Crystal Bridges, Rogers, AR

My family and I went to Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Arkansas for my mother-in-law's birthday, and saw some incredible artwork.  The Walton family has paid everyones admission forever!  Check out some of my and my families favorites.  Olivia, my 4 year old, loved the "woman with the big pearl" 

Fall art exhibit

I know the burlap looks bad, but we are working on that.  This is the Junior High Winter Choir Performance.  I set up these trifold boards in the lobby of our district auditorium and parents can see examples of student art when the performances are done!  Great job 1st semester art students!

Painting in the dark!

Fun on the bun!  Turn off the lights, turn on the ultraviolet bulbs, pull out the neon paints and get excited!  We are painting in the dark! Fall semester 2011.  We are using a lesson from Graffiti Diplomacy, a motivational, graffiti style mandala.  Students drew a graffitti letter based on a motivational word, such as POWER, EPIC, LOYALTY, FAITH, etc.  and copied it in a rotational pattern.  The remaining space was filled with additional free drawn imagery. When the design was completed, we flipped on the blacklights to paint in.  the backgrounds were painted with black tempra to add more contrast.

hula hoop rugs!

After the success of Girls Night Out scarfs Id love to do this with my art class.  Would require 30 hula hoops and 1240 t-shirts, but whatever...

http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/hula-hoop-rug-995304/

Artistic Freedom: Hands-on approach to LINE

Artistic Freedom: Hands-on approach to LINE: I wanted a lesson for my fourth grade that wouldn't take five weeks... I came up with this lesson introducing the students to the idea o...

Art With Mr. E: Line Design w/ Shading- The Steps

Art With Mr. E: Line Design w/ Shading- The Steps: Another MNPS art teacher showed me this project several years ago, and I really liked it. I tweeked it a bit here and there, but it is basi...

Adventures of an Art Teacher: Visual Poetry inspired by Austin Kleon

Adventures of an Art Teacher: Visual Poetry inspired by Austin Kleon: I first learned about Austin Kleon when his "Steal Like An Artist" essay was being posted all over the place last spring. (By the way, the ...

Monochromatic Value Portraits

We have been working on a "Posterized" photograph of ourselves.  First, we get photos taken in front of a blank screen on the smartboard.  The white background and bright light from the projector are a great quick photo studio.  I print them up and students go over the edges of the value shapes with pen.  We then take them to a window, and transfer the lines to a new sheet of paper.  (I also photocopied their drawings 4 times to extend the project into a pop art piece (more on that later))  Then we paint in the image using the original as a guide.  Working from black (pure color) to light and white.  Pick a contrasting color for the background.

Here is another art teacher who has produced a project just like this one....

Sells Art: 8th grade value drawings and song paintings!:

Ribbon Letters...

RIBBON LETTERS!
This is a simple technique for getting a ribbon style letter.  There are a lot of different techniques out there, but this one makes sense for my 7th-8th graders who have never tried this before.


It starts out by writing out a word in cursive.

Then you extend the edges back in space.  They must all be the same direction, and the same length.  For example, if you draw from each edge up 1 inch at 45 degrees to the left, then they all go that same length and direction.  For curves, you pick the outermost part of the curve you can find.  See the top and bottom of the C in the "Carthage" example?

You finish the drawing by drawing in the back edge of the ribbon, which should go the same direction as the front edge (the cursive letter.)

Don't forget sometimes you have interior spaces that need to be addressed, like the o in Love in the below example.


Color is different.  You have lots of options, but I have my students use marker to outline, and colored pencils for shading.  Shading can really make you ribbon drawing seem more real.  You are trying to get the illusion of depth, and if you gradually shade from light to dark, to show overlap or distance, you can enhance the image.
  Here are some examples ...

Yeti!

Another semester, another group of 7th and 8th graders.  We are starting this semester with papercraft.  About 10 out of 150 had ever even heard of papercraft!  I downloaded this YETI from http://www.curiositygroup.com/, a papercraft website.  They produce a new calendar project for every month!  Lets practice cutting, color, pasting, and following directions!  Plus, a fun poem about yetis....

"There once was a cat-loving Yeti,

Whose favorite dish was spaghetti,

'Til he went to Nantucket,

And looked in a bucket

And saw ice cream topped with confetti."

here is a link to the PDF, if you want to try it on your own!

http://curiositygroup.com/calendarofthemonth/

Adventures of an Art Teacher: Best Art Class Ever- 6th Grade Planets

Adventures of an Art Teacher: Best Art Class Ever- 6th Grade Planets:

Creature Comforts USA – What is Art?

Creature Comforts USA – What is Art?