Thursday, May 26, 2016

Copier selfies

I am a firm believer that each student should do a self portrait every year that they are in art.  So when I ran across this idea on pinterest, I knew I had to try it.  So I too had all of my students go into the workroom and put their head in the copier and hit the start button.


Most of them lucked out and got a good shot on the first time, but I had a couple that I am surprised are not going blind.  There is at least always one that just can't seem to get it right.  I also had another that was having so much fun she did several and then taped them up in other teacher's windows.  Just to say, the other teachers were not impressed, in fact I think the word "creepy" was used a couple of times.   But here are a few of my favorites.

After they copied, they had to draw on black paper with white pencils or charcoal pencils.

Emily H.

Mikayla R.

Paige Q.

Paige S.

Monday, May 23, 2016

What is your love?

This is part 2 of my phobia/philia project.  Here are the results for the Art 2 class and the philias that they had to work from.  Again I was super impressed.  I should point out that not all students had someone to compete against.  I had more students in one class over the other.


Brandon G. - Love of Dancing

Devin W. - Love of Peanut Butter

Holly S. - Love of insects

Lexi B. - Love of the Dark

Morgan H. - Love of Beards

Sydney H. - Love of trees

Will S. - Love of Horses

Friday, May 20, 2016

Your hidden element

This was another one of my challenge projects.  I challenged students to go to Playbuzz.com and take an elements quiz.  They had to determine which element either they were or best describes them.  I asked them to take a couple of those quizzes so that they could see if they were consistent.

 I even stopped and created my own elements quiz, which was really fun to make, but a little time consuming.  I don't know if I will ever make another one, but it was fun and I think mine is the most accurate.  It doesn't ask dumb questions, some of the quizzes on that site ask the weirdest and most irrelevant questions out there.  I mean really, what does picking your favorite spice girl have to do with the elements?  But this might be my own pet peeve.  Any ways, here is the link to my quiz if you want it.   http://www.playbuzz.com/sdartteacher10/what-type-of-element-are-you

After they determined which element was going to be their inspiration, they had to create a mask that both represented them and that element.  It didn't have to be a full mask, but it could be.  Also they could use anything else they wanted to help create their mask.  Most chose plaster wraps for the base.

Courtney M. - Fire

Emily H. - Fire

Jacob K - Earth

Mikayla R. - Water

Riley H. - Water

Large and Cropped

I know that large and cropped seems like a weird combination, but I saw this project (probably on pinterest, but I can't remember) where someone had drawn only half of an animal with the focus on the eye and face and I knew I had to assign it to my Art 2 class.

I let them pick any animal as long as they didn't copy anyone else.  I also let them have a choice of their medium.  I let them do it in either chalk or watercolor, but either way it had to be done on 18x24 paper.  I don't know why large paper freaks my students out, but in the end i really think that they liked this project and it will definitely by on my list for next year.

Austin L.

Devin W.

Drea B.

Hannah S.

Jena F.

Lexi B.

Nikole K.

What is your phobia?


I wanted to start the 4th quarter with a fun challenge where I put my Art 3 students up against the Art 2 students.  A few months ago the perfect project came to me while I was browsing on pinterest.  I came across a post about phobias and philias.  So in other words, fears and loves of things.  Just in case you didn't know.

Anyways,  I decided to let my Art 3 students pick the phobias and Art 2 pick the philias.  I loved the interpretation that they came up with for these fears.  I gave both classes two weeks to create their artwork and then I took photos of everything and I put it into a Google form which I then sent out to the whole school so that they could vote on their favorite.  I told those voting to pick which artist sold the concept better, the phobia or the philia.



Briana B. - Fear of the dark

Brooke A. - Fear of Heights

Carter H. - Fear of Insects

Courtney M. - Fear of Trees

Emily H. - Fear of the color yellow

Jacob K. - Fear of Being alone

Mikayla R. - Fear of Cats

Paige Q. - Fear of Sharks

Sarah C. - Fear of Peanut Butter stuck to the roof of your mouth
Watch for the next post where I show you the philias.