Painting With Trees
In this lesson, students learned how to use different sized paint brushes while exploring the different marks that can be made with each brush size. The class began by creating a collaborative forest, where each student painted one part of a tree and then switched to a different tree to added details onto an existing painting. Once students had practiced using brushes, they moved on to making their own paintings of a tree. Students worked from photographs in the book "New York City of Trees" by Benjamin Swett.
Saturday Art School: Adventures in Art Age 7
Geometric Printing
In this lesson, students learned about artists who use geometric shapes in their artwork (example on left). Students practiced making four compositions using only one shape that repeats and connects. A challenge in this lesson was to fill the entire space using only one type of geometric shape. Students later chose two drawings to create two Styrofoam plates using ballpoint pens. In this lesson, students learned new vocabulary about printmaking techniques as well as the elements and principles of art and design.
Saturday Art School: Drawing Painting and Printmaking Ages 9-12
Newspaper Portraits
7th graders learned about value through using repurposed materials (newspaper). First, students identified four main values within a newspaper, then worked in teams to create value scales using cut pieces from each value. After I took their photographs, students used the same values from their value scales to match values within their photographs and collaged over them to create a self portrait with newspaper. Throughout this project, we analyzed work by an artist named Sergio Albiac.
Wired Anatomy
This project was created by a class of 14-18 year old students. In a lesson about abstract sculpture, students continued their exploration of line through the use of wire. The class worked both independently and collaboratively to create wire sculptures representing an interpretation of human bones. Students then collaborated to piece their sculptures together to recreate a human skeleton. This project was inspired by the use of line and form seen in sculptures created by Alexander Calder. To further our understanding of abstract compositions, we looked at work by Constantin Brancusi and compared styles between the two artists. Students learned about proportion while applying what they have already learned about form and contour line.