Having fun elsewhere

Ok, I have to be truthful with all of you.  (not that there are many of you)  I am having a lot of fun with my other blog that is just meant for students.  I feel like I am cheating on this one, but I have found that I am really enjoying finding art to show my students and I am loving their comments about that art.

I started the other blog this year for three reasons.  I wanted to find a way to put more writing into my curriculum, a way to show all of the art that I don't have time to cover and I wanted to find a way to get my students talking about art.  I am sure that the blog route is old-fashioned and I should have done twitter or something like that, but I was just trying out the experiment and so far I have been really happy with the results.  I have a couple of students who are already done with their comments for the second quarter and it just started last week.

So I am here to let you in on my secret and let you see the blog and experience with my students.

http://makeitarttalk.blogspot.com/

I hope you enjoy it as much as I am posting to it everyday.

Holy Paint!!

Like every art teacher I love when someone is willing to donate materials to me.  I have to thank the Sioux Falls Restore for the donation of paint samples. 

And there is a whole other cupboard with more of the large jars.   Thanks again ReStore!!

Plaster me Sculpture

To try to teach Art 1 about how to create a sculpture like the greeks did out of stone we take pop cans and fill them with plaster of paris and then carve them into small statues.

This year I had issues with the plaster not setting up as well as it has done in the past.  I don't know if I got a bad batch or didn't mix in enough plaster, but we ended up remaking several of the plaster cans.  So for about a week my counters become white with plaster dust and I have learned there is no point in cleaning it up until we are done.

After they remove the can and find their chunck of plaster they then need to figure out what to do with it.  I have tried several ways to get great projects out of kids, sometimes I have them draw, sometimes we look at little figurines, but depending on the learner and their mind set is the final determination as to how their project will turn out.

I always tell them to carve them slowly because once it has been carved out you can't put it back.  I also tell them to make plan b since plan a might not work out.  I also have to tell some of them to stop carving at some point so that it doesn't break off pieces that you want to keep.

Jon C.  "Zombie"

Sydney Hau.  "Snail"

Kiana K. "Abstract"

Christian H.  "Ghost"

Matti C.  "Skull"

More masks

Sammy K.

Kenzie M.

Paint me a colorwheel

A few years ago I found a project that let me use all of the main colorwheel schemes.  We all are finding ways to teach the colorwheel and here is my lesson for my high school art 1 class.

  Each student was asked to draw a picture that was large enough to fill the whole page of a 12x18 piece of paper.  This is one of the few projects I will let them draw cartoon characters and occasionally a logo as long as there are a whole bunch of logos are there is another drawing with it.  But I tell them to have fun with the drawing.  It doesn't have to make sense it just needs to fill up the space.  After they do the drawing then they have to divide the paper into a 3"x3" squares. Then they have to map out their color schemes.

I actually have them make a map on a piece of paper that tells both them and myself which colorscheme they used in which box.  The main color schemes we work with are warm, cool, monochromatic, complimentary, split complimentary, double complimentary, analogous and triadic.  So each of these eight color schemes will be used on their paper three times, but I do not let them put them beside each other and they can not repeat colors in the same color scheme.  Of course the only exception is warm and cool.

These are the final projects and I think they look great.

Dustin M.

Andrea C.M.

Sydney Hau.

Danica H.

Melissa C.

Brooke O.

Brady J.

Color wheel fun

To help us review for our color theory test I bring in vanilla wafers and three cans of frosting that have been dyed into the primary colors and we make edible colorwheels.  This is by far one of the kids' favorite lessons.  First they have to take the primary colors and mix the twelve colors of the colorwheel so that they can frost the wafers.  But before they can eat their colorwheel we review all of our vocabulary and color schemes as our test review.  Then at long last I let them eat their wheels.

Masks and Canvas

one of my favorite projects for the Painting/Sculpture class is the hiding or emphasizing of a mask glued onto a canvas.  Each students starts.  Then they glue it to a canvas and from there they either have to hide the mask of emphasize it. 

It is always interesting to see which way they take the project.  Personally I think the hidden ones are my favorite, but the other ones aren't bad.

Marcelle W.

Maggie H.

Emma J.

The late ones

Here are some works that I have already showed but some of the late ones are just getting turned in.

Joslynne S.

Chad V.

Face mugs

My ceramics class is trying to do a variety of clay projects.  I found one on pinterest where the school had made mugs with faces in them.  I thought that was a cute idea and a great way to intro realistic faces into clay.  Here are a few of the ones that are done.

Rylee S.

Jozlynn

Alli H

Hanna S

Kelsey C.

Kenzie R.

Mosiacs

Last spring I took a class in making mosiacs.  I had done them before but it had been a few years and I was also looking for some tips and inspiration.  My teacher got me motivated to do them with my own class and so this fall I put out a call to the community looking for extra tile.  I was not disappointed to get a large quantity from our local habitat for humanity restore and a local tile company.  Both groups were thrilled to give me their extra tile.  It even hurt to know that usually they just through it away when nobody wants it.

Anyways, working with what we were given here is some of the projects that we have done.  I have been amazed by the kids creativity, especially since some of the colors were in limited supply.  They also did a great job of sharing tile and helping each other find pieces.

Marcelle W.

Emma J.

Maggie H.

Sammy K.

We learned a few lessons like making sure the the tiles are close enough together and that they are glued down tight before you start grouting.

More picture weavings

Alex L.

Kenzie S.

Zach K.

Abby M.

Brooklyn K.

2pt Perspective Structures

Art 1 has been working on 2pt perspective buildings.  I had some wonderful variety and creativity when it came to the types of buildings and locations of those structures.  They also had to work on their shading and for some they did a fantastic job.

David S.

Sydney Hau.

Brooke O.

Kamber L.

Courtney M.

Danica H.

Andrea C.M.

Jaykob S.

Jon C.