Studio Art: Grid Portraits

I promise I haven't left you!  I've just been doing a little soul searching, if you want to call it that.  In other words, I have been feeling like I'm in a rut and I'm not happy with the way I'm teaching, particularly in my elementary grade levels.  So, with that being said, my next few posts are going to be about my adventures in TAB!!  Yep, that's right.  I'm working on transitioning a few elementary classes into choice based learning.

At the high school level, I feel as if the choice based learning comes a bit more naturally, though I still feel as if I need to loosen the reigns a bit.  So, as I share some of our high school projects that we have completed this year so far, you'll hopefully notice me loosening up on requirements.  

But, enough of that for now.  These oil pastel self-portrait projects were completed by my Studio Art students (9th-12 graders), and it was something that really pushed the boundaries for them.  We looked at artwork by various portrait artists, including VanGogh, Frida Kahlo, Kehinde Wiley, and Chuck Close, discussing how each artist used the self-portrait for a different reason.  Using the grid method, I had students draw a "selfie" they had taken of themselves onto 16"x 20" paper.

Initially, I left the choice of material open ended for students, as long as they used color.  I decided to use oil pastels to do my self portrait, something I've never done with oil pastels before.  Many of the students decided to follow suite, seeing how I was challenging myself to do something new.  I have to say I'm extremely happy with how these turned out!

The 10 Looks of Mrs. Impey: "I left my sketchbook in my locker...can I go get it?"

Done by our two exchange students...fabulous work for two ladies who haven't hard art classes in years!

These students used colored pencils, or a combination of colored pencils and oil pastels.

I also used these drawing projects as my interim assessment for DDI.  I don't know if any of you have to do Data Driven Instruction, but my fellow art teachers and I have been getting creative with how we give our assessments.  Instead of doing tests or quizzes, like we had to do last year, we are making the artwork the assessment.  Since we have been stressing observational drawing, this fit in perfectly as it fell in line with my curriculum but it also worked for our DDI rubric for the 2nd quarter.  Less work for me and less work for my students!

Studio Art: Value Practice

This project was purely taken from the following pin on Pinterest.  Mrs. Hahn over at Mini Matisse did this with her 8th graders and I stole the idea for my Studio students!  Since part of my SLO at the end of the year is an observational drawing project, I figured this was a perfect mid-year review of value and observational drawing, as well as an easy thing to start with the students and then leave for them to finish with my substitute.

While students were finishing up their coil pot projects, they had some free time, so they started this.  They had to create a word with at least five letters.  It had to be 3-D on a piece of computer paper using paper strips and tape.  They then had to draw it on a piece of drawing paper, doing their best to use value to make 

it look like it "pops" off the paper.

This particular student is very gifted at the arts.  She always does fabulous work and I often find it difficult to challenge her.  On the plus side, she has said that a few things I have thrown at her have been difficult mainly because of the style I have asked the project to be completed in...such as the cubist superheroes.  

This student spelled his word wrong and didn't realize it until after it was all glued down...he just reordered the letters in his drawing instead of starting over.

The "Selfie" one was kind of creative when it came to the word and the added little icon she made.

I graded these on the observational drawing rubric that I use to grade their pre- and post-assessment drawings.  The rubric can be found here.

Studio Art: Wrapped Food Drawing

For the final assignment of the drawing portion of the 2-D Media unit, students had to bring in a wrapped snack item to draw.  Similar to the shadow man project, I asked them to be creative with how they drew their object.  They could blow it up and draw a portion of it on the paper, draw it multiple times, etc.  Also, for this project, they were allowed to choose which 2-D medium they wanted to use for this.  Some elected to use regular pencil and ebony pencil, some chose colored pencils, some did a combination of all three.  The only medium no one decided to use was the oil pastels.  (You can see my note packet for this 2-D unit on the SmARTteacher.)

A few students still need a bit more time on Monday to finish these up, but after 3 1/2 days of working on this in class, here are some of the finished projects!

This particular student is full of natural talent.  Needless to say, her drawing was almost spot on, but I was a little disappointed!  On Thursday, she had asked me if she could rip a hole in the middle to make it look like a ripped wrapper, and then add crumbs inside the torn hole.  I simply told her I wouldn't every stop her from being creative like that and it sounded like it would be an awesome idea but then she never did it! :(

Now that we have finished up the first portion of the 2-D media unit, we're going to start on the next section which will be painting.  I was originally going to have the students paint their wrapped food item, but a lot of them ate their objects once they were done with their drawings! lol

So, Monday, the last few people will finish up their drawings and we'll talk about art styles.  In their notes, I created a section of 9 art styles and put examples of each style in the back.  We briefly started talking about art styles when we cut out the paintings and matched them with the correct style.  I was EXTREMELY happy to find that many of these 9th graders remembered some of the paintings that they had in the back of their packets.  (I had these students as 6th graders, my first year of teaching, and I had them do a group research project on an artist.)  We'll finish the notes on the art styles by giving each style a definition and discuss what style their wrapped food drawings fall into (hopefully they'll say pop art or realism, or both!).  We'll also frame these drawings too.

Tuesday I'll be giving them a brief quiz where they'll have to demonstrate they understand how to shade an object with a light source, they'll have to name the four shading techniques, and list some 2-D drawing media.

As we move onto the painting portion, I'm going to concentrate on acrylic paint, which is my favorite.  I've seen this particular pin on Pinterest and have LOVED the project idea, so I'll be incorporating it into this unit.  I plan on having the students draw out a simple still life of a book, bottle and fruit.  We'll shine the lights on them again, turn off the lights, and I'll teach the students how to paint with value directly on the canvas.  After that introductory project to the acrylic, we'll tackle Picasso's superheros.  I'm excited to do this project because I bought some acrylic modeling medium to use on the canvas boards to add texture, marbling and even, *gasp* glitter!  Depending on if they get bored or want to continue with painting, we'll also do some watercolor painting.

Studio Art: Shadow Men (2-D Media Unit)

This drawing assignment was a total improvise, but it's definitely one I plan on keeping for this unit in the future!  It seems amazing to me that the students (both older and younger) enjoy drawing from these mannequins so much!  It must be because they are movable!

After I looked over the student's #2 sketch assignment (which was to create a 3-object still life, shine a light on it, and draw it with value), I realized that they really didn't know how to properly observe light and shadow, and they didn't know how to properly utilize value in their drawings.  On a whim, I brought down six of my mannequins from the elementary room and we spent a period sketching one of them in our sketchbooks.  They really enjoyed it and asked if we could work on these more the next day, which gave me the idea for this sketch project.

Believe it or not, Friday was the end of the 5 week marking period already!  Art projects are worth 40% of their grade, and they have technically only completed one project, the elements of art infographic.  This was a great thing to do not only to teach them more about value, but also to increase that portion of their grade for the 5 week report card.

I brought in a second light and set up 3 mannequins at one table, and 3 at the other.  Their directions were that they need to have five mannequins drawn on their paper in some way, shape or form.  I wanted to see big, up-close versions, small, full body versions and the in-between.  We reviewed the elements and principles a bit and I reminded them to think about their composition as they positioned their figures. Students had three class periods to complete these drawings.

You can find the note packet I am using for this 2-D media unit, as well as the rubric for this project and the next drawing project on the SmARTteacher website.

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!

High School Observational Drawing Rubric

Taking a break from my curriculum planning, I've been working on my pre- and post-assessment plans for my high school SLOs for this year.  I've decided it's going to be a two-part assessment.  Although I was lucky enough last year on the elementary end to not have to incorporate any writing pieces, I'm being asked to incorporate a writing component on the high school end, so here is my plan.

The first part will be an observational drawing of some sort.  I plan to use the same observational drawing rubric for both 7th grade and Studio Art.  At this point, I'm not sure if I'll have them do the same subject, but I do know that I want the Studio Art students to draw their hand.  (The teacher I graded post-assessments last year did this and I liked it!).  The first drawing will be a one-day drawing and the post-assessment will probably be a 2-3 day drawing, where hopefully the students will incorporate more creativity in the pose and background of their hand.  I'm debating about having 7th graders do their hands as well, or a still life, or quite possibly their shoe (or maybe even a self-portrait!).

Here is my preliminary observational drawing rubric that I've been working on today.  It is a combination of ideas taken from the regional art assessment rubric that we created last year at Boces, and some of my own ideas.

	4	3	2	1	0
Technical Accuracy _____	“Draw what you see, not what you know.”  Accurately drew shapes, proportions, contours and details. Drawing is expressive and detailed.	Attempted to draw what was seen.  Attempted to draw proportions correctly and points of overlap.  Drawing is expressive and somewhat detailed.	Somewhat drew what was seen however proportions are not exact; student did not observe and draw points of overlap.  Drawing is somewhat detailed.	You can tell what the student was observing in the drawing, but proportions are not correct.  Did not observe and draw any points of overlap. Drawing lacks almost all details.	Student did not do an observational drawing.  Drawing has no details.
Shading/Value _____	Student successfully incorporated all 8 ranges from the gradient scale with smooth transitions. Student used at least 3 shading techniques to create value. Student accurately observed and shaded highlights and shadows, and the direction of the light source is apparent.	Student incorporated 6-7 ranges from the value scale with smooth transitions.  Student used 2 shading techniques to create value.  Student observed and shaded highlights and shadows.  Viewer can see where the light source comes from.	Student incorporated 4-5 ranges from the value scale with rough transitions.  Student used 1 shading technique. Some highlights and shadows are observed, but not very accurately and they do not match the light source.	Student incorporated 2-3 ranges from the value scale with very rough transitions.  Only used 1 shading technique.  Very vague representations of highlights, shadows and light source.	Did not create value in drawing.  No transitions.  Only black and white.  No shading techniques used.  No highlights, shadows are light source are drawn.
Elements of Art _____	Student understands and uses the elements (line, shape, form, space, texture, value, & color) to create a successful and interesting artwork. Student has a strong sense of line, both real and implied.	Student uses the elements to create a successful artwork. Student understands the basics but has not experimented.  Student uses real and implied line.	Student attempts to use the elements.  Student shows a minimal understanding of the basics of the elements.  Student uses real line.	Student unsuccessfully uses the elements; shows a very minimal understanding of the basics. Student uses real line.	It is clear that the student does not understand how to use the elements. No attempt at organizing the elements.
Composition _____	Student understands and uses principles of art (rhythm, movement, balance, proportion, variety, emphasis, harmony and unity) to create a strong and interesting composition.  Utilized the positive and negative space extremely well on the paper.	Student used the principles of art to create an interesting composition.  Utilized the positive and negative space well on paper.	Student attempted to use principles to create a composition.  Attempted to use the positive and negative space well on paper; drawing takes up ½-3/4 of the paper space.	Student did not use the principles well to create an interesting composition.  Did not use space well; drawing only takes up ½ of the paper space.	Student did not use the principles of art to create an interesting composition.  Did not use space well; drawing is very small and/or takes up less than ¼ of the paper.
Creativity _____	Student has taken the technique being studied and applied it in a way that is totally his/her own.  The student's personality/voice comes through. Everything is original.	Student has taken the technique being studied and has used source material as a starting place. The student's personality comes through in parts of the painting. Everything is original.	Student has copied from another source. There is little evidence of creativity, but the student has done the assignment.	Student has not made much attempt to meet the requirements of the assignment. A majority of the assignment has been copied from another source.	No creativity attempted.  Artwork is a direct copy from another source.
Craftsmanship / Presentation _____	Utilized time appropriately.  Artwork is created and maintained in a professional manner.  No tears, smudges, or stray marks.  Artwork is neatly signed in the appropriate spot.	Utilized time appropriately.  Artwork is created and maintained fairly neatly.  No tears, minimal smudges or stray marks.  Artwork is neatly signed in the appropriate spot.	Could have utilized time better.  Artwork is created and maintained with an attempt at neatness.  Artwork may be torn, smudged or have stray marks. Artwork is signed.	Did not utilize time well.  Artwork is poorly created and maintained.  Artwork is torn, smudged, or has stray marks that distract from the image.  Artwork is sloppily signed.	Artwork is not finished, was folded, crumpled up, ripped, etc.  No signature on artwork.

I'm not sure if I'm going to keep the elements and composition descriptor...I might combine them into one?

I think I was having a brain fart during this rubric creation because I was really struggling on how to word some of these descriptors, so I headed over to RubiStar for help.  Have you used this site before?  It's really great for making rubrics for any subject area.  You don't have to create a log-in to use it, but if you do, you can save your individually created rubrics to your account.  There are seven rubric types to choose from for art.  You can choose and edit the descriptors, edit the grade numbers and descriptor titles.  You can even add your own.  

The second part of my pre- and post-assessment will be an art quiz.  At the end of the year, I am expected to give a final exam like all other subject areas, so instead of bombarding the students with a second post-assessment type exam, I'll just make the final exam the post-assessment.  Hopefully using eDoctrina will make this exam generation painless and easy, as I plan to enter in all of my unit quiz questions into a test bank.  I'll give the students a brief quiz at the beginning of the year and couple that score with the observational drawing for my pre-assessment score for each student.

The quiz portion will also include the written portion.  Again, RubiStar already has a rubric for artwork analysis so I pulled that rubric directly from the website to use.  The only thing I will be adding is a descriptor for grammar and sentence structure.

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Description	Makes a complete and detailed description of the subject matter and/or elements seen in a work.	Makes a detailed description of most of the subject matter and/or elements seen in a work.	Makes a detailed description of some of the subject matter and/or elements seen in a work.	Descriptions are not detailed or complete.
Analysis	Accurately describes several dominant elements or principles used by the artist and accurately relates how they are used by the artist to reinforce the theme, meaning, mood, or feeling of the artwork.	Accurately describes a couple of dominant elements and principles used by the artist and accurately relates how these are used by the artist to reinforce the theme, meaning, mood, or feeling of the artwork.	Describes some dominant elements and principles used by the artist, but has difficulty describing how these relate to the meaning or feeling of the artwork.	Has trouble picking out the dominant elements.
Interpretation	Forms a somewhat reasonable hypothesis about the symbolic or metaphorical meaning and is able to support this with evidence from the work.	Student identifies the literal meaning of the work.	Student can relate how the work makes him/her feel personally.	Student finds it difficult to interpret the meaning of the work.
Judgement	Uses multiple criteria to judge the artwork, such as composition, expression, creativity, design, communication of ideas.	Uses 1-2 criteria to judge the artwork.	Tries to use aesthetic criteria to judge artwork, but does not apply the criteria accurately.	Evaluates work as good or bad based on personal taste.