Kluender- Art 7/8 (A day)

A day Art 7/8 students are finishing up their grid practice. We talked about finding the contour lines, then adding detail, then how to apply shading using pencil. Next block, we will be gridding our selfie photos and follow the same process!!!

Kluender- Art 7/8 (A day)

A day Art 7/8 classes are beginning a new lesson today! We are learning about portraiture. 

Students were asked to draw someone at their table to the best of their ability. These drawings will be our "starting" point for portraiture and we will revisit them later.

We have a wide range of skill level when it comes to drawing people.

Then, we practiced drawing a person using the grid method. We practiced drawing upside down to help quiet the inner critic. Students identified CONTOUR LINES in the photo to draw first, then added detail little by little. We will discuss shading.

Kluender- Art 8, B4

Students are finishing up their observational drawings with watercolor elements. We discussed finishing techniques, such as colored pencil, sharpie, additional drawing, collage, etc....They are encouraged to be creative to finalize their masterpiece!

Kluender- Art 8

Eek! Just look at these Art 8 students drawings coming together! I am beyond excited to witness their effort in drawing from observation and creating value with the drawing pencils. It's not easy...and they may be a little annoyed with me for making them go back and add more shading....and then even more shading....but, WOW, it's worth every pencil stroke!

We had a little watercolor exploration and practice this week to help students feel more comfortable with the watercolors. We learned how to "drop in" color to a waterery wash, how to keep lines neat, and how to blow, drip  and splatter the paint in a controlled fashion. 

I also wanted them to start thinking about their options when adding watercolor to their pencil drawings...will they add color around the drawing? Will they make the drawing appear to be "draining" color out of it? Will they overlap two or more techniques? How much white will remain on the paper? Will they add drips or splatters? What colors will they use? So may artistic choices to make!

Kluender Art 78

Art 78 is beginning to work on a grid drawing of a person who inspires them. 

We will focus on VALUE in grayscale when the drawings are complete.

Kluender: Art 78

My Art 78 classes are beginning to finish up their "Framed" colored pencil projects, and, WOW! They are GORGEOUS! Just check out some of these beauties...

 

Students used photos to draw from. We learned how to mix and bled colored pencils to make new realistic colors. They drew backgrounds that included something from the animal's habitat (leaves, flowers, coral reef, etc.) 

Then, we created a "frame" over the background to filter areas of colored pencil and grayscale shading.

Kluender Art 8 Hands

Art 8 is finally done with their Symbolic Hand Drawings! They did SUCH A GREAT JOB! As part of our pre-assessment for the year, students were asked to do a study of their hand. A lot of students traced their hand and/or struggled with drawing hands. I thought tackling a difficult task would be a great way to boost these young artists self-esteem! Once they realized they could do it, and compared the before and after, I think they realized that there is a lot to learn this year in Art, and that they will all benefit from improving their observational drawing skills!

Just check out these amazing drawings! Students drew their hands holding a personal object they brought from home. By drawing something personal, they have included some information about themselves and are challenging the viewer to engage in a visual conversation with their artwork. 

Students also had the option to create a digital version by scanning their drawings into Adobe Photoshop CS2. We got some pretty creative results!

Kluender: Art 8

Art 8 is shading, shading, shading! It's SO EXCITING to see these hand drawings coming to completion! 

These 8th graders have worked past artist's block, self doubt, and drawing difficulty to produce some really great drawings! 

Stay tuned for images of some AMAZING RESULTS!!!!!!! 

Kluender: Art 8

Art 8 has two main goals this year- to improve their OBSERVATIONAL DRAWING skills and to include CONTENT in their artwork. This means that our 8th grade artists will be learning to "see with their eyes, not just their brains" and to think about "why" artists make artwork and to add meaning to their artwork. My goal is for them to learn how to make the viewer engage in a "conversation" with their artwork, to want to know more about the subject matter, not just focus on improving skills.

We started out the year by learning a bit about VALUE (shading) and how to create that using graphite pencils. We learned that a #2 pencil is an HB pencil, that B pencils have darker and softer lead, and H pencils have harder and lighter lead. We created a few value scales to practice our shading skills.

 Then, we discussed Observational Drawing. I asked the class to draw an apple from memory, then I showed them an apple to draw. We discussed the differences in what your brain perceives and what your eye actually sees. 

We had a short demo on how to draw hands. Students were asked to bring in a small hand-held personal item from home that represented something about themselves. We are currently drawing our hands holding the item. We will be finishing these in grayscale value using the drawing pencils.