the objects I'm photographing.

Jason: I decided to use value pencils because I thought it would be the easiest way to show where the sun is showing and where it is not showing. I pressed harder and used darker pencils where the sun was not showing. I would compare this artwork to Ansel Adams because he only uses pencils in his artwork, which is like mine. In the principles of design, you can see a pattern where the houses get smaller the closer they get to the vanishing points.

Gage: I made this picture on photoshop. I used photo shop because I am good at it. Also I would compare my artwork to David Hockney because it is natural but also abstract and cartoons. I made a tree in the Feld because I like the wilderness.

Noah: We learned about spaces and places and I put in thee use of cold and hot colors the hot colors poped out and the cool colors pushed in and this made a cool affect so what I did was I painted colors on first blue, green, brown, yellow, orange and last but not least black and then I put tape on the paper so I didn't paint on the c0olors I made and I let it dry and I took the tape of and boom, this came out.

Perspective Bootcamp

Students also had a chance to work with perspective this week. Here are some examples of what they did in only a few days!

Chelsea

NAEA in Seattle

I had an awesome time at the National Art Education Association Conference in Seattle to finish the week. I am so thankful to be a part of the NAEA and participate in such a quality organization that offers the best of professional development opportunities for their members. Even better is the opportunity to attend conferences in cities I may not normally visit and experience the art and culture of that area so I can bring it back into my classroom in ways that are both enriching and relevant to my students. In addition, I get the time to connect with others who know my teaching situation best and compare notes.

I will do a more in-depth write-up of my time in Seattle and the things I learned at the conference next week, but here is a short snippet of the experience with images below:

NAEA registration area was so organized this year and it was great to run into people I haven't seen since 2016 in line.

#teammiddle presentation at #naea18 is in the books! Love my art tribe! pic.twitter.com/qqHggX2Mix
— Holly Bess Kincaid (@ArtLadyHBK) March 22, 2018

This is my 6th year presenting at NAEA. It was awesome to get our group up and moving in an exercise that demonstrates concepts about color.

Hearing from Nick Cave was a highlight. I am a fan of his work and students learn about him in our objects/artifacts themed unit. It was great to also see his work at the Seattle Art Museum.

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Week Four

2/15/2018

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On the News

Monday kicked off with student work being featured on our local news as a part of a segment that highlighted a grant program we received in 2016. It was fun to see student work featured as other teachers are encouraged to apply for the TangerKIDS grant this year. I am hoping to receive another grant this year for a project idea I have to transform our hallways into a gallery for student work.

Building Skills

Since moving to more choices for projects in our classroom, I have found that the beginning weeks of skill-building exercises have been important in challenging students abilities to manipulate materials and work with a variety of concepts in their work. The hope of these skill-builders is to equip students with the tools needed for them to independently develop and work on the thematic works we do in class in a way that is both informed and intentional.

This week, we worked on the use of line and watercolor techniques as we continued to explore ideas of portraits as a way to capture the likeness of others - well, actually maybe the opposite of that. Using blind contour and bilateral drawings, students used their observation skills to draw, but most definitely ended up with very abstract outcomes. We used this opportunity to discuss that as artists, we have the option of how we want to portray our subject. Sometimes it calls for more realism and sometimes it needs to be more abstract or expressive.

It was a fun process to take students through and I will be interested to see if any of them end up applying it to their final works as we get moving on our "You, Me, Everybody" themed projects.

Lexi

Brayden

Olivia

Ellie

Clay in STEAM Class

I am teaching a STEAM class as a part of my schedule this semester. This is my first time teaching STEAM and developing a curriculum that asks students to use their art skills and design thinking to tackle ideas and concepts across other disciplines.

In this class, students have a "Have to" and "Can do" project for each of the letters in STEAM. This means that there is one teacher-directed project and one student-direct project within Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics.

For our first set of projects that are Science-based, students had to work with clay and create a piece that could play music/sound. The design of the ceramic works were based on endangered species.

In addition to this, students also had the opportunity to hear from two of our high school ceramic students as they visited and demonstrated their abilities on the wheel. It was awesome for students to hear how they work with the clay to create their works and in doing so, explain the chemistry of the clay and the physics of throwing and manipulating forms on the wheel.

This opportunity to have skills students present to our younger students is something that I hope to do more of in the future. I was very proud of all of the students who asked questions and the way those questions were answered.

It was also a great opportunity for our large Empty Bowls bowl to be created for auction on our upcoming Fine Arts night, known as Arts a la Mode. I am excited to get this piece fired and glazed. I have some fun ideas for how to best glaze it (those hands you see next to it are going in the kiln shortly and have helped inspired some ideas).

From Objects to Art

This week in 3D, students worked on finishing up their object sculptures. Some more will be finished next week. It was fun to see students work with multiples of the same object and create a form from something you would see in the everyday in a non-art way.

I have really enjoyed seeing these students take on challenges and apply their skills and understanding of 3D media in ways that push towards new understandings and inspire new ideas. Students will be moving onto a new project next week where they will be looking at architecture and structures.

Thinking About ArtPrize10

As we move into spring, we will also be moving into the season we start to think about this year's ArtPrize entry. Last year was the first year our school entered work. This year, we are hoping to enter again and our materials for the work began to arrive this week.

The K-12 Visual Arts team will be meeting soon to hammer out ideas for the overall look of our over 3000 bottle caps when they are painted by students, but regardless of what we create and if it is actually on display in a venue this fall, I am excited we are trying something new and coming together to make it happen.

If you are interested in more information, please contact me (especially if you are interested in hosting our work as a venue).

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Week Seventeen

1/12/2018

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Finishing up the Semester

As we near the end of the semester, students were asked to go through their portfolios on Artsonia and select a piece they would like to revisit in ways that would help them show growth over the term. This is a variation on a project I ask students to engage in annually as a way to pause, reflect, and react to the learning that has happened during their time in the art classroom.

It is very exciting for me to see students use this project to show what they have learned. It is also interesting to learn why students select the works they want to revisit. For some, it is because it was their favorite thing; for others, it was something they struggled with at the time and this is their chance to do something better. Regardless of the reason, I am thankful that students had a chance to do this and I really enjoyed reading their statements that went with the work.

Ashlynn: I did this flower because in fifth grade I did a water color flower, and for something old something new I decided to take the techniques from the fifth grade art work and make it better. So I colored my flower and used water color paint, just like I did in fifth grade.

Kennedy: For this projects I decided to re-make a shoes drawing i did with pastels in 5th grade. I started out by looking at my shoe and drawing out the outsides and the lines, then i colored it in. I did the same thing with the other shoes, only using pencils instead of colored pencils. For my background I used water color to make a splash pattern by blowing on it.

Serenity: I decided to recreate my watercolor flower painting from 5th grade. In the original I didn't make it look like a flower very well. The flower was too zoomed in. However, in this piece I zoomed out and made it look more like a flower. I made a new work that focused more on the content of the painting. The original also had colors that were not blended and causing the work to have poor craft. In this piece the colors that I used were blended together more, causing the work to have good craft. This art work helped me personally by helping me show the improvement I have made not only as a artist, but as a person. I wanted to revisit this project because I honestly thought it looked bad when I original created it in 5th grade. I wanted to take this opportunity to recreate it and make it look better.

Finn: My new project shows improvement in creativity because before I just grabbed a bunch of images off of google and placed them inside my profile, and in this project I made the background inside my face, made the planet, and I made the stars. I also improved my craft. I did this by spending more time on the quality of the components in this project, and in the other project my background was just made out of a bunch of random colors and scribbles. I made this piece the way it is because I love the way galaxy or space things look and also how greens, purples, reds, and blues look together.

Jackson: In the old water color abstract I had diferent clear sections which looking back on I didn't like so with this one its more non objective. Also in the old one I had random scribbles through out it making it worse. I feel like this one was a lot more crafty because in the old one it was just crappy and scribbly but with this one it actually took time. The composition on this one was a lot better too because it used a wider variety of color. I don't really have a personal connection to this artwork because it was "Non objective". I wanted to revisit this because in my last one it was awful and I didn't like it so I thought of this as a retry.

Evie: I remade a piece I made in 5th grade, the year I came to Byron Center. It was a portrait of what I looked like back then and it was supposed to be realistic. Remaking it, I took everything I've learned and made it in a style I draw with more. I decided since this was a remake from an old drawing, instead of keeping the drawing of me in 5th grade, I'd make it how me and my friends draw me currently. I'ts like a persona in a way, it's something my friends have helped me with and I am very grateful for their help. I also made it digital instead of traditional. I took the circles in the background from the last drawing and made it a ball type thing with words my friends have called me and use to describe me. The art remake is very important to me, it shows how much I've grown with people and especially with art. I used far more shading and took aspects from the last drawing (circles and words) and made them into something new and even combined them! I'm far more content with this piece and I hope to learn more in art.

Khiem: This art is the continue of the last art in 7th grade challenge 3 treasure or trash. Some of the thing that I change is the way I chose to color it. In the old art I use the different color but in this one I chose to use My old fashion way, pencil. Something new that I do is the point of view. The first one is up looking down but in this one I chose to look from a wall. The first C is creativity is that I use shading pencil instead of markers. Another C that's different is the content I chose to take a different point of view from the original. This my room that change a little by using my imagination like the fish tank.

Mary: In the revision of the autobiography I did last year, I wanted to re-do my attempt at 'anime' and wanted to improve. I was honestly horrified at the older version, so I just had to redo it.I am also remaking this character; putting in more depth and such.I hope you enjoyed this piece, I cannot wait to make more like it!

3Doodler Fun

This was an exciting end of the week in our classroom as our latest funded project from DonorsChoose arrived! Thanks to generous donors and the matching funds from 3Doodler, we were able to get 6 3Doodler pens for our classroom!

Students spent today experimenting with the pens, even completing some of the projects from the booklet. I am so excited to be able to use these in the classroom and cannot wait to see what students make next with them.

Week One of DE

For the past seven years I have been able to reconnect with my former middle school students as high schoolers in the Kendall College of Art and Design Dual Enrollment program. Each Spiring, I teach a course in either Color, Photo, or 3D. It has been an awesome experience and one that I look forward to each year.

This week, we had our first class in 3D Design. It was fun to see students I once had years ago and meet new students, too. We started out this week with collaborative work, creating sculptures on the first day out of styrofoam cups and some drawing exercises on the second day to prep for some relief paper sculptures based on the work of Heather Hansen.

From what I have seen so far in this short period of time, I know we are going to have some stellar work made by some stellar students over the remaining 14 weeks of class.

Next week, these drawings will be translated into paper relief sculptures (one symmetrical and one asymmetrical). It will be interesting to see how students use 2D images to inform the 3D work they make. This is my first time approaching this project in this way and it was amazing to see how engaged students were throughout the drawing process (one commented that they would like to do more of this kind of work on their own).

Part of my job as an art teacher is to teach the fundamentals of seeing and making art; the other part is to instill the idea that there are multiple ways to make art and that anyone can do it.

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Week Six

10/14/2017

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Working Artists

Students will often find collaborators to help them achieve works that may be outside of the normal perimeters. It was fun to see this student recruit others to help him paint his face (with a note of permission from mom, of course) to use in a digital work. Before cleaning his face, he also made sure to get a monoprint of the work.

Students spent most of this week working on their pieces which explore the theme "You, Me, Everybody." In this first challenge, students are asked to consider how individuals form a sense of self and what makes us similar as well as distinct. We have spent much of our time up until this point working on getting used to various media application so that when it came time to really get into a concept, students would be able to apply what they thought would work best to finish a work they developed on their own.

Inspired by artists of note for this assignment (Julian Opie, Frida Kahlo, and Do Ho Suh) as well as other works I show them from past students and a great TED talk by Phil Hansen, I ask for students to think about how they can use what they know about manipulating art media to say something about the theme that makes the most sense to them. Before beginning on final works, students are asked to create a series of thumbnail sketches of possible solutions as well as list the materials they think they may need to complete the work they would like to create.

This can be a big challenge for many. In order to avoid some of the pitfalls of feeling like they may never be able to come up with an idea, I saturate our Schoology page with old lessons/solutions from former students and step-by-step how-to's to help those who may be stuck with what to do. I also make sure and refer to artists that can be connected with the work they settle on doing for this project as well and use their sketchbooks as a place to explore and play with ideas. One of my favorite resources to use is the Scholastic Art Gallery of former student winners from around the country. Using student work that is both age appropriate and aspirational helps push students beyond simple or basic solutions and challenges them to think in a larger scope and to reach further than they have previously.

We will be finishing up this theme next week and I am very excited to see where we go next. There is a nice variety of materials being used and approaches to the topic that are making me think about the stories my students have to tell. It will be fun to share this work with parents at conferences next week.

Here are some images of students working:

Leaves for Sale

These leaves will be available for purchase during Parent Teacher Conferences on the 16th and 18th. 8th grade students made these on the first day of school and we took the time to glaze them this week. They were made by rolling out slabs and imprinting leaves before being bisque-fired and then glazed with one coat of a color. We rubbed some of the color off before putting on a clear coat and firing for a final time. They get that reddish look because of the type of clay that is used to create them.

I love the results and think they would make a great addition to any fall themed table scape. Any leaves not sold will be available for purchase at the upcoming Byron Center Fine Arts Boosters craft fair at the high school on November 11th. The funds will be used to help offer additional opportunities for students to perform and participate in the WMS Art and STEM program.

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Week Four

10/1/2017

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ArtPrize 2017

As another week of ArtPrize 9 was in full swing, so was our excitement to be a part of it. For those of you not familiar with the competition, it is a 19 day annual event in Grand Rapids that really begins much earlier in the year with creating work and connecting with a venue.

This year was the first year that a Youth Collaboration Award was offered, which was the incentive for us to pull something together rather quickly last spring. We almost did not make it in, though. It was not until the last day of venue connections that we found ours in Monroe Community Church. We are so thankful they took a chance on us and the response to our display has been amazing!

Students this week were especially thrilled when our work showed up over the course of several days on local news because our venue was named by the Jury Shortlist as a Most Outstanding Venue finalist. Even though our work may not win the $5000 grant for the Youth Collaboration, being a part of a venue to receive this kind of recognition makes us feel like we won.

When we came up with this concept to create a work that was a visual response to standardized testing due to the timing in which is was made, the goal was to make something that went beyond cliche kid art. We wanted to make something that we could put up in our school as art in and of itself. I think we did that and I am very proud of the response we have gotten for it.

Names Complete

I have a hard time with remembering names and I share with my students that as a visual learner, it helps me to learn something when I am able to see it connected with an image. This introductory project not only does that, but it also helps me learn about my students and what interests them most. It is fun to see how they approach this challenge and the variety in solutions as well as rationale behind the visual choices they make to complete it.

Kaylynn: In this piece I used objects and colors that I enjoy to spell out my name. For example for my L I used a lighthouse because I enjoy going to the beach. This project was a really great way to show who I am as a person in the form of art.

Cooper: Everything in the name Is something i like c is for the game rocket league the 2 o's are a soccer ball and the chrome symbol, the p is for science the e if for one of my favorite numbers 1,111 and the r is a alligator, my favorite animal.

Anna: What inspired me to draw in this style and what to draw for each letter came from what I love and what I care about. I love to go to Anna Maria Island which is my A, and I love art which is why I did that for N, I love plants and succulents which inspired to do that for N, and last I love to be happy and I love rainbows so thats why I did that for my last A.

Logan: I love this project, I chose all my letters based on scooting. It my favorite thing ever. The L is a scooter, The O is a brand that sells scooter parts.(outset select) The G is a brand also that sells scooter parts. (proto scooters) the orange things are allen wrenches. and the A is a wheel. The N is a rail for grinding on with the scooter.

Photoshop Challenge 1

In addition to finishing up their names this week, students also learned some new skills on Photoshop by selecting a level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and completing a tutorial within that level. It was nice to see students use their technology to advance their skills and try something new. Here are some of the results:

Overall, this past week was pretty exciting. It was so incredible to see our work on the news, learn more about my students, and see my students try new ideas using technology.

I am very excited to learn about the ArtPrize results later this week and everything else that is planned with my students!

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Week Three

9/23/2017

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ArtPrize 2017

I am going to start out by showcasing our final event of the week first: ArtPrize9! We had a chance to spend a day downtown on Friday and make our way to venues that included the place where our work is being displayed. Our piece, "Painting Under Paper Cuts," is in the running for the Youth Collaboration Award of a $5000 grant. You can help us win with a vote. Voting for the YCA ends on September 30th. None of this would have been possible without the help of parent and teacher chaperones.

It was a very warm day outside on Friday, but students stayed hydrated and in good spirits throughout the trip. One student reminded me how important experiences like these are when she explained this was her first time ever going downtown in Grand Rapids. I am happy I was able to be a part of that memory and introduce her to the awesome sights and sounds of ArtPrize9! I am also thankful to the ArtPrize Education team for offering this opportunity of both showing our work in the Youth Collaboration category and for having grants available for traveling downtown.

Check out the video below for more highlights from our trip:

Names to Know

Students worked on a project I use to help me put names to faces this week. I am a visual learner and I explain this to my students as I go through this challenge. Students start out by creating interest lists (what are five things that are essential to you, what are your favorite colors/objects/shapes) and then use those lists to generate ideas for transforming the letters of their names into their interests on their portfolios.

We also use this challenge as a way to explain how we will be using sketchbooks this semester. It is a great way to get students used to the idea of sketching out ideas and working through solutions on a smaller scale before tackling it larger.

Students also learned a variety of colored pencil and marker techniques to apply to their names. We will be finishing these up on Monday and posting the results to Artsonia.

This week had a lot of action in it. We started it with presentations of their Spinning Tops in the STEAM challenge and ended with a trip to ArtPrize9. It was super fun to see students begin to stretch their creative minds through projects that ask them to rethink and reconsider things we see or use everyday in new and interesting ways.

I am looking forward to seeing how students finish out their names on Monday and work on our first major challenge that starts next week. I am also excited to meet with students about The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards next week and to find out the results of the Youth Collaboration Awards when voting ends on the 30th!

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Start of 4th Quarter

4/16/2017

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Back from Break

In addition to motivational messages written on my whiteboard in the hall to meet students that included "It's the beginning of the end" and "Be like the Patriots this 4th Quarter," I welcomed students back from break with some quick creations that exercised their understanding of a variety of media.

I thought this would be a good way to ease back into the swing of school after a little over a week away from the grind and it would help students focus on successfully completing the skill-building tasks and use that to springboard into a successful 4th quarter and end to the school year.

Photoshop Challenge 2

Before we left for break, students spent time with on a Challenge and STEAM collaborative that both looked at spaces and places as their subject. I decided to welcome students back from break by continuing that subject into four possible Photoshop Challenges for students to select and complete over the course of two days. Students had the opportunity to create a landscape, perspective drawing, altered graffiti name, or space image and in the process learn more Photoshop tools and experiment with ideas and their understanding of how to create images digitally.

Here are a few of the results:

Ruby: My work is of one part of Mount Everest, in the background you see snowy mountains, and in the foreground theres a part of the mountains without any snow. The tools I used was only the brush tool. I used a lot of the different textures to create shading and make it look more realistic.

Sophia: In my artwork I used a picture of this hallway in our school and I used the pen tool to trace over all of the lines. I also used the gradient tool to create the color across it. I like the work I created because I think it challenged me and it ended up very cool with the colors and all of the lines.

Arianna: The style I did of my graffiti name is I chose the Kodiak style off of graffiti creator and my name ended up looking like this. I decided to use bright colors like lime green, hot pink, and turquoise. I also decided to put 3d bubbles and make them yellow to make the letters pop even more. In the end I put it on a brick wall and turned down the opacity so it would look more realistic in the picture. I also decided that was not enough and I could do more. So then I figured out I could add a shadow holding a spray can that made the graffiti and then I also turned down the opacity on the shadow so it wouldn't be so bold.

Riley: it is a picture of two planets that rotate around each other and will eventually merge. also they are separated by a star belt.

Observational Drawing

The middle of the week transitioned from digital work to more traditional drawing methods. We spent one class period this week simply working on our observational skills and thinking about how our eyes work when we are using them to help us draw from life. One of my favorite exercises if to just simply walk students through a looking/seeing process and verbalizing how to really examine what is in front of you before you start to draw it.

Observational skills are important and can be fostered, just like any other skill can be. During our day of observational drawing, we practiced non-dominant hand drawing, dominant hand drawing, and abstraction through enlargement. Students used their shoes and strings to do this and then worked on turning one of their smaller drawings large on a bigger sheet of paper for our Mixed Media experimentation. This is a great lead into our next challenge, where still life can play an important role.

Mixed Media Speed Dating

As I did with students last semester, I set out materials at each table group with introduction cards to using collage, watercolors, ink, pastels, and sharpies/gell pens with stencils. Students then rotated in 5-7 minute increments around the groups until their observational drawings had each of the media processes on it.

It is a really fun way to introduce students to new media (or even old media in new ways) and they ended up with a work that many enjoyed as a finished piece. I think the best part of this process is that the emphasis is really on experimentation with media and the end product is secondary; however, many students will use their experience to help formulate choices for their upcoming project Challenge that brings the focus in on objects.

Here are some results from the process:

Chloe: We used observational drawings to first draw our shoe and then we tested out different mixed media. We tested out watercolor, chalk and oil pastels, different types of ink, different sharpie ways, and then collage. My favorite was spraying the watercolor everywhere for the background.

Ella: With this piece I fell in love with all that we got to do around the room. I was new to calligraphy but fell in love with the way the pen moved and the way in which if you added more pressure you got thinker lines. This project was short but fun to use all the new types of materials in which we got to used chalk pastel and a ton of stencils. It was amazing to watch all the connections come together that I have never tried before. I would do this all year long if I could.

Oliver: In the art I used for the first time a Quill and Ink to make stitches on the shoe.

Ashtyn: In this piece of art I used multiple things I have never used before like the quill, the blow technique, oil pastel, and paint. But out of all of those the one I liked using the most was the quill, I liked the quill because it was just easy and fun to use. I also liked using the oil pastel and the paint.

Light and Shadow

My Dual Enrollment students focused on Light and Shadow as a subject matter for their 4th assignment in our Intro to Photo class. It has been really exciting to see students advance their understanding of how to adjust the settings on their camera and how to frame their images to get a variety of effects.

Here are a few of their solutions to capturing the idea of light and shadow:

Kennedy

Anna

Elise

Emma

Kathy

Krista

There are only a couple of weeks left before Dual Enrollment is over and I am very excited for what students have been working on for their final thesis. It will be fun to share what their solutions and ideas were as we close out the term and I look forward to seeing what my 7th and 8th graders do as we finish the 4th quarter strong!

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Portfolio Names

10/2/2015

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Students worked on finishing up their Portfolios this week as we also transitioned into our first project theme of Identity. I am excited to see the innovative ways students used either substitution (finding objects that mimic letters), mosaic (combine multiple items to make a letter), or a combination of both to complete their names. Students first drew out multiple solutions before applying the design to their work, getting feedback from both their peers and me along the way. It was fun to see them use the design thinking process throughout this project and execute their ideas as a result of thoughtful planning in their sketchbooks.

Can you figure out the names below?

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Collage and Value

5/20/2015

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Earlier this week, students finished their collages and value drawings and turned them in on Artsonia. It was fun to see them experiment with methods that ranged in scope that included realism and abstraction.

For inspiration, we looked at the work of Chuck Close and Noli Novak. I also came across the work of David Lock, which is perfect for this assignment and I will make sure to reference again in the future with my students. Here are the works I saw last weekend from his Misfit series, currently on display at the GRAM:

I really enjoy discovering new artists when I go to a museum, especially when they are so connected to curriculum already being explored in the classroom. I immediately shared these works with my students as they finished up their collages. I have all kinds of ideas on how to connect this type of work together next year.

Speaking of making connections, I made sure to include Noli Novak in on the creative process by tweeting her some pictures of the students in action. She was gracious enough to respond, making my students feel encouraged and special.

@campbellartsoup happy to see that! They are amazing!
— Noli Novak (@NoliNovak) May 14, 2015

Here are a few process pictures of the students working on each piece simultaneously. I find that when I am offering more than one process at a time, students move freely between them and make decisions on which they would like to spend more time on and which will be completed first.

Here are some completed works of both the collages and drawings. You can find more work on our class Artsonia gallery.

Katie H: I first found the features of the face: eyes, nose, mouth. and then I found skin and hair then I found colors for the background I pasted them in small strips. I like this a lot. what I really like about this work is the background because one that is what i took the longest on and that is also the thing that I think brings out the piece the most.

Porter S.: To make this artwork I used a variety of magazines and put them together to make a face that looks realistic. I think it turned out better then I thought it would. I think that because I thought it would be very plain and simple but I found out it was fun so I started having fun with it and experimented with it and mixed and matched until I was satisfied with my work.

Hannah L.: I think that my work is abstract as most of the pieces are but i suppose it is one of the more "realistic" pieces. So i first started off by finding different pieces for the background then glued them on. And then i began looking for skin tones to use for the face and the neck and glued that on top of the background. After i did that i found eyes, a nose, and a mouth and glued them on to the face on long with the hair.

Kaitlyn V.: I was inspired by Noli Novak and her idea for drawing with dots and not using lines. I had the opportunity of doing this and making in into this piece of art. For the background i did a new technique where I scrape oil pastels on water and it changes everything up. I think that this was a fun piece that I had the opportunity to make and was glad I could make it.

Jordan C.: In my artwork, I used value by having an imaginary light in the top left of my paper. I used darker shades for the spots that wouldn't be touching the light as much. I love this artwork, and the reason I did a colorful background is so it will make things pop out more. I think I did an amazing job at shading were I should have and should not have shaded as darkly, Overall I think it is fantastic.

Jewel R.: I used many different values in my work, Light dark, middle. The usage of a pencil can create so many different things, light, shadows, ext... I was looking forward to do a shading project and we finally did. ^-^ I really love this piece of art work and learned that shading with your pencil isn't the only way to show value. I will definitely try stippling again. Hopefully get as good as Noli Novak!

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Abstract Faces

3/10/2015

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I have more 7th grade classes than 8th grade classes this term, which means that I am employing more traditional teaching methods than I did first semester. I am new to these students and learning where they are at both in skills and concepts.

Because I am still getting to know them and their abilities, it is always fun to throw a few collaborative drawing exercises that prove both anyone can draw and it is fun trying!

First, we had a portrait party where students created continuous blind contour line drawings. From there, students selected the one they liked most and then modified it on another sheet of paper, with oil pastels. Here are some results:

After experimenting with abstraction using oil pastels and drawing methods, students then applied those concepts to collaborative drawings on Photoshop where they combined several faces to create a new one, like these examples:

It is always fun to work on skills and concepts without the worry of it having to look "real." Abstraction is a fun way to experiment with line and color and we had a lot of laughs working on these portraits.

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Thinking About ArtPrize10

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3Doodler Fun

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Working Artists

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Week Three

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Light and Shadow

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Abstract Faces

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Janine Campbell

Categories

Automata's

Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awardee

Spaces and Places

Perspective Bootcamp

NAEA in Seattle

On the News

Building Skills

Clay in STEAM Class

From Objects to Art

Thinking About ArtPrize10

Finishing up the Semester

3Doodler Fun

Week One of DE

Working Artists

Leaves for Sale

ArtPrize 2017

Names Complete

Photoshop Challenge 1

ArtPrize 2017

Names to Know

Back from Break

Photoshop Challenge 2

Observational Drawing

Mixed Media Speed Dating

​Light and Shadow

Archives

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Light and Shadow