The Start of STEAM- String Art Design

This semester, 8th grade students are part of a collaborative course between a STEM classroom and the Art room. This is a new approach for us at BMS and so far, it's been a great adventure.

We started off with Drawing Challenges, exploring the Design Thinking Method and geometrical string art. All of our learning experiences are discussed and reflected on through the students' individual blogs.

Take a peek at our string artwork below. Students were asked to create curve in their design (although no curved lines are actually sewn). We discussed symmetrical, asymmetrical and radial balance of course, as well as the idea of how changing the slope of each line just slightly, creates the curve.

We are still here! Abstract Value Portraits

It's been a while since we've posted updates about our class doings but we are still here! Check out our Value Portraits that 7th graders completed last week.

We started with practicing facial features and proportions, but it was up to the students how much realism would be included in the final piece. Value shading was also a big concept as we worked on this through a class demo and individually through a value study worksheet. We discussed different ways to apply value changes (hatching, cross-hatching, scumbling, blending, etc). In the final work, students chose how they wanted to represent value within the abstract shapes.  

Oil Pastel Landscapes

Landscapes are one of our major areas of focus in 7th grade, especially when we take a more abstract approach when creating them. 

 

After practicing a variety of landscapes (mountain-scape, seascape, desert-scape) we create are own version on black construction paper. The concept of atmospheric perspective is used to help define space without using linear perspective. This quarter, we used both oil pastel and chalk pastel and the results were dramatic. Before the pastel goes on, we outline our landscape drawings with glue to create a fluid and bold outline.

This project was based off a popular method we've used here.