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. 

Rhythm & design with acrylic, inspired by multicultural fabrics

Gessoed masonite (9x12)

Acrylic Paint

For the raised parts:

Mat Board scraps & cardboard squares - glue gunned 

This lesson focused on the PRINCIPLES of DESIGN, 

and specifically RHYTHM. 

It was also a wonderful way to introduce the kids to acrylic paint. 

Resource for rhythm:

I can't say enough great things about this post from the Helpful Art Teacher. 

And I HIGHLY recommend showing the short video to your students if you are trying to get across how to abstract nature or create designs that are inspired by an object but shouldn't look like the object. (I used this resource for an eighth grade abstracted nature project.)

For this project:

I supplied students with the following list of keywords and they did google image searches. 

They could google as they pleased, and had to find

three sources of inspiration before creating their design. 

Indian block printing, Adinkra printed cloth, Kente woven cloth

Mudcloth from Mali, javanese batik, Tapa cloth,

Quilts of Gee's Bend, Quilts by Eleanor McCain

They planned their design out in pencil. 

It had to be inspired by their three sources convey rhythm and repetition. 

Raised painted shapes were optional,

and I did my best to deter them from creating a centered design. 

For IPAD teachers!

My students created a slide show illustrating their inspiration and process in Explain Everything. 

I had them save each slide as an image and email the images to me. 

Then I popped all of the slides into imovie so I have a slide show of their design process to display at the art show. 

Here is one great example:

The return of the cylinder lesson! AND a new addition to it!

I just concluded another go at the infamous CYLINDER LESSON.

-which by the way was successful the second time around, making me very happy. :)

I have an addendum this year though- 

This time around I prefaced the lesson with a one day activity following our initial intro to 3-D forms. 

I taught the kinder students to DRAW a cylinder before they learned how to make them. 

We used Andy Warhol's soup can image (AND my lonesome single can I was able to acquire from Target) 

as our inspiration. The students designed their own soup cans after drawing their cylinder. They were super cute and the kids loved them. 

Yes you read that correctly.. "alphabet carrot ketchup nugget fries soup"

Here is the rundown of the timing of this two day project including 3-d cylinder making:

Day 1 (45 minutes):

Intro to 3-D forms-- 2-d shapes vs 3-d forms, what does it mean for something to be 3-D?, what does "dimensional" mean? Point out cylinders in the room.

Intro of Andy Warhol and soup can.

Demonstration of drawing a cylinder and turning it into a soup can and using bright colors like Warhol.

They finished them about 75%

Day 2 (45 minutes):

Intro to the actual 3-d version of the cylinder and review of 2-D vs. 3-D. 

Demonstrate how to make the cylinders using GLUE STICK and strips of paper. 

Each student aimed to make 10 and line them up in front of them. (took about 10-12 minutes).

Introduce 2-D Kandinsky Circles and 3-D Lee Gainer examples and compared. 

Demonstrate how to arrange the cylinders to all fit on a 6"x 6" base and dip in plates of elmers glue then place on to their square. 

Extra time- they finished coloring their soup can pictures (which worked out great).

Robots!

Second grade robots began with an investigation comparing

geometric lines and shapes vs. organic lines and shapes.

Then we dove into designing robots that had many parts and purposes!

Robots were drawn in pencil, outlines in black crayon, with a heart of cogs and gears colored with pink colored pencil, and a few highlighter details for lights. 

This books was a great inspiration! 

The Robot Book by Heather Brown

and this page with the cogs in the heart inspired the hearts we added to our robots:

Then we painted using shades of grey.

Lastly, we added details of metallic paint and painted in the backgrounds

with white oil pastel resist and tempera cakes. 

tooling foil- questions answered!

Some of you may have inherited a roll of metal tooling foil or seen some of these beautiful metal projects on blogs and pinterest and not known what the material is. 

It is metal tooling foil. It can be bought cut down already or in a roll (and comes in silver, gold, copper).

For an example from Dick Blick click here.

Here are the tricks to using it!

First of all you can cut it down on the paper cutter! Woo!

It can also be cut with scissors if you want to alter the shape.

(I would only let students fourth grade and older do this though.)

As I explain to my students, you need a "cushion" underneath the metal when you draw on it so that there is some give for the metal and place for it to be pushed to. I use the metaphor of what it feels like to jump on a hard floor versus a gym mat. For the cushion I fold up newspaper, works great. 

I also make my students use the fat pencils (the kinder ones) which have a fatter softer point so they won't make a hole and the point won't break as easily. 

The cool thing is that you can draw on both sides so that the design both gets incised/engraved

and also can pop out. We really focus on texture during this process.

You can't erase any lines so we do a lot of rough drafts. 

I used to have the kids tape and trace their rough draft designs but I aborted that a while ago. 

For coloring, this is tricky to get across- I really emphasize coloring in the negative spaces and letting the silver pencil lines show (like a coloring book) but there are always one or two that sneak past me and just go ahead and trace their lines. 

Colored sharpies (or liquid metal markers) work best for coloring. Sharpies are actually transparent and not opaque- so the color looks metallic which the kids love. 

I did a patina experiment this fall- where we covered the metal with black tempera, let it set up for 1 minute, then rubbed away the paint. I think they came out cool. It was fun to try something different.

Bonus- you can punch a hole in the metal as well. 

Last year I cut down 2" squares and punched a hole in the corner.

The students made snowflake designs and strung yarn through the hole to hang them. 

If you want them "framed" you can staple it right to posterboard.

gumball machines - circles & ovals

I realized that my kinder students were having trouble drawing circles and ovals that were distinguishable from each other and that my first graders drew them so fast they couldn't tell the difference either. 

We did these gumball machines to try to drive in the difference between the two shapes. 

The frames had a circle-oval border. 

The gumball machines were supposed to have all circle gumballs inside. 

As simple a project it was the kids really enjoyed making these!