Watercolor Paintings

I cannot believe it has been a month since my last post! My sincerest apologies for the radio silence.

The week of Thanksgiving, we took a little break from our Africa unit and talked about the American artist Chuck Close. Students learned several shading techniques and put their knowledge to the test by recreating a piece of a face. Each face was divided into tiny squares, so students have yet to learn whose face they were recreating. I have received almost all of the pieces and will be able to assemble the portraits over break. I know students are anxiously awaiting to see how their collaborative art project turns out.

Students put together incredible African Musical Performance! I am so proud of each student for breaking out of their comfort zone to dance or drum in front of their classmates. I have to load pictures of the drums to the Virtual Art Show, and hopefully I will have some groups who would be willing to allow me to post a video of their routine.

Last week classes started their introduction on watercolor. This is one of my absolute favorite projects because students are given choice in so many ways and it always yields beautiful results. Students choose between creating a landscape, an animal, or a dragon and build a composition of their choosing. I had students create a thumbnail sketch of each so they could give each other feedback and make suggestions as to which subject they should move forward with. It has been an exciting time in the art room the last couple of days because students have been coming up with such beautiful compositions! Only a few students have started painting, and I've reminded them that there is no rush to complete their artwork before break, so I won't be posting finished products until we return in January.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing winter break! I look forward to spending the final five weeks together with my students before the end of the semester.

Djembe Drums!

It has been a busy few weeks in the art room! Students are halfway through creating their own Djembe drums. I am so proud of the way students have been handling using art paste in my classroom; minimal spills on the carpet and students have been responsibly cleaning up after themselves and neighbors. I changed up the papier-mȃché process a tiny bit this year due to a brilliant idea from Mrs. Wetzel, the 8th grade art teacher. The final layer of papier-mȃché was made with paper towel instead of newspaper in order to create a solid canvas to paint on. Last year I had students paint a layer of gesso (canvas primer) as their base, which used less layers of papier-mȃché. With the final layer of paper towel, these drums are much sturdier than the ones my students made last year.

Today students began painting. A few weeks ago groups drew rough drafts of what they wanted painted on their drums, making their artwork cohesive in a way. First students drew their design on their drum, then they began to paint. Painting should last maybe one or two more days and then we will begin our dance and drum portions of this unit. I can't wait to see the performances come together!

Conference Week

Happy conference week! It was great getting to meet with so many parents last night and I look forward to talking to more today and tomorrow. Conference week is always a little wacky because we have such a short amount of time in each class, but we are being as productive as ever! 

Earlier this week students started brainstorming for their Djembe drum decorations. Each group needs to show cohesion through their designs, but each drum should be uniquely displaying characteristics of the owner. Yesterday we paused the drum project because the next step is to start papier-mâché (yay!) and there isn't enough time in the class to get materials out, work, and then clean-up efficiently. Instead of drums, students began prepping for their next mini-project, Día de los Muertos scratch art sugar skulls. Making scratch art paper is super simple and actually really fun. First, students are filling an entire blank paper with an assortment of colored crayons. Students have the freedom of deciding what colors to use and how to arrange them - some are making stripes, patches, or organic spots. It is important to press hard and fill the entire paper, leaving behind no white spaces. Scratch paper needs the waxy surface under the paint in order to be properly scratched off. Next, either today or tomorrow students will be covering the crayon in a thin mixture of black tempera paint and dish soap. The dish soap helps the paint flake off nicely when it is being etched versus crumbling in unwanted areas. Once the paint is dry, they are ready to be etched! Students will come back to this mini-project during breaks from their African musical performance. 

I'm trying to pass back artwork this week, too, so students can finally show off the beautiful work they've created so far.

African Musical Performances

It has been entirely too long since my last post! We just finished up our unit on African music & dance, where we combined visual art, dance, and drumming to create group performances. My last post discussed the creation of the Djembe drums with papier-mâché; they turned out beautiful! Groups collaborated to plan for the paintings on the drums, choosing a design that shows cohesion. Some groups wanted their decorations to be alike, some chose one element to repeat throughout the designs, and one group even created an entire scene when their drums were put together! I had students use acrylic paint this semester versus the tempera paint last semester used, which yielded much nicer results. The colors are so much brighter and covered the newspaper fully.

 

Check out the Virtual Art Show for many more beautiful drums! For the performances to take place, students had a dance lesson on some traditional African dance moves. They combined some traditional steps with popular dance moves to create their routine that went with their drum rhythm. The students had a blast coming up with routines and sharing them with their classmates. I will need permission from students, but I should be posting some snippets on Twitter to share what they came up with. 

Next, students are working together to discuss our classroom culture, taking a closer look at what we all hold special to ourselves and how we may share that with one another. I didn't create class flags at the beginning of this semester because I was so excited to jump into our first project (and get to know everyone's names through it), so we will be creating our class flags right before Spring Break. I will post an update next week to show off symbols for the class flags!

End of Term I

I apologize for missing last week's post! Students have been busy, busy in Creative Arts; I cannot believe that after today was are one quarter of the way done with the school year! Students have completed two units since my last post: African Musical Performance and Día de los Muertos Sugar Skulls. I will be updating the Virtual Art Show this weekend to show off a sampling of the fantastic artwork. 

The performances were great! Students collaborated in their groups to write a drum rhythm and choreograph a dance to go with it. I am so proud of the committed performances because several students were far out of their comfort zones by performing in front of others. The next group performance project students work on should be a little less scary since they took a huge plunge with this one!

In honor of the holiday, I decorated the classroom a bit! The door shows off sugar skulls and papel picado and the ofrenda pays tribute to deceased Mexican and Mexican American artists, including painter Frida Kahlo and singer/songwriter Ritchie Valens.

Yesterday students engaged in an in-progress T.A.G. critique, where they tell an artist something they like about their artwork, ask the artist a question about their artwork, and give a positive suggestion for their artwork. Critiques are a great tool because they help students share ideas and generate ways they could improve their artwork. Students gave great feedback to one another and have been working hard to complete their scratch art.

I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend! Today is the last day to sign up for Parent/Teacher Conferences if you haven't done so already. I look forward to meeting with you next week!

Djembe Drum

Students are about halfway through creating their miniature Djembe drums! I'm excited to test them out tomorrow and get students started on learning drumming rhythms. I'll walk you through the process:

First students had to construct their armature by cutting out the bottom of two cups and taping it together. The armature is the base for their papier-mâché.

Then, students started the papier-mâché process by using strips of newspaper dipped in art paste. The goal was to apply several layers of the newspaper to the armature to create a hard cast.

In between two of the layers, students worked together with their groups to devise a plan for their drum decoration. I provided them with several ideas, including symbols, colors, and animals, and students collaborated on how to create a set of cohesive drums.

Once the drum was dried and sturdy (with about three days worth of papier-mâché), students are applying gesso to the drum. Gesso is a primer that covers the newspaper and provides a surface for painting their designs. 

In the upcoming classes, students will be painting their designs, with the exception of one class who are using colored pencils or markers to decorate a skirt that will be glued to their drums. I'm really liking the artwork these students are drawing; they are able to show more details with the dry materials than they would have with paint.

As tomorrow is Picture Day, students will not be painting because I do not want to risk anyone dirtying up their nice clothes before their pictures. Instead, students will be learning drum rhythms and then start creating the rhythm they plan to use for their performance.