Here's What's Happening...

In the beginning of the year, it takes a while to get art projects completed, on display in the hallways, and posted on the blog, but that doesn't mean we aren't hard at work in the art room! Here's a rundown on what's been happening in each of my classes so far this school year:

Fifth grade boys followed a webquest in order to learn about the history, uses and making of African Masks before creating their own mask designs. We worked for three days on the creation of masks in clay, that are now drying and waiting to be fired and glazed:

 Sixth graders taking art this quarter are working on their Warm and Cool Portraits with Tesselations. The first step was to learn about the history and making of tesselations (they were first created in Mesopotamia, more than 6,000 years ago and came in the form of pebbles set in plaster and later in clay mosaic tiles on floors and walls of mosques) and we checked out inspiring artists like M.C. Escher. I taught the kids how to create their own tesselation shape from simple polygons and they traced their shapes onto large paper. They chose a warm or cool color scheme to paint their backgrounds. The next step was to trace a projection of their face, outlining dark and light shapes. The faces will be painted using the color scheme opposite of their tesselations.

 

Sixth graders in Art History made mini fresco paintings this week after learning about the technique used often in the Renaissance. Upon arriving to class, they mixed fresh plaster and poured it into a plate. While it started to set up, we cracked eggs and used the yolks mixed with powdered pigment to make "egg tempera" paint. We transferred a picture of the Mona Lisa to the plaster surface by poking holes in the "cartoon" and pouncing charcoal through the perforations (this is what Michelangelo even did when he painted the Sistine Chapel!), and painted using our homemade paints:

Seventh graders are working on a series of 'before-during-after' artworks of fruit. While I would prefer the kids be always drawing from observation, with the object in front of them, we ended up taking photos of the fruit in the various stages of being eaten. Students are using watercolor pencils to render their work and are off to a good start!

Eighth graders are underway personalizing their "self portrait" plaster masks. The masks are not meant to look like them, but the design is a reflection of something about "self"-something that is important or special to them. They are "portraits" in that the face is the canvas. Some students are adding extra plaster pieces, cutting into the mask or simply painting their designs on. I am excited to see the final products soon!