Djembe Drums Are Complete!

 Students finalized their papier-mache Djembe drums by adding a balloon as a drumhead. In class yesterday, students followed along to a few drumming tutorials in order to practice playing their drums.

 I have updated the virtual art show to showcase all 30 groups! Here are a few sneak peeks: 

Next up, students are working on creating a collaborative portrait. Before Thanksgiving, students followed along to a shading technique tutorial to learn different ways to shade artwork.

 

Today and tomorrow, students are practicing another important skill: grid drawing! Next week, students will combine both of these techniques in order to draw their portion(s) of a face. Once all the pieces have been completed, I'll assemble the faces and the models will be revealed! Stay tuned for more progress on this project.

Djembe Drums

Students have been BUSY in the art room recently, creating their very own Papier-mâché Djembe drums, a miniature version of a traditional African instrument. Students began with an armature created by two cups taped together, and added layers of Papier-mâché with newspaper and art paste. 

Students did a great job building strong structures, finalized with a layer of paper towels to create a blank canvas to paint on.

 Today students are working on designing the painting for the drums, planning for a cohesive design to show that they are a part of a team. 

This week students will be using acrylic paint to add their designs. Stay tuned for pictures of completed Djembe drums!

Previously, students created Scratch Art Calaveras in honor of Día de los Muertos. First students created their own scratch art paper by filling it with crayon designs and covering it with black tempera paint. Once the paint was dried, students used a wooden skewer to etch their design, creating a patterned sugar skull. Here is a selection that is featured in my classroom, but check out the Virtual Art Show for close-ups of more drawings!

Spooky Radio Plays

 Since it's Spooky Month, students are working on Spooky Radio Plays. Last week I introduced students to the concept of listening to a theatrical production on the radio - some students were surprised by this concept and couldn't imagine having to just LISTEN to their entertainment instead of being able to WATCH it. I shared a short clip of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds as inspiration for this unit. Students are working either solo, in pairs, or small groups to write and perform their own radio plays. Most students are choosing to tell a scary story, but all stories are welcomed for this assignment. A large part of radio plays are the sound effects, so students will also become Foley artists and must provide their own sound effects to help the listeners visualize their story. Students who are working alone are able to voice all the characters themselves, or may employ family members or friends to help act. The radio plays I received last year (while students were all virtual) had a lot of parents and siblings (even cousins and grandmothers) perform and they reported back that it was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to hearing the recordings that students come up with this semester. Once the radio plays are completed, I'll ask students if they want to share their work with the class and I'll play some in the classroom and post some on their virtual art show. 

Elements of Art

 Today is the last day for students to work on their Elements of Art Composition. This project is where students show what they've learned about the 7 Elements of Art - prior to this, the class was split into teams to research and create a slideshow on one of the elements in order to teach the whole class. For the artwork, students were given a choice as to how they demonstrated each element; some students divided their page and drew examples of each one, while others created a composition of their choice and made sure to include each element. I have some works-in-progress to share below, but the final artworks will be added to the Virtual Art Show next week! As of today, the VAS for this semester will be live on my blog - woohooo!

Class Flag Winners

I am thoroughly enjoying being back in school M-F because I forgot how awesome it felt to FLY through projects. Students have already completed their first Draw Something, the personality map, class flag, Elements of Art presentations, and started their first doodle calendar! I will be updating artwork on the Virtual Art Show over the long weekend, so be sure to check back. 

Students were divided into small groups this week to become "experts" on one of the seven Elements of Art. Once they conducted a little bit of research on their element, they created a slideshow to present their findings to the class, as a way to put all the information together like a jigsaw puzzle. Presentations were started today, but will have to be completed when we get back on Wednesday.

Each class had outstanding class flag submissions, making it very difficult to vote for a winning design. I really loved being able to see the collaboration occur in the classroom - I missed the sound of students busy at work! After looking at everyone's personality maps, we created a list of shared interests that the class had in common in order to start establishing our class culture. Groups were instructed to use the class color and the list of interests to create a flag that displayed the things that matter to us most. Here are the winning designs (the others will be included in the Virtual Art Show):

Welcome Back!

 Hello students and families! I am Ms. Strasser and I am so excited to be back teaching FACE-TO-FACE this school year! The 2021-2022 school year will be my seventh year teaching - this is my fourth year at OMS and I absolutely love being apart of this community! Not only do I teach 7th grade creative arts, but I am also the OMS yearbook adviser and the color guard instructor for the OHS marching band.

Creative arts is an 18-week exploratory where students experience several different art forms - visual art, dance, music, and theatre - and see the connections of how the arts are used to express culture. New to creative arts this year will be the implementation of digital media, including digital drawing and video/audio media. During semester 2, students will transfer to Inventions & Innovations taught by Mr. Kinloch in the classroom next door to mine.

Please take a look at the Virtual Art Show tab at the top of the blog to view artworks from previous creative arts classes to get a sense of some of the projects students will be working on this year!

I hope everyone had a rejuvenating summer and is ready for an awesome semester full of ART! 

Last Friday!

 The last two days have been bittersweet. We're getting closer to summer, but yesterday was the last day I saw my 3B I&I class (they'll finish the year in PE) and today was the last day I saw my cohort B classes in person! 

We're winding the year down by sharing the Cultural Identity presentations. Students have seriously exceeded my expectations with this project, and I'm so glad to have been able to push students outside of their comfort zone by not allowing the use of Google Slides. I think Biteable, Canva, and WeVideo were the three most popular tech tools chosen, but a handful of students tried some others, including Scratch, Vizme, and Piktochart. I won't be able to share the full presentations because they include students' personal information, but I can share a few screenshots below:

Since the last month of school is so short, I did not assign a June Doodle Calendar. In its place, students have been drawing for a fun Pear Deck warm-up. I provide a picture of my Bitmoji and a drawing prompt, and give students 5 minutes to draw something. Today's prompt was to provide Ms. Strasser with protective rain gear (since it's a very rainy day) and yesterday's prompt was to help Ms. Strasser with sun safety! I was definitely not disappointed by the drawings. Enjoy!