slide show for perspective landscapes

Wonderful news! 

This year I have become addicted to google presentations for a number of reasons. 

I have recently figured out that I can "publish them to the web", meaning the presentations/slide shows can be accessed without logging in. Wahoo!

If you were a fan of my middle school perspective landscape lesson from last spring I now have my slide show posted as a google presentation. You can access it directly here -

so now I do not have to email out my folder of resource images. 

Enjoy!

Please please please make sure you site back to my lesson post if you post projects on your own. It is the right thing to do- AND I would love to see other teacher's results and adaptations. 

7th grade interior spaces with perspective looking outward

This project was based on the "aquarium perspective" project that probably hits your pinterest feed at least once or twice a day. All of the seventh graders started out the same way. They had to have a back wall and checkered floor that followed one-point perspective. After that the students could choose what they wanted to do with their interior and exterior space. 

The challenge was for the students to create a space that then went beyond the space. 

I showed them examples of mostly aquariums with viewable ceilings and walls as well as solariums and greenhouses where you could see beyond the windows:

Most students used watercolor, watercolor pencils, colored pencils, sharpie, or magazine collage. Some students experimented with masking fluid. 

The entire Artsonia gallery can be viewed here. 

mid year middle school art show

Last week I put on a mid-year art show just for middle school. This is the my second year at this school (the school is PK-12, I teach 6, 7, 8). My first year I hoarded all of my students work until the art show at the end of the year because that was the departing teacher told me to do.  Going into this year I had a better grasp of how much the kids would actually produce (more than I anticipated) and how much work I would need at the end of the year all-school show. The other thing I realized was that the parents basically forgot the kids even took art until the end of the year. This year I took on some new initiatives to make my art program more visible to parents and the campus:

-I have implemented Artsonia... it is awesome. 

-I sent home a couple pieces of artwork with each child before Christmas. 

-I held a middle school only art show in February in the middle school building.

Here is the breakdown of the art show projects. 

Our theme was LIGHT. 

Grade 6: 

Birch tree moonscapes

 Acrylic Lighthouse Paintings on small canvases

inspired by Edward Hopper

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Grade 7:

Lamps and Light Fixtures

 Acrylic paintings on small canvases

Inspired by the Rumi quote,

"The lamps are different but the light is the same."

 Interior Spaces using 1 point perspective

Grade 8:

Symbolic Silhouettes using Stippling

Students completed the sentence "Let light shine on _____ because _____." 

They had to choose an issue in the world of importance and should have more light shine on it. They chose a symbolic image to represent the concept.  

In a different room I had a "Special Exhibition" of 8th grade art. 

These were geometric relief sculptures the students worked very hard on.

It was really nice to be able to highlight their hard work and make the 8th grade feel special. 

Detailed posts of the projects will be up asap!!

Chinese Brush Painting and Perspective

My seventh graders are in the middle of an Asian-influenced unit. 

To begin the unit I introduced them to Chinese Brush Painting. 

My school has lower, middle, and upper school are all on the same campus.

So I was very lucky to have the chance to have one of the high school Chinese students,

who had learned traditional brush painting when he was younger, came and did a demonstration for my classes. 

Before we started the main project, for one class session I cut down small 6 x 6 pieces of rice paper for the kids to practice on. They practiced bamboo, trees, mountains, for the most part. I have a few Chinese students, and they showed the kids how to write their names in Chinese characters as well, which they loved. 

Tips:

I had inexpensive chinese brushes on hand but most of us liked to use these size 6 and 8 round white nylon watercolor brushes by Sax instead. 

The ink can be watered down with a little water on a small palette to get dark grey in addition to black. Most of the kids shared a tiny cup of ink and a tiny cup of water. 

The project:

From there we took a break from brush painting and the students learned how 2-point perspective works. After practicing this new concept, they each had to select a photo of Chinese or Japanese inspired architecture that demonstrated 2-point perspective to draw. 

They drew the buildings on 9 x 12 paper. 

Then they placed the rice paper over their drawing and traced the drawing in ink. 

This part of the process was the least time consuming and only took 1 to 2 class periods. 

To give them a finished look, we back them with construction paper and popped them in pre-cut mats. They look awesome and the kids learned so much! 

Farmland landscapes using perspective

I did this lesson with seventh graders, most of who have not learned anything about perspective drawing. This was a wonderful introduction to perspective drawing & landscapes. I would recommend it for 5th-7th grade. We did a 1 point perspective worksheet first. 

The use of soft pastel on colored construction paper is no fail.

I love setting the kids up with a project that is destined to look great. 

Students had to draw a landscape and include crop lines some how.

Tracing in sharpie before applying the pastel was optional. 

These were a few of the examples I showed the kids. If you'd like my entire slide show leave your email in the comments and I'll happily send it along to you.

*** I now have my slide show available via this link. ***

There are so many great Van Gogh examples, you could easily tie it in with a Van Gogh lesson. 

Some more great finished products:

Two day transition: Shading to Perspective

We reviewed shading and making lights to mediums to darks flow

with both crayon and colored pencil last week. 

Before explaining perspective and delving in logistically  I developed this did this two day lesson  inspired by this Artsonia image I had pinned which was really successful! 

Pencils, black block crayons for rubbing, rulers, sharpies- that's it! 

In two days the students learned how to measure and use a ruler, create depth, learned more about Keith Haring, and reviewed figure drawing! Woo! 

Day one: Measure with ruler

Students had a practice manilla paper and real construction paper. 

This gave them four chances to get it right if they needed (2 sides, 2 papers)

which they appreciated.

Shading light to dark in each quadrant.

Day two: figure drawing review, viewed a short reel of Keith Haring videos I put together on youtube.

They had to do three practice figure drawing. 

Added on the figure and sharpied it in.

(The design at the top was so clever I could never have come up with this idea myself-

thank god for 10 year old minds!)

Next week I try out DMasse's blocks, projector, and whiteboard trick!

More images to come!