ASL Hands

7th and 8th grade artists are working with my favorite medium for their current project: charcoal! After viewing a demonstration and practicing both additive (starting with a blank paper and adding charcoal to the page) and subtractive (starting with a darkened paper and erasing to show the picture) drawing methods, students chose which technique they wanted to do to draw their hands. Students must use American Sign Language to fingerspell three of their initials and draw what they see. Period 4 has had two class periods to work on their artwork so far, and I am impressed!

Papier-mâché Mask Update

6th grade artists are finishing up with the Papier-mâché portion of the African mask project this week. The masks look fantastic! We started 
Papier-mâché by using a mixture of watered down Elmer's glue, but switched over to a product called 
Art Paste, which is specifically used for Papier-mâché. Below are some in-progress images of the
masks. Enjoy!

"Things That Inspire Me"

The current 7th & 8th grade project has students looking at Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling artwork. For a homework assignment, students had to create an artwork that showed 3-5 things that give them inspiration. I received images that showed students are inspired to do well in school, to be a friendly and loving person, and to live a healthy lifestyle, just to name a few. I was also pleased to see the variety of ways students arranged their artwork. Some choose to present their inspiration in a grid, others included items in the border, or even aligned it similarly to Michelangelo's paintings. Enjoy some of the great artwork!

First ever podcast!

I had an assignment to create a podcast (a digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available as a series, new installments of which can be received by subscribers automatically) for the Grad Class I am currently enrolled in. I thought: what better information to put in a podcast than a discussion about our current artist! Please enjoy the podcast I created about Michelangelo:

www.spreaker.com/user/msstrasserart/michelangelo

P.S. There will not be a podcast where I present the objectives. Those can actually be found on the 7/8 Art page on the ASL Hand Drawing slideshow! 

Contour Line Drawing

7th and 8th grade artists have been learning about contour lines in the last two weeks. Contour lines are solid outlines of an object. Drawings using contour lines do not include any actual shading, so they generally look unrealistic. Students engaged in a fun activity where they took turns drawing blind contour line drawings of one another, meaning that they looked solely at their subject while drawing and not the paper. The goal is to focus on every outline, every curve in the face to try to include as much detail as possible. The drawings are very goofy, but the artists learned a lot about attention to detail.

 During the next class, students tried contour line drawing of their hands in order to practice for the upcoming project. I gave students permanent markers to draw with so that they were forced to draw without erasing. Drawing hands is a difficult task, but the more attempts that were made, the better the contour drawings were looking. Students had to pay attention to the wrinkles of the hands, the curves of the fingers, and the spaces between each knuckle in order to maintain proper proportion.

Next up: charcoal demo!

6th Grade African Masks

6th grade artists have been working on creating African-inspired masks. This multi-step project is going to be a lot of fun. First, students drew a rough draft in their sketchbooks of what they wanted their final mask to look like. Most students chose an African animal as inspiration for their design, but they could also create a human-like figure. Next, students had to use mathematics to measure the distance of their facial features, including the length of their forehead, the width of their eyes, and the distance of their eyes apart from one another. These measurements are very important to ensure that they will be able to see out of their masks.

The next step was for students to build an armature out of cardboard and newspaper. An armature is the framework in which a sculpture is built on top of; it is what students are using to transform their masks from flat drawings into three-dimensional forms. Below are a few pictures of armatures in the works:

We had a few students begin adding papier-mâché to their armatures. For our papier-mâché, we are dipping strips of newspaper into a mixture of water and glue and laying it over top of the armature in a few layers. Once the mixture dries, it will become hard and creates the form of the mask. 

This project is about to get very messy with all the glue, but papier-mâché is always a fan favorite!