august 2008

This page will be updated daily so you can check to see what has been going on in class at all grade levels, and what see what you are responsible for!

AUGUST 25 & 26 (day 1 for A and B rotations)

HOMEWORK:

• ALL STUDENTS received an “Art Room Rules” sheet.  GET A PARENT SIGNATURE and return it to me by your next art class.
• Please bring a sketchbook (about 9″ x 11″) with blank white paper to your next class.  PRINT your full first and last name plus your grade level and day rotation (A or B) in dark marker on the FRONT COVER (not the inside)
• Bring a pen, pencil and eraser to art class EVERY DAY PLEASE!!

Week of August 25th in art class:

SIXTH GRADE

On our first days together, 6th graders engaged in a right-brain drawing exercise by faithfully copying a Picasso line drawing from 1920 of Igor Stravinsky UPSIDE DOWN.  We learned that Stravinsky is considered the most influential composer in modern-classical music and that he and Picasso collaborated on plays and performances after Stravinsky moved to Paris in 1920. Upside down drawing exercises help art students to see line, shape and space in a pure way. Many students were surprised at the sophisticated drawings they produced.  Any unfinished drawings may be completed any time during 1st quarter for extra credit.

Day two we moved on to learning to sight measure the proportions of the human figure for drawing.  But only after students participated in a silly but educational survey of the way the human figure has been depicted in art from the Stone Age through Classical Greece.  We posed like the art, did clapping word games and learned a lot of new vocabulary!

The next day we were able to conscript some unsuspecting staff members as volunteer models so that the students could learn to sight-measure the proportions of the figure from head to toe. I have to say, all the 6th graders did a fantastic job learning to use their pencil, close one eye and SEE a “one-head” measurement in their line of vision. We counted how many heads tall our model was and divided up our drawing paper with little marks to indicate all of the measurements. For our first drawing, we stuck to very simple shapes, using a soft, loose grip on the pencil and working from the wrist for flexibility. Students tackled the common proportion mistakes of making the arms too short or the waist too low. They were troopers and really willing to erase and change their drawings. We ended class with a rousing gesture drawing session using black conte crayon and white charcoal pencil on large, grey, rough sketch paper. Students modeled, taking action poses with masks, umbrellas and musical instruments!

SEVENTH GRADE

On day one, students learned that when you hold your drawing instrument in different ways, you can create different line qualities.  We learned we can draw very small, or with our whole bodies!  Students created complex still life arrangements that stretched across the whole table.  They were asked to use a continuous contour marker line (never lifting the marker from the paper) to draw exactly what they saw, using ONLY line.  We learned that thick and thin line variation can depict areas of light and shadow and create the illusion of form.  Their drawings were excellent!

On day two, students started class by analyzing a Medieval Illuminated Manuscript page from Les Tres Riches Heures du Duke du Berry by the famous Limbourg brothers.  We discovered the many ways in which this small calendar page, although detailed, is chock full of images that are completely “out of proportion” to each other.  We watched an animated short film from an illuminated text on the British Library website from their phenomenal exhibition called “Sacred: What we all Share”.  They chose to watch the Buddhist parable of the Mangoes and the Monkey King.  Students then started brainstorming ideas, both written and drawn for their own illuminated manuscript calender page.  They were asked to choose an activity that is important in their life that happens during a particular time of year or in a particular month, either indoors or out.  They made lists and pictures of as many detailed visual memories that they could.  They seem to be looking forward to creating an image that is “out of proportion”! More fun details about this to come!

On the next day, we visited the computer lab to do some written and visual research about illuminated manuscripts. Students viewed a 6 minute silent film on the Walters Art Museum website that showed the traditional medieval methods of preparing parchment, inks, paint and gold leaf in the creation of an illuminated manuscript page. Students had many important content questions to answer. After that, they visited the British Library’s website to take a very close, zoomed in look at a variety of manuscript pages from three major faith traditions that were in their acclaimed exhibition, “Sacred:What we all Share”. Students were instructed to sketch samples of design they liked in the illuminated pages to utilize in their own work later. They all did a great job researching!

EIGHTH GRADE

Students started their portraiture unit by telling me all the things they could find “wrong” with my cartoon line drawing of a portrait on the overhead.  I let them know I was drawing many of the common mistakes I see in beginners’ work. They were excellent detail detectives and knew exactly what needed to be fixed!  We then learned how to use the features of our own faces as predictable units of measurement and plotted those proportions together in our own drawings.  Day two we learned very helpful step-by-step processes for reducing complex features like the eyes, ears, nose and mouth into simple shapes for easier drawing.  Adding value (shadow) helped everything look more three-dimensional.  And all this was just our “practice drawing”!

The next day, students viewed a film about Chuck Close and his groundbreaking, huge portraits. We learned about his tenacity in the face of many challenges: the loss of his father when he was 11, his constellation of learning differences and a medical event that left him mostly paralyzed in his forties. Yet through it all, he ardently pursued his one great love: painting. We will be using Close’s methods when we start our own self portraits from photography next week!