Something Fishy...

Sixth graders learned the pinch method of clay handbuilding in this project. After making two uniform pinch pots and scoring them together to make an egg, students cut a hole for a mouth and added whimsical fish faces, tails, scales and fins!

LS Art Club's Embossed Mexican "Tin" Mirrors

Brought over with the Spanish colonists as a basic material for utensils and wares, tin soon became a medium for art in Mexico and continues to be today. Artisans cut, beat, stamp, shape, punch, etch, or press the tin by hand into an endless array of practical and decorative pieces.

In this project, students learned how to symmetrical create radial designs on sketch paper. Then, using special wooden tools, students traced their three designs onto 6" 36-gauge aluminum squares and carefully embossed them to create a raised surface on the front. Next, we painted the metal with India ink and rubbed them with steel wool to reveal the embossed design. A mirror was added and the three are hung together to create these unique Mexican tin art-inspired artworks!

Multimedia Still Life by 8th Grade

At long last, the eighth graders' multimedia still life projects are complete! Personally, I feel they were worth waiting for, and the students really learned a lot about using a variety of media to create realistic artworks from observation.

Pop Portraits by 6th Grade

The Pop Portrait project is a tradition in Calvert's sixth grade- I cannot take credit for it! Sixth graders began the project by learning about tesselations. After carefully cutting and creating their own tesselation shape, students traced their shape onto large white paper. Their completed design was painted using either a warm or cool color scheme. Next, we took the students' photographs and upped the contrast so that they could trace out the dark and light areas of their portrait when it was projected onto another piece of paper. These were then painted using the opposite warm or cool color scheme from their background. A great lesson in color theory and mixing, contrast and painting techniques... and also a Calvert favorite!

Marbling Paper!

Fifth grade girls made marbled paper today using shaving cream and watercolors. We've been working on a printmaking project and we'll be using these papers as a printing surface. Aren't they beautiful?! Check out the process below... After filling a pan with shaving cream (good old fashioned Barbasol) and smoothing the surface with a straight edge, the girls carefully painted colorful stripes on the surface of the cream:Then, using a toothpick, they swirled the design to create the marbled effect:

Next, white paper was pressed gently onto the marbled surface and pulled off: The last step was to use the sraper to remove the layer of cream, revealing the pattern below!:

Positive/Negative Cut Paper Designs

For this project, seventh graders came up with a theme and a list of symmetrical images that go with the theme. Using an Exacto knife, students cut half of each of their images from the sides of one 8" square of black paper, creating a negative space in the black paper. When the cut piece was flipped over and placed next to the square, the positive piece visually completed the shape. Then, smaller details were cut out and flipped back into the negative space and so on. See if you can figure out the themes of the final works below: