Graffiti Mola Names

7th graders started their quarter off with a project inspired by this Blick lesson as well as the work of Andrew McCormick's students. To introduce the idea of graffiti, we talked about street art (the ethics behind illegal and legal street art) as well as the idea of reverse graffiti and it's implications.

We also used many resources from http://graffitidiplomacy.com/ to help up along in our name designs. Value shading with colored pencil  and pattern design (with the metallic sticky paper in background) was a big focus of our work and reflected on our rubric.

These were a great first project to begin with since students names were so obviously drawn into the work. Hopefully they help me learn names faster this quarter! 

Check out this graffiti generator for ideas on how to get started drawing names in graffiti styles. 

http://www.graffiticreator.net/

Very cool!

Check out some of our finished work below...

Update: Paper Mache Animal Trophies

Every since we made these crazy, little paper mache animal heads I've had many questions about how we made/make them...I posted this way back in 2011.

 

Read the original (any very nondescript) post here.

But- alas! Here is the lesson plan posted on the Art of Education. Check it out here.

Watercolor Landscape Collages

Watercolor paint is one of our favorite mediums at BMS. No matter how often we use it in class, students are intrigued by the endless possibilities.

I usually start of our watercolor introduction with a series of stations so students can explore the options. Wet-in-wet, wash, dry brush, rubbing alcohol, salt, scraping and blotting are some of the old standbys that I teach often. This quarter we looked at some other ideas like plastic wrap, crystallizing (using Epsom salts) and rice absorbing. The results were fabulous!

Plastic wrap technique...

Dry brush and plastic wrap techniques...

Wet-in-wet and rubbing alcohol techniques...

Oil technique...

***Be watching for a handout on all of these techniques in the next month on theartofed.com

Once we had a good understanding of all the possibilities that watercolor can create, we started to paint strips of paper to represent textured parts of a landscape (the strips were torn before we started).  Most students painted between 7-8 strips of paper to use within their landscape and combined it with colored construction paper to complete the finished work. 

Falling into Op Art

We have created Op Art value drawings in 8th grade art for a number of years now but this quarter, we included an additional twist- a printed photo of students "falling" into their work. We had a great time with this!

To start us off, we looked at contemporary anamorphic design. Brasspup's work shows prime examples of how easily our minds can be tricked, especially with the aid of technology. Nat Geo's Brain Games can also be an instructional resource for inspiration.

We then compared the work of Holbein the Younger and his infamous Ambassadors painting from 1533 to the more modern examples of this type of artwork. Kahn Academy's video is a perfect introduction to the Ambassadors.  

During studio time, students have the option of using a design that we practice together or, students can research online and brainstorm something they develop themselves...

We draw, outline, work on value and shading (with colored pencil) before our photo shoots. Varying the thickness of our outline is a major focus of our technique as well as the value changes. (I should also point out we do look at the pioneers of traditional Op Art such as Riley and Vasarely).

Find this warm-up worksheet (above) at studentartguide.com

We used our iPads to capture our photos and just cut away the excess background we didn't want. We also glued on our forms from the warm-up worksheet.

Celebrating Art Publication- Way to go Becker Middle School Students!

We have seven students whose work will be published in the newest edition of Celebrating Art. This is the first time BMS has entered the contest and it was great to see such success! Woohoo!

If you are not familiar with this art contest publication, check it out here.

Posted below each winner's work is the correlating lesson post.

Lexa H., Joey R., Maddie J. and Amanda T.
Picasso Pop Cans
See more here at the Art of Education.

Morgan P.
Zentangle Landscape

Laura P. and Hailey U.
Pen Doodle Etching (this lesson was extending by etching the student's work into a wood block by our tech department).

Surrealist Collage Pattern Portraits

For our final work in our portrait unit, we completed a Surrealist-style collage drawing. We had previously spent a lot of time drawing realistic portraits and features so this time around we completely "cheated" with the face part of the work by starting with a magazine portrait (human or animal).

This artwork was of great inspiration for us as well as the Surrealist work of Dali and Kahlo. I used the steps found here to build this lesson from.

We used Crayola markers for the color wash in the background instead of the fancy ones mentioned in the post. Use water brushed over the marker color outline to create a bleeding effect. It's beautiful underneath the patterned overlay.