Studio Art: White Charcoal Sketch

On the bulletin board in front of my computer, I have some art works hanging that I did when I was in high school.  I've been noticing that my supply of mat board scraps has been on the rise since we've been mating more artwork this year, and I hate to waste them. They're usually too small to use to frame an artwork but I hate throwing them out.  So, I decided to give students a bit of a challenging assignment for a sketchbook assignment...reverse value drawings, or highlight drawings, as some call them!  

I have two drawings on display that I did in high school and the students have always complimented them, so I decided to give them the assignment for homework.  I gave each student a piece of scrap black mat board and a charcoal pencil.  I told them that they could use a black and white photograph to help them do the drawing, but the photo could not be a logo.  Since this concept is sometimes hard for people to grasp, I eased up on my normal "no copying" rule.

These two students created these images without copying!  I was so excited to get these two!  The first one that says "Camden", was done all on her own, and the second artist drew his own guitar.  Such a great perception of depth with his!

This student didn't exactly follow the "no logo" rule...but she did have amazing gradation.

I'm actually thinking that next year, I may incorporate this project as one of the drawing unit projects instead of a sketchbook assignment.  Most of the students really enjoyed the challenge of having to think backwards!

Studio Art: Shadow Men (2-D Media Unit)

This drawing assignment was a total improvise, but it's definitely one I plan on keeping for this unit in the future!  It seems amazing to me that the students (both older and younger) enjoy drawing from these mannequins so much!  It must be because they are movable!

After I looked over the student's #2 sketch assignment (which was to create a 3-object still life, shine a light on it, and draw it with value), I realized that they really didn't know how to properly observe light and shadow, and they didn't know how to properly utilize value in their drawings.  On a whim, I brought down six of my mannequins from the elementary room and we spent a period sketching one of them in our sketchbooks.  They really enjoyed it and asked if we could work on these more the next day, which gave me the idea for this sketch project.

Believe it or not, Friday was the end of the 5 week marking period already!  Art projects are worth 40% of their grade, and they have technically only completed one project, the elements of art infographic.  This was a great thing to do not only to teach them more about value, but also to increase that portion of their grade for the 5 week report card.

I brought in a second light and set up 3 mannequins at one table, and 3 at the other.  Their directions were that they need to have five mannequins drawn on their paper in some way, shape or form.  I wanted to see big, up-close versions, small, full body versions and the in-between.  We reviewed the elements and principles a bit and I reminded them to think about their composition as they positioned their figures. Students had three class periods to complete these drawings.

You can find the note packet I am using for this 2-D media unit, as well as the rubric for this project and the next drawing project on the SmARTteacher website.

4th Grade Pointillism Still Life Paintings

As you may or may not remember, my local assessment for APPR is happening within the 4th grade classroom.  At the beginning of the year, I set up a white still life and asked the kids to draw it as best they could, adding value where they saw it.  I gave very little instruction to get a baseline on what they already knew how to do.  We did talk a little bit about composition and what value was, as well as went over the rubric before they started.

Throughout the year, we did various art projects that dealt with value and drawing from real life in order to gear up and get ready for the post-assessment portion (nothing like teaching to the test, huh?).  Check out my 4th Grade Art Lessons page to check out these projects from the year.

I wanted to do a pointillism unit with the students because this particular group really liked the dot painting project we did last year, so I decided to do a pointillism still life painting with 3 bottles. I love the pointillism technique (and I think the kids do too) because it's very forgiving and very easy to blend color with the paint this way! The purpose of this project was to:

        1.  Teach students how to draw realistic bottles using ellipses.

        2.  Blend and create value using paint.

        3.  Review shadows and high lights in an artwork.

The students really enjoyed this project.  Normally I would have the students use q-tips for a pointillism project, but I knew it would take forever so we simply used paint brushes and acrylic paint (primary colors, black and white).  Students had to have at least one bottle that was a secondary color in their still life.

I did not set up a still life for this, but the students did draw their still life bottles from real bottles.  They had to have two real bottles in the painting and then they could opt to make up a bottle for the third one if they wanted.

Currently, the 4th graders are spending their last art classes doing their final still life artworks.  Since so many of the liked painting, I gave them the option of painting their still life or shading with drawing pencil, whichever they felt they were better at.  I can't wait to share and compare their results from the beginning to end of the year!  They're turning out great!  (Check out some of the post-assessment still life drawings here!)

I did want to share, also, that this particular project is a big revamp on a version I did my first year of teaching.  It was the FIRST project I did that year with 4th grade, and as I look back at it now, I'm SO HAPPY with the changes I've made!  I'm really finding it interesting to look back at my old Artsonia galleries from that first year because I can see my growth in how I approach teaching various subjects to the students!

The first year, I had students trace two vases, overlapping, on a piece of tag board.  We talked about how warm colors come forward and cool colors recede (which I did not talk about in this years project...I just told students that their ground had to be black and the sky/wall had to be blue).  You can totally see how drawing from a real life still life benefited the students this year!  Their artwork looks much more mature and advanced compared to the first year!