6th grade Art Studio Weaving

Making cloth is long and hard. No wonder children in the colonial age only had one or two outfits to wear. We couldn't imagine having only one pair of jeans and a T-shirt. But students in the art studio class can. They understand how long it takes to weave, and how hard it is to put a design into that weave.

Students have been working with cardboard looms, practicing simple weaving, and then working with needles to weave designs or letters into their cloth. Their final project is to make a clay wall hanging, where their weave is an intricate part of the art. They will use found objects such as feathers and sticks as well as yarn to create this interesting woven effect.

It's all about Balance

Sculpture students are learning how balance effects what they make.

We've all had Christmas trees in our lives that weren't balanced. Sometimes we tied them up, or tacked parts to the wall to create a better balance. But sculpture artists must make a piece of art that will balance on its own.

We started this unit by looking at the king of balance, Alexander Calder, who invented the mobile. He could take any tiny thing and make a balanced and most often, moving sculpture from it. Students learned about asymmetrical, symmetrical and radial balance, then practiced these in sculpture form. By puttting their first sculpture on a wire, they not only needed to balance it successfully, but needed to consider where the center of gravity was, how to increase the strength of the wire for heavier sculptures and how to create an interesting piece that would attract a viewer's attention.

Their second sculpture is an asymmetrical mobile, hanging from the ceiling or sitting as a table-top mobile. Calder made many humorous sculptures (a seal balancing balls, leaves blowing in the wind, a juggler) in his mobiles so that they had a theme as well as colorful balance. Our students must also have a theme to connect the ides of their sculpture. Some of our student's themes are space, growing flowers, monsters and arrows.

7th grade Art History through Landscapes

7th grade is looking at five styles of art from 1800 through 1950. By looking at these art styles, they are able to see how art changes as a reaction to what has come before it, and also as a reaction to the political and historical times it is created in.

Students will examine an art style closest to their own by completing a web quest. They will discover the rules of their style of art, and see how it fits into the political and historical surroundings of the time. They will work with their small groups to create a powerpoint or a podcast to present to the class. And they will finish their study by creating a landscape that uses the rules of their chosen style, but is an original work of art.

Students are beginning this unit by reading paintings to discover clues that will tell them about the art style and the time period it was made in. They are seeing how perspective rules help to create the illusion of space, and will follow up with lessons on one and two point perspective.

Egyptian Parody in 6th Grade

A parody is a work that imitates the characteristic style of another work, either for comic effect or ridicule.

In the 6th grade, we are working on Egyptian parodies. But you can't make a parody until you understand what you are making fun of. We are learning some of the most dramatic rules of drawing Egyptian art. Using at least five of those rules, we will be making modern ideas, drawn in traditional Egyptian style. Imagine an Egyptian skiing down a pyramid, or going to a mall, or an Egyptian rock star. By putting modern images into a painting that follows the old Egyptian drawing rules, we not only learn about the art, but transform it into a parody.

Some of the rules we are learning are:

How to draw people: face in profile, shoulders front, legs and arms in profile, eye facing front

Borders: geometric over organic

Perspective: Profile, Bird's Eye View, Frontalism, Mixed perspective

Stacking: one on top of another

Standards: like comic strip formats

Size Changes: the more powerful the person, the bigger they are

Horror Vacui: fear of empty spaces

Sculpture in the Round

6th graders have learned about Mesopotamian relief sculptures. In Relief, one side is always flat and the other is raised up 3 dimentionally. In sculpture in the round, sculptures must be interesting from all sides. Most students think of things as looking at them from the front. It is a real challenge to make the back as interesting as the front.

Students are working on sculptures similar to that in Mesopotamia, working with good luck charms, on heroes or bravery and on warnings or narratives. After choosing one of the themes, they create a sculpture that uses horizontal lines (feels orderly, organized or soldierly) horizontal lines (peaceful and quiet) or diagonal lines (action) to help get their concepts to read to the viewers.

Of Teapots and Tea parties

How else to end a clay class, but to combine all we have worked on and make a teapot?
Teapots can be made from coils, slabs or pinchpots. We learned how to make lids that stay on by constructing boxes. We learned how to make spouts by rolling out slabs. Students finished their classes by making teapots that combined all their skills into one form. This week we are having a tea party to end the semester with. Students will be able to drink from their teapots (those that are finished)or cups, and share a snack while we wrap up our ceramics to go home.

A quick reminder. Clay pots do not go on a stove. Instead, they are to hold hot water. They also get very hot in the mircrowave, so it is not recommended. However, they do pretty well in the dishwashers, and can be washed that way.
Good bye 8th graders. Have a great next semester

guest blogger: Grace

I like to sketch scenes from the Lord of the Rings, and from the movie Twilight, because I likke fantasy, and I enjoy challenging myself by attempting to recreate the aura of magic and mystery that surrounds many of these fictional characters. I also enjoy writing quotes from the books/movies that I think represent the scene best. I think that the hardest part of sketching is shading things in just the right way, to create shadow and depth.