Making a Pastel Painting

Seventh Grade finished up our VanGogh unit by painting one of his landscapes in soft pastels.

Eighth Grade Carving Sculpture

We started with a foam brick and drew our design from three angles: top, sides and front. Then we carved out the dead space corners.
We used steak knives, rasps, and metal files.

Soon the animal came to shape and the fine details were last. Between the legs were done last since it was the most delicate carving.

The subject matter was Egyptian animal carvings like the pharaohs would have buried in their pyramids. Lastly the students chose a rock to model their carving after with acrylic paint.

Animal Carvings with Texture-6th Grade

This project was for most the first time they were introduced to carving linoleum. We used something called wonder-cut which is a little softer. The students decided on an animal to draw on their 4 x 6 shape.

Next they outlined the subjects and background with a thin tool. The hardest part was to decide the dark and light parts. The white areas were carved out. The assignment required the students to include texture in the animal and a special signature of their name somewhere. Albrecht Durer , hid his initials somewhere in each of his carvings and engravings.

If you have questions about technique or steps, leave a comment.

WaterLily Gardens in Seventh Grade

 Here are our finished paintings using only our fingers and palette knives.

 We used tempera paint and applied the paint in layers. First the background and then layer on top the lily pads.

If you have questions about technique or steps, leave a comment.

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.