Happy Holiday Break Everyone!

Finally able to post some pictures....8th grade art

There is more to making Art....

http://www.ahsd25.k12.il.us/~TriciaFuglestad/VisualArt/page14/page15/page26/page26.html

According to Tricia Fuglestad's art class....

There's more to making art than just pleasing your eyes

here is the place whre we learn skills for our lives

stratagise, compromise, plan and visualize

integrate, concentrate, learn to relate

exposed to cultures and eras in history

we're trained to be thinkers with visual literacy

we fine tune our motor skills while growing in self-esteme

we follow directions and understand sequencing

in ART.

New Art Materials? Cool, but now what?

For me, holidays meant new art materials. But sometimes I'd be so excited about using the materials, I couldn't think of what to draw. Here are some ideas for when you get stuck:

Worm's eye view: get down on the ground and draw things while looking up.

Design a new bedroom. If I had a million dollars, what would I do?

How about a mural? Would your parents let you paint one on your bedroom wall? What about on a huge piece of paper instead?

Try your hand at one point perspective. http://www.olejarz.com/arted/perspective/

Draw your hand. You can imagine it holding all sorts of shapes: a glass, a pen, an invisible dollar.... What do hands look like in American Sign Language shapes? Hands can keep you busy for days...

Texturize it. Look carefully at the textures of everything around you. How is the floor texturized? Does it have a rug on it? Is it shag or tightly woven? Is it embroidered? Is the floor wood? Is it Linoleum? Look at the couch. Is it cloth or leather? Tightly wrapped around the frame or stuffed? Fluffy or smooth? Look at the chairs, the tables, the bookstand. Everything has textures. How can you show those on paper?

Mirror, mirror: put things in front of a mirror and try drawing them and their reflection. Look at the reflections in things like a toaster, a frying pan, a pool of water...

Blow up an image. Make a giant drawing of a candy bar, or a piece of jewelry, or a toothbrush. How does it feel different when you look at it large? Blow it up another way. Imagine someone pumped up a toothbrush with air, or an apple or a notebook. What would an inflated leaf look like, or a fork or a computer?

On a Snowy Weekend....make ART!

Don't let a snowed in weekend get you down. Try some fun art activities.

Check out Portrait Detectives from East Liverpool Museums: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/portraits/

or

Make a sculpture and play games at Smithsonian for Kids:

http://www.si.edu/kids/

or

Make snowflakes by going to Snowflake Patterns for kids and fight back the weather with your own snowflakes:

http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dstredulinsky/kids_patterns.html

The Artful Teapot- Sculpture Class

Students are working on artful teapots. They will choose a form of clay manipulation (pinch, coil or slab) that works best with the design of their pots. They will be working with some new clay concepts: handles, spouts and lids; and will be designing a teapot that doesn't look like a traditional teapot. It may be different in shape (maybe it looks like a hershey's kiss or a kitten), in texture (it may look as if it is made of wood or leather), or in color (it may have a full portrait painting on the outside or an elaborate design painted in undercolors).

Each student will make a matching cup, and we will have a tea party with our pots and cups on the last day of class.

In past years we've had teapots shaped as presents, dragons, pigs, candy, money and houses. I look forward to seeing this year's selections.

Fun Stuff for free time.... Making interactive art

The ARTIST'S TOOLKIT:

lots of fast cool games based around art concepts, but done in fun ways such as a shooting arcade or videos of artists making their art. Worth checking out!

http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/