Bikes and guitars

Sorry to disappoint, but this post is not about a future Hollywood movie starring Channing Tatum.  Of course I wish it was, I'm sure that title would make an awesome movie about a struggling biker band.

But Anyways...Back to reality.  This are the two things that I had Art 1 students draw for their final contour line drawing assignment.  I am excited to see how they turn out.  I don't know if I spent enough time working with contour this year, but I don't know what else to have them do.  So if anyone who follows this has some great contour lessons I would love to see them.

They were given the 50 minutes of class to draw both still lives.  I told them when we were about half way through so that they could move to the other.

Stella and Favre

This week Art 1 was looking at shape artwork.  Our main focus was on the artists Frank Stella and Malika Favre.  It is not very often that we look at multiple artists that are still alive, So this was a real treat this week.

Both artists have their own style and both do their work in different mediums, but we took our inspiration from these artists and made artwork using construction paper.  Each student did several studies in their sketchbook before they started their final design, but in the end I thought they were overall good.

Paul M.

Mary D.

Marissa J.

John S.

Riley R.

Drawing blind

So Art 1 started looking at drawing Contour line this week.  We started with blind contour and then added some watercolor to it, to jazz up the pictures.  Our inspiration was the artist Ian Sklarsky.  We all agreed that our little blind contour drawings got more interesting when we added the watercolor to it.

John S.

Tom L.

Baylee B.

Vaughn C.

Drawing what we see

Today art 1 students have been working hard at learning to draw what they see.  So what better item to have them practice than their own feet.  

This also gives us a chance to spread out from the normal routine.

Is it positive or negative?

So that might be trick question since the entire project was a study of positive and negative space.  I had the students start by choosing an image and drawing its outline to use as a negative image.  They then filled the background with a variety of zentangles.  Some chose to repeat one zentangle and others went cray with a variety of designs.

Baylee B. - Christ the Redeemer

Sommer B. - Castle

John S. - Weapon Love

Hannah M. - Vase Face

Design a line

So this year I am trying to change up my Art 1 curriculum. I'm not sure yet if it will be a good change, but I am trying.  That being said, I am trying to show the students all of the different artists and types of art that are out there.  For our Line unit I showed them three fabulous artists; Julianna Kunstler, Marcos Bernardes and John Fanzen.  Each of these artist use lines as the main focus of their artwork.
We started by dividing a sketchbook page into 4 squares and then we worked together to draw artwork from each of these artists.  In the last square the students had to design something of there own, but they could use the artists as inspiration.  Then for their final project I let them choose which style they wanted to recreate on a larger piece of paper.

Austin M. - style of Marcos Bernardes

Sidney H. - Style of John Franzen

Hannah M. - Inspired by John Franzen, but in her own design.

Sommer B. - combo of Marcos Bernardes and John Franzen

Berlin adventure

This past weekend I was given the opportunity to go to Berlin, Germany to talk to other teachers about traveling with students.  The company I work with is EF tours and if you would love more info about traveling with them please feel free to write to me.  They have been fabulous to me and I will tell anyone about my trips.

So EF sent me to give this presentation, but I also got to do everything that the others were doing.  Here are just a few of the things that I got to do and see.

This is a section of the Berlin wall.  I loved the design and colors on the mural.

This is the dome of the Reistag (capital building).  We were lucky enough to get to climb to the top of the dome and look down into their government assembly hall.  

This is the last remaining section of the original Berlin wall. This was on the east German side of the complex wall system.

This is a memorial to all of the others (Gypsy's, Germans, handicapped, homosexuals, etc) that were murdered by the Nazis. It is a version of the pieta holding her child in the center of this room with an Oculus over her head.

View of the Catholic Cathedral.

Catholic Cathedral

This is a gelato in the shape of rose petals.  Just so you know I picked banana and chocolate flavors and it was very yummy.