Avocados, watermelons, and pineapples!

I am so happy to be back in my classroom and creating art!  We started the year with a bang on these POP art inspired projects!  6th grade created the watermelons, 7th grade created avocados, and 8th grade did the pineapples.  Students learned about the pop art movement and a few of the artists responsible for pioneering this amazing art technique. They also practiced creating value and form with color while blending paint.  Some of them even added a little splash of color with some splatter painting at the end. They all turned out so well and I am so glad to have art hanging in our halls again at NSMS!

 

Winter art spring 2020

We've started a new semester, which means a new group of art students!  This is their first project so far this semester.  We learned about blending with paint, and 7th and 8th explored more with background, midground, and foreground.

Nutcrackers 2019!

One of my favorite projects and this year's 6th grade did not disappoint! They are finishing up this week and hoping we can get them all completed before Christmas break!  Love these gorgeous paintings!

Candy corn!

6th grade observed real candy corn, studying how the lights and shadows look as they lay on paper. Then used what they noticed to add shading and highlights to their larger-than-life painted candy corn art.  This is one of my favorite projects every year!

Reptiles and Amphibians

Our next big project for 2nd semester were these amazing reptiles and amphibians!  We drew them together and then students were allowed to have a little creative freedom with the colors.  We discussed blending with paint and how to use analogous colors to achieve depth and dimension in their shapes.  Our hallway is now a burst of color! :)

2nd semester sketchbooks!

We began our 2nd semester in January, so I have a new crop of students for art! We started working on sketchbooks as our first project.  Last semester we made books using rafia binding.  This time I used a comb binding machine to make them.  I can't decide if this was a better way or not, since I ended up binding most of the books myself.  It's a little tricky to get the pages onto the teeth of the combs. 

We painted the covers before binding, and if students had time, they painted a back cover as well.  We practiced some abstract designs for a couple of days before they picked their favorite to transfer onto their cover.  They learned about some of the basic elements of art, like line, shape, and color.  We also discussed a few of the principles of design like repetition and emphasis to make their design more effective.