Impressionism with Fingerpainting

 Seventh Grade studied Monet and his waterlily gardens.

 We used our fingers and pallettes to create a waterscape with different layers.

Linoleum Carving of Animals

Sixth Grade is learning about Albrecht Durer and his textured woodcuts and engravings.Each student chose a photograph of an animal to draw on the 4 x 6 wondercut (linoleum)

First step was to outline the animal in a thin tool.

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Then they decided which areas would be white or solid using a sharpie .

 They enjoyed using the carving tools to make thin and thick lines of texture.

A background was decided to add interest and more texture.




Lastly, they each designed their own signature with their initials.

Sketchbook Collage Covers

Every year I try to have different ways to cover our sketchbooks. This was a multi step process.
After gessoeing  our covers we glued down paper of music, books or newspaper. Then we used water soluble oil pastels for the background and added water to make it flow.  Our image was glued down next and charcoal outlined it.

Some techniques we did were outlining with charcoal, blending with our fingers the water sol oil pastel (dry),  brushing water on the pastels and covering the whole thing with a glue wash to seal the color.

Clay Masks

In our sculpture class for 8th grade we modeled creative mask designs. They were painted with underglaze and refired. Some are still in the kiln and I will post when they come out.

Cubism in Seventh Grade with Mixed Media

We were learning about Picasso and how he invented collage. We used chalk, charcoal, paper, acrylic paint and sharpie for this project. They each came out so different from the same still life of a guitar, pear, bottle and grapes.

 Different colored mat board was selected for the background. This made the chalk and paper stand out.

Clay Plates in Seventh Grade

We are studying Picasso in class and how he created pottery during his last years.

Some techniques we used in our plates were:
wax-resist
applique (3D objects)
sgraiffito
slip trailing
Using clay englobes was a new way of decorating the plates before we fired them in the kiln.

Carving animals in Sculpture class

Eighth graders finished their animal carvings of Egyptian theme.  Each student chose an animal that would be included in the tombs of the Pharoahs.

We talked about subtractive carving and drew three views of the animal on our foam brick.
Knives, rasps, and files were used to carve away the unwanted areas.
It was hard for the students until the shape began to take form of their animal.

Lastly, each person chose a rock to simulate the colors on their animal carving. The finished piece was to be like a rock carving such as the Egyptians would have done.

Abstract Leaves and color theory

Sixth grade used real leaves to trace for this color project. They needed to overlap them to get the effect. We used art stix for the leaves in addition to colored pencils. They had to choose two complementary colors to use in the finished artwork.

We altered our Photos

 In Eighth grade as a final project in Photography we mounted our photos on brightly painted backgrounds. Next  we altered them by scratching and sanding with sandpaper. Students also tore the photos for different effects.

Clay Gargoyle sculptures

Sixth Grade is learning about Gothic Cathedrals and we are making some gargoyles to go on top of the slab boxes we made last week.

Students are using newspaper crumpled inside to make the hollow body of the creature. There were snakes, panda, dragons, narwhale, elephant, Horses to name a few.

Greek Vase Scratchboard

Sixth grade is learning about classical art. We made our own scratchboard with orange oil pastel and black washable tempera paint. We had to put a thin layer of the black paint over our orange color. When it was dry we used wooden pointed tools to carve designs from greek myths or figures.