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!

Middle school self-portraits with style

Self-portraits!

These were done by my sixth graders. 

I wanted to squeeze in portraits but I was in a time crunch

so I went for a graphic design, limited color palette approach. 

Their practice drawings included shading but not the final products. 

I gave the students the option to do sunglasses in lieu of eyes but surprisingly only a few of them took me up on my offer. 

The backgrounds were inspired by Beatriz Milhazes. 

The kids were limited to sharpie, fat black marker, grey marker, and one color. 

After this project we dove into a unit focused on the principles of design, so this was a great segue from the last unit focused on realistic drawing into the new one. 

Figure drawing & magazine page color collage

This was one of my first lessons of the year. I didn't know this group of 6th graders so it provided a strong opportunity for any ability and type of learner. 

The students began by doing figure drawing exercises and drawing one another in poses. 

We also did a class project cutting out colors from magazine and working as a class to create these cool color wheels. I did this with all of my class at the beginning of the year. 

Students chose a pose to draw the silhouette of. 

Then they filled in the silhouettes with a color palette/strategy of their choosing based on the color wheel making experience. 

I really wanted to take advantage of getting a fresh start at my new school and with new students. 

So this year I have been having the kids do their own grading sheets at the end of each project.

That way they are able to see all of the objectives they met and how much they just accomplished and learned through the lesson.

Now they are in the practice of learning how to write artist statements and reflect on their art-making process. It has also positively affected peer constructive criticism and classroom discussions with everyone participating willingly. I'm including the pdf in case you are interested. This process of assessment has been working out very well. Now that my sixth graders have done 4 of these grading sheets and writings with specific prompts they can are able to actually formulate thoughtful and more complete artist statements all on their own without prompts this specific.

I'm back! many projects are on the way... scratch art playing card portraits in this post

Well, it has been an embarrassingly long time since I last posted.
I feel guilty but it has been one of those things where the longer you put it off the longer it takes to face it again. Reason #1- I have switched jobs yet again... and moved... and become a home-owner. So I have been BUSSSYYYY and constantly trying to catch up on life. Reason #2- is that my side business creating painted & calligraphed seating cards and other wedding paper goods Strawberry Small Works Studio has been going well and any spare second I have I put towards that right now, and thus, this blog has suffered.

But, I love my new job and our new life in Rhode Island. We are hoping we are here for the long haul. I'm now teaching middle school and high school. So to my elementary-teaching followers my darling kinder and little ones lessons I am producing much less of and I apologize. However, I am VERY excited about the deeper projects I am now able to do with 6th-9th grade. I will try to post the scope of my projects from this year so far sooner rather than later. I'm still doing a handful of community based projects and work at museums so keep staying tuned.

Here is a taste of what I've been up to:

Playing Card Portraits

These were done with 7th grade. We made our own scratchboard by painting with tempera over clay coated paper I had hanging around. They had to include a portrait and set up their design so it matched up when they flipped the paper around.

Ancient Egyptian Portraits made modern

After spending a few classes on head-on portrait drawing

fifth graders switched up their angle and made these

Profile view Egyptian style portraits. 

We looked closely at many examples of Egyptian artwork, discussing notable stylistic details, the significance of head-dresses and skin color, and hieroglyphics.

Snowman portraits, exploring directions

Second grade snowman portraits

exploring three points of view.

Front facing / head-on

Profile / side

3/4 / to the corner

I used two Van Gogh paintings to introduce the concepts and had three students stand in front of the class in the different positions so we could examine the differences. 

Portrait of a Postman Joseph Roulin, 1888

Self-portrait, 1889

Day 1 (45 minutes):

introduction, drawing with pencil, tracing with sharpie

Day 2 (45 minutes):

colored in the snowman details, painted the sky a la Starry Night with tempera cakes

Getting ready for winter - round up of past projects!

(image courtesy of bomobob.etsy.com)

Since the winter season is quickly nearing and I'm sure most of you are lesson planning I thought it would be a great help to post a recap of some of my past winter-themed lessons before I delve into this years. You can also click on the "winter" label and get more details. 

Penguins!

 

Model magic over wine corks, and cut straw beaks.

Penguin portraits.

Mittens!

Snowflakes printed with cardboard scraps and white tempera.

Snowy self-portraits.

pattern mittens and hot cocoa.

Collaged mittens and hat. Great way to use up scraps of random materials

and a very tactile experience for Pre-K, K, and 1st. 

Stars - Snowflakes - Landscapes !

Tissue paper collage, model magic border, crayon/watercolor resist.

Cityscape Snowglobe

Snowman paper collage.

Snowman painting and oil pastel.

Near and far winter landscapes- white conte over gray paper.

Collaborative installation: torn paper snowman, intro to snowflake cutting,

cut out hands for the trees.

Collage winter trees and watercolor stars.

Long Night Moon book, night time landscape with chalk.

Winter birch trees and snowy owls.

Nutcrackers!

For some pins I've had my eye for inspiration this coming winter season click here!