Oil pastel figure lesson differentiated for High School

  A little while back I posted a successful middle school lesson

I did using oil pastels and wood figures. 

The high school art teacher I work with recently used the lesson with her Drawing and Painting I class. The high school students used white 18 x 24 paper (I used 12 x 18 with middle school) and made them really big. The added challenge was to include a complementary color background to make the figures really pop. They are awesome!

deconstructed circle collaboration

Thank you Zamorano! I used Mr. Masse's art lesson as the kick off lesson for my eighth grade. All of my middle school lessons at the start of the year were connected to the Van Gogh quote, "Great things are done by lots of small things brought together." This fit perfectly! 

Students designed a 9" circle using with oil pastel and watercolor resist. 

They were pretty good sports about cutting their nice circles up, and were really pleased with the end result. I'm going to have 7th grade do a series of circles to build off of these. 

My introductory images included:

Advising the student's to look up Talavera tile designs on their ipads, 

 Maritza Soto's quilts 

this lighthouse quilt 

and this nice example of radial symmetry 

to trigger the student's memories of the radial designs they did last year.

At the end of last year, these students made work inspired by Indian Rangoli street painting. I put them on the wall at the art show. There are tons of fun videos of the chalk painting tradition on youtube and it's a great example of empowerment for women through art. 

Oil pastel figure close-ups

This was one of my favorite lessons from last year. (I feel like I always say that....?) 

But seriously, this was great. It would work for a variety of grades- elementary or high school as well. I did it with 7th grade and will again this year. 

Using the move-able figures- students had to create a zoomed/close-up composition using the figure, taking the negative space into consideration. I actually had them do a "photo shoot" with their ipads: take photos of the figures in different positions and then cropped the photos. For some students it was easier for them to work from the photo. 

The students sketched out shaded pencil drawings first. Then they drew them BIG on 12 x 18 slate grey Tru-ray construction paper (one of my favorites, along with their turquoise). 

They chose a color palette to work in and had to have 3 different shades of oil pastels so that they could convey the shadows. 

 They all came out awesome! And it gave students a chance to strengthen a variety of skills. Some needed to master blending, some needed to strengthen their ability to communicate dimension, etc. 

Frida-inspired Portraits with First Grade

 First of all, this book is SO fantastic!

Frida by Jonah Winter

I would read it to elementary or even middle school students because the pictures are beautiful and the text is concise and well written, quickly hitting the big ideas students should be taking from Frida's life and work.

 

Moving on, following the reading self-portraits I decided while

we were in the groove to do self-portraits of the students whole faces too.

I took it as an opportunity to tie in an artist and have been itching to get to Frida!

The children get so invested when they learn about an artist's life it is truly worth the time to share the information. The kids were so invested in their pictures AND Frida. 

I approached her work as an artist this way:
Frida Kahlo was a sad person because she was in pain. She really enjoyed art so she painted to make herself feel better. She painted many self-portraits that included things that made her happy using her imagination since she often could not leave her bedroom or house. This is why we see animals, flowers, and vegetation in her images. 

What makes you happy?

 

Students drew self-portraits, used their appropriate skin color crayon, and added in things, places, and people that make them happy. These included many animals, pictures of family member, Six Flags (of course), flowers, and bright colors.

Did you know she had a pet deer?

Bird's nests!

Fantastic first grade bird nests on branches!

Some stuff we collected from the park:

The nests we created from all of the sticks, grass, leaves, fun nature things, (and pieces of that strange brown paper that I have oodles of from my recent bridal shower gifts):

And eggs of course!

(Model magic painted with tempera.)

The backgrounds were collaged tree branches on watercolor resist.

 The result is a bird's eye view of a nest resting on a tree branch. 

I hot glued the eggs on to the nest and the nest on to the branch image. 

 Beautiful!

Sea Turtles

This lesson was based on a popular pinterest find originally from Kristin at  ForTheLoveOfArt:

I did this lesson on CROPPING a composition with kindegarten - takes about 45 minutes total.

They came out great.

Finally some finished ones...!

Some of my fifth graders have (finally) finished up their Beatriz Milhazes-inspired projects. 

I was a little nervous they may not follow through all the way to the end full steam ahead - but here are are a few that definitely did not disappoint with their complex compositions! 

more giraffes :)

Couldn't resist posting some more giraffes....