8th grade update

8th grade visual arts students are beginning a new project. It is a symbolic portrait. Students will have a choice of using either 3-D assemblage techniques or collage for this project. Items and/or images included in this portrait will help tell the viewer about who these students are, rather than how they look.
Today, we began with a discussion of some of the effects of industrialization on the art world, especially as it relates to assemblage work.

sketchbook check #2

The second sketchbook check is coming up on Monday and Tuesday for 7th grade classes and Thursday for 8th grade.
All students should have at least 12 pages of sketches, including at least 6 life drawings.

8th grade

The eighth grade class is continuing their exploration of alternate art making methods with a study of traditional Chinese painting. Traditional/Alternate...doesn't seem to fit, but it does. We discussed the meaning of the chop stamps found on many of these works of art, as well as the balance between human and natural elements.
The students developed their own symbol and carved a chop stamp of their own. They will use these stamps again after we have finished painting. They are creating landscape paintings that begin with shapes created from India ink blown through a straw. Next, they will have the opportunity to add color and detail to the landscape using watercolor paint. Many of these students started the ink portion of this composition yesterday, and were excited about the unpredictable nature of the medium.

7th grade

The 7th grade visual arts classes are beginning to finish their self portraits. They have used a grid to draw these portraits from photographs. The drawings look great! I plan to photograph them before they get covered in paint. The next step in this process will be to turn that self portrait drawing into a monochromatic painting.
This week, we have discussed the meanings of the terms hue, tint, shade, and monochromatic as students painted a value scale for the hue that they plan to use for their monochromatic portraits. They explored the spectrum of tints and shades that could be created from this single hue, as preparation for their self portrait paintings.