Halloween Challenge

Alright it's back, my Halloween Challenge.  This year I was inspired by the following image that I found on Pinterest.

I did make a couple of changes to it though.  I didn't like "the blue" for October so I switched that to
"The Mischievous", and I switched orange to the "the Desert", and 

 purple to "the Skies", and white to "the tundra", and I switched black and yellow meanings.  

I then put this into a powerpoint for the students and had them write their inspiration on a big sheet of paper.  They then could create anything with that inspiration.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Emily A. 

Jonah L.

Micah A. - The Red King of the Mountains

Jaikob D.  "Something" of the Desert

Jaymon L.  - The Savage Spirit of the Seas

Mikayla R. - The King of the Dead

Sorry I couldn't remember all of their inspirations.

Melting away with the summer

So how can you kids excited about coming back to school after summer?  You melt something.  There is something about the chance to get to destroy things, even crayons, that can interest anybody into getting back into the swing of things.

Now I know what you are thinking, this post is coming at the end of October, what am I doing talking about our first project of the school year.  Well sorry I am a little behind on my posts, but yes this was the first project I put out there for the school year.  Also I had to wait for half of them to post it onto their blogs so that I could copy their pictures.  So most of the work was done 6 weeks ago, but it took them that long to upload the pictures from their phones onto their computers.  I bet if I asked them to snapchat me the photos I would have had them seconds after they were done, but oh well.

Basically I let them do anything they wanted with melted crayons as long as they did not just do the simple drip from the top of the page that you see on Pinterest.  I did ask them to think a little bit more creatively and outside of the box.  Most did some sort of silhouette where they cut a design out of contact paper and then melted the crayon around it, but some thought differently.

Also here is a tip; if you are going to do melted crayons with contact paper, have the students put the contact paper on the canvas and then paint a layer of paint over the edges.  That way if anything is going to bleed under the contact paper it is paint and not crayon.  It doesn't always work perfectly but it does help.

Then most of them repainted their images inside of the contact paper when they pulled it off.

Brayden F.

Jonah L.

Summer B.

1st Quarter photo assignments

I don't know about your start of the year, but mine can be crazy.  I always have great intentions of teaching these advanced art kids all of the ins and outs of digital cameras, even though I know they are going to take all of my photography assignments with their cell phones.  So we start looking at ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed and add light painting to that mix.

After they have tried those, I give them some assignments that they can take with whatever camera they can get their hands on.  Again I am not dumb, I know most of them will happen on their phone. 

Anyways, here are a few examples from some of my assignments.

Remington - Feet photo

Courtney A. - Horizontal lines

Morgan L. - Horizontal Lines

Abbie B. - Landscape

Jaymon L. - Landscape

Mercedes F. - Simplicity

Micah A. - Simplicity

Nikole K. - Toys

Summer B. - Toys

Brock N. - Veggies uncooked

Jacob L. - Veggies uncooked

Playing with the theory of color

Cassie H.

So I had to start with the screaming monkey because I just feel like this is how we are all starting to feel about this time of the year.  We finished these up at the end of the first quarter and this monkey pretty much summed up the race to the finish.

For this project, we started by looking at the different techniques of color theory.  We study analogous, warm, cool, complimentary, double complimentary and triadic color schemes.  We do samples in our sketchbooks and then apply them to a final project.

This is one of the few projects where I let them do anything they want.  Since the focus is not the image but the understanding of color, I let them do cartoon images or whatever they want.  After they draw the image on paper, they then need to find a way to divide it up six ways.  Each color scheme is then painted into those divided areas.  A big part of this grade is doing the correct colors in each area and neatness.

Erika L.

Andrew C.

Wheels of color

Well Art 1 has to start somewhere when we talk about color theory, and what better place than the color wheel.  We first go through the color wheel and how to mix all of the colors in our sketchbooks.  Then I give them 12 x 12 paper and we divide it into 12 even triangles that they then paint with the 12 colors of the color wheel.

I will admit that I cheated this year and cut out triangles that the students just had to trace.  It saved a lot of time over having them figure out how to divide up the circle.

After that I had them cut it up into any design they wanted.  I even let them stack them this year on top of each other in a line instead of a circle.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Dylin K.

Andrew C and his milk jug people

Zach H.

Divided shading

So maybe I am the only one, but I really find it boring to teach drawing.  I know it has tons of importance, especially when it is the basis for pretty much all art, but over the years I have learned it is a lot of just having them draw over and over again, and not always a lot for me to do.

That being said, the other thing I struggle with teaching is shading.  Again, I know it is important, but it is a really hard concept that they either want to get or they don't care about.  I know I am being negative, but it can be frustrating.

However, here are a few good examples from my divided shading lesson that came out really quite well.

Damaris W.

Cassie H.

Levi P.