Plastered with fun

Art 1 always starts our sculpture unit with a plaster of paris subtraction sculpture.  We start by cutting the tops off of pop cans and then I fill them with plaster of paris mixture.  After they set up for a day or two we peel off the pop can and the students use carving tools to cut away the extra plaster.

Eli D.

Aaron L. and Mikhail S. and Mohammed M.

Evelyn W.

Making friends

So for our Veteran's Day art piece this year we have decided to make tape people that are standing around a small memorial.  So we had to start by finding "victims" to tape.  Luckily there is a study hall just a few doors away from us and some willing students to help.

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

Painting with knives

One of my favorite ways to paint is with palette knives.  I start this Art 1 project by introducing the artist Leonid Afremov.  He is a wonderful painter who uses palette knives and tons of color to create his works of art. 

We then do some small samples in our sketchbook to get the feeling for the knives and how they apply paint to our surface.  The students are then asked to find a landscape image and they draw it on a 5x7 piece of foamboard.  After that they are allowed to paint it with whichever palette knife works for them and their own technique.

Mohammed I.

Kazzi M.

Benjamin D.

Playing with one color

To finish up our Color Theory unit we painted monochromatic paintings.  Students were allowed to pick any image that they wanted to use and we then posterized it in photoshop.  They then drew it on paper and painted it with a monochromatic color scheme.

Dylan S.

Evie W.

Nathan R.

Mixing it up with color

So art 1 has been working with color theory for the last two weeks.  I think they are reaching the end of their painting patience, but I love how the projects are turning out.  For these pieces they had to look at 6 different color theory techniques and apply them to one painting.  They could apply it over the whole painting or they could just apply it to small areas.

Mohammed I.

Dristen H.

Nathan R.

Now they are working on monochromatic, so next week I will hopefully have images of those.

Negative zens

Art 1 is looks at positive versus negative space.  We are also learning about shapes and so this lesson touches on so many different levels.  Zentangles are a great way to learn how lines can make shapes.  Because every time a line crosses it becomes a shape.  If you put enough odd shapes together you start to create zen tangles.  

Drawing of lines

I know as art teachers we are creatures of habit.  And I know I'm not supposed to start with the study of line because it's what everyone else is doing, but if you don't start here then where do you start?

Anyone have any ideas?

Well I don't either, so we are starting with line projects in Art 1.  We looked at a couple of famous artists artists like Bridget Riley and Piet Mondrian, and some lesser known ones like John Franzen and Marcos Bernardes.  From there we created our own versions of their works and styles.  I am very happy with what they came up with.

Vinnie M. 

Savannah M.

Evie W.

Logan C.

Olivia S.

I hope you see the simplicity and yet ornate beauty of each of these designs.  I think they did a great job of using their styles but finding ways to make them their own as well.