Studio Art: Unit 2 Begins...2-D Media

My first unit lasted about as long as I had hoped it would, and on Friday we began our second unit.  Our second unit is all about 2-D media...drawing, painting and printmaking.  I am also combining art criticism with this unit.  The textbook I am using has art criticism as its own unit, but there is no way I'm going to spend an entire week or two just on art criticism...that's something we can work on over the school year to perfect, a little at a time.  The students have also been antsy to get started on a "real" art project.

The cover of my unit 2 note packet...stay tuned to the SmARTteacher website...my unit is posted there now!

On Friday, I introduced/reviewed value and the four common shading techniques with the students: hatching, cross-hatching, stippling and blending.  They had to practice in their notes and then for their second sketchbook assignment, I asked them to set up a 3-object still life at home, shine a light on it, and draw it using value.

This is the generic sketchbook assignment rubric I have created for the weekly sketch assignments.  Each student has now seen this and will have their Friday sketch assignments graded according to this rubric every Monday.  So far, I think I'm happy with it...but we'll see if I feel like I need to make any changes to it.

On Monday, we started off the unit by discussing the different drawing media that can be used (oil pastels, pencil, chalk, etc.) and we spoke briefly about art styles.  Again, this is something we will work on throughout the school year, but the projects we do for this unit are all going to fall under the realm of pop art, so I want students to have a basic knowledge of what pop art is compared to the other styles of art.

In the back of my packet, I put colored copies of these paintings.  We cut them out, and then one at a time, we talked about which style they thought these fell under.  Quite a few students new some of the more popular artworks here and knew the styles (although when I had them in 6th grade, they had to do a group research project on an artist...I found it quite wonderful that a lot of them retained the information!).

 Now, as I graded those sketch assignments on Monday, I realized that the students (a) didn't have a good idea of what I meant by set up a still life and (b) didn't know how to properly utilize value with observation skills.  Thus the reason why it's important to give sketch assignments as homework (a good way to assess prior knowledge!).  I threw out my original plans for the next few days and pulled out the mannequins I bought for the elementary room with past SmARTteacher winnings.  I set them up in the middle of the tables, let the students arrange them, turned the lights off and put a spot light on the figures.  I gave a brief demonstration of how they should quickly do a contour drawing of the figures and then demonstrated the proper way to observe value.

The students REALLY enjoyed doing this and asked if we could work on it again tomorrow...heck yes!

I found that they did okay observing the shadows and high lights, but they had a tendency to just give a dark and light value.  I went around to each student and asked if I could show them on their drawing how I wanted them to exaggerate what they saw and make more of a range of values, from black to white and everything in between.  Once they saw how much their drawings started to pop, they were really excited!

Tomorrow, I am going to give each student a large piece of drawing paper and an ebony pencil.  I envision having them do multiple drawings of the figures on one sheet of paper...a super huge close up of a figure that goes from top of the page to bottom...smaller figures that go off the page, etc.  Just a montage of mannequins!

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Once we move on from practicing the value (probably by Thursday or Friday this week), students will have to bring in a wrapped food item, such as a candy bar, and do a large, up-close black and white drawing of it.
As we move onto the painting aspect, students will learn about how paint is made and we will then use our candy bars and acrylic paint to do a pop art painting...I'm thinking more in the style of Claes Oldenburg.  I want them to incorporate some acrylic mediums that I bought to give their paintings texture.  This project will be a way for students to utilize the elements and principles to create an interesting composition.

For the final 2-D project, printmaking, students will do some reduction printing ala Andy Warhol.   I did this with my printmaking class when I did my student teaching, and I have my example hanging on a bulletin board in the high school art room that students were admiring and mentioned they wanted to do (I hung up some of my artwork from the past, both high school and college, so that students could see what I am capable of).  So, I'll have students bring in a popular object to turn into a multi-colored print.

This unit will also introduce art criticism to the students.  That was originally what I was going to start with, but I was tired of doing the note thing, and so were the students.  I prefer getting the boring stuff out of the way in the beginning, but I need to remember that the students don't think that way!

Rubrics Galore!

Well, on this dreary, rainy day in the North Country, I've sat down to finish my plans for this week.  In doing so, I created some rubrics for my up and coming projects that I figured I would share with you!  I'm sure that in time, over the years that I use these, they will be altered to my needs, but here is what I will be giving the students to see how I will be grading them.

First of all, I have altered my generic rubrics for K-2 since I last shared it and I think I have finalized it.  I have been using it to grade my projects such as the Primary Lines, Secondary Shapes, Rainbow Kandinsky and the Roy G. Biv collages and it seems to be working well!

This next rubric is one I created during the week for my current 6th grade project, Day of the Dead skeleton masks.  

I am going to have my 6th graders fill this rubric out, questions and all, on their own once finished with their project and then I will use the same rubric to give my grade.  Since this is the first time I am using these rubrics to grade them, I want them to be able to see if we are on the same page with their artwork. This will also give them a way to write me a reflection after I hand these back with their grades.

Next year, I think I will try the tinfoil trick to make these more skull shaped!  They still look pretty good...these guys will get one more day. I especially love the green one with the yellow cross...the student gave him a gold tooth!

This next rubric is for the next project my 3rd graders will be doing.  We just finished up with our birch trees, and now we are going to move onto talking about texture in drawings and in sculpture.  Last class, I gave them the drawing assignment to draw a house with texture, adding in that it could be a haunted house if they'd like, since it's getting close to Halloween.  I do have a student in 3rd grade who is  Jahovah's Witness, so I can't really do specific holiday projects, but I like to try and give students projects that they can make into holiday projects should they decide to around the holidays.  Anyways, I allowed the students to use texture rubbing plates for their drawing and next class we will finish those and then talk about the different textures used. 

Then, we will look at real pictures of houses and I will introduce the final project.  I did this project last year and it was a big hit.  We will be making stuffed paper bag houses, again with the option of creating a haunted house.  I won't let students use the rubbing plates for the sculpture part, however.  Instead, we will talk about creating the illusion of texture by using lines and shapes (bricks, siding, cobblestone, etc.) and we will talk about creating actual texture by using different materials (cotton, pom poms, pipe cleaners, smooth paper versus crumpled paper, etc.).  Here is the rubric I will be presenting to them for the house sculpture project:

The last rubric I created this weekend is for my 5th grader's color wheel project.  We are currently in the process of drawing, cutting out and tracing 12 designs to paint the primary, secondary and tertiary colors.  This year, I will also be having the kids add a flare to their design by painting each color's complement as well.

Student will also have to answer five questions about the colors they learned, as part of their grade.

Roy G. Biv has Rainbow Colored Hair!

My first graders completed their second rainbow project this week.  I gave them one class to create a Roy G. Biv collage.  This is the first time I have really given a project without showing or telling them how to do it...I showed them my plain example, and then gave them the black paper for the background and offered the students peach/brown paper for the skin (ironically, everyone chose peach paper, even the darker skinned students I have).  They did really well on this!  It was a little hectic for my liking, with paper everywhere, but the products they created still had a really good outcome!  I've seen this project on Pinterest here, but I gave the students artistic freedom to draw Roy's head however they wanted to.  I had to prompt some of them to draw his head bigger, but most of them did pretty well.  I also stipulated that they had to use two strips of paper per color for his hair.  I also encouraged them to cut, bend, and curl Roy's hair as well!

These were some of my favorites from the completed projects!  These students really got creative with different hair styles.

I am also testing out a generic project rubric with these Roy G. Biv collages.  Since our district is using Marzano, I figured using the generic rubric would help give me points on providing clear rubrics/goals for each project to students.  They will glue these rubrics onto the back of their projects before beginning them.  This way, they will always be able to see what I am grading them on.  I saw this type of rubric on Pinterest here, so I tweaked it a little for what I need.  In particular, I added the "good composition" section to grade students on their placement of objects and to make sure they use the entire page smartly.  I'm sure I may have to adjust it once or twice to get it right, but here is what I'm using so far!

As for how my week went, it was the week from you know where for me!  I think this was one of my worst weeks ever...between receiving mixed messages and misunderstanding information about my SLOs from my administrator and have rowdy kids during after school...I was so beat and stressed on Thursday, that I cried after school!

First, I had a little kindergartner have an accident during class.  I felt so bad because when she started crying, I literally had no idea what had happened to her!  We were in the middle of our first painting project, so it was crucial that I circulate the room to make sure everyone was on task, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she was crying!  Then she started asking for her mom, so I thought maybe she was just home sick.  By the time I checked on her the third time, there was a puddle on the floor so I finally realized what had happened.  By this time of course, it was time for me to start teaching the kids how to clean up during a painting project.  That completely went out the window as I tried to make sure she wasn't embarrassed any more than she already felt.

Now, to make matters worse, I didn't have any art smocks in my room (I'm switching over to washable paint thank goodness!) because I brought them home to wash over the summer, and then I forgot about them in my garage until Thursday morning!  I couldn't get this poor girl out of her seat and the nurse was taking an important phone call....then I remembered my art smock was tucked in a drawer somewhere!  After digging that out and wrapping her in an "art dress," I sent her down to the nurse with a friend and she was taken care of...and I thought my day was done there!

During after school, I decided to do a coat of arms project.  This really interested a lot of kids, but I had a group of three 6th graders who thought they were above everyone else.  They were rude and obnoxious, being bullys to kids in the classroom and to me!  I couldn't get a hold of anyone to send them out of the room so I had to deal with it.  After my morning of stress, I just cracked.  I made everyone clean up 15 minutes early and put everything away.  Then, what really sent me over the edge was a 4th grader who decided he didn't like his project so far and just threw it away.  (Mind you, him and I have discussions about how this isn't appropriate because it wastes materials and as an artist, you should learn to fix your mistakes.)  I made him pick it out of the garbage so he sat there and pouted.  

After getting them off to the buses, I went to talk to my super about a hiring committee I'm on.  She asked me what was wrong and the flood gates just opened!  Needless to say, these four students will be taking a day or two off of after school activities, and they won't be considered on my part for art club when I start it.  I also think that I may have to send home my 4th grader with a small writing assignment.  A fellow art teacher showed me a book she reads to the young kids called Beautiful Oops! (I think that's what it was called...).  I'm going to find this book and I think I am going to make him read it on his own and write me a small paper on what he can do the next time he is unhappy with his artwork!

All I can say is, Monday is my day off in the cycle!  Hallelujah!  LOL