Gobble, Gobble

It's hard to believe Thanksgiving is next week! The 8th grade art club members created this festive rafter of ceramic turkeys just in time. (I actually had to look up the word for a group of turkeys. I would have never guessed it was called a rafter!) They will look so cute on Thanksgiving tables. Have a safe and enjoyable holiday!

End of the First 12 Weeks

It's hard to believe we are finished with the first 12 weeks of school already! All of the final projects are finished and uploaded on Artsonia. There are so many great ones! My art classes completed their mixed-media bones projects and the Advanced art class, completed their fall still life drawings. Here is a just a small sampling.

Dia de los Muertos

One of my favorite cultural traditions to teach in Art class. The Advanced Art class took a day off from all their hard work and did some face painting of their own too.

Ode to Autumn

The Advanced Art students are finishing up on fall-themed still life drawings. They had the choice of using colored pencil or ebony pencil, and set up their own arrangements to draw. This work, by Jessica W. is amazing!

We're Rollin. . .

We're rolling and rolling and rolling this week- clay coil pots!

Students last week learned all about the process of making coil pots. So many vocabulary words associated with ceramics! Then, they got to work designing and building their own pots. Each student has a unique solution with coils, spirals, balls of clay, printed slabs and more. The results are going to be fabulous! We will spend this week finishing the construction and cleaning up in the end. The pots will all dry and then be fired next week.

Artwork on Artsonia

If you are not already aware, you can buy great products on the Artsonia website, printed with your child's artwork. Products range from refrigerator magnets, to cards, tote bags, water bottles and much more. One of my students sported her new t-shirt for her birthday, printed with her graffiti tag from earlier this year. Our art program earns 20% of your purchase for buying additional supplies. Thanks for all your support of our young artists!

Jackson Library Display

JMMS students' artwork is currently on display at the Jackson public library. 7th and 8th grade work is featured in the main showcase, including 8th grade radial designs and graffiti tags and 7th grade ribbon drawings. If you get a chance, stop by and see the great work our kids are doing. Congratulations to all the students who had work selected for display!

All Eyes On You

The Advanced Art class just finished a project on realistic eye drawings. They drew their eyes from direct observation in a mirror or from a photograph onto wooden blocks (1x4"pine). Some chose to use ebony pencil and charcoal, while a few tried out watercolor pencils for the first time. They all turned out great, and combined with my next 12 weeks Advanced Art class, will make a very interesting installation piece for the middle school!You can see all the results on our school page on Artsonia.

We're Getting Messy!

The paint has been out all week, and the students are loving it! In art class, we have been learning all about color theory and all the vocabulary that goes along with it. We are painting creative color wheels with tempera paint, and mixing all the colors on the wheel from the primary colors only.

The color wheels are a radial design the students created by making a wedge shaped motif and flipping it around the circle, kind of like a snowflake. 

We started by mixing the warm colors, and yesterday the cools. Complementary colors are added to each wedge for contrast. If you look closely at the finished pieces, you will be able to see 3 colorwheels all on the same design! All painting should be finished and projects cut out by the middle of next week. Check out all the different designs then on Artsonia!

Eyes on You

The Advanced Art Students are learning how to draw their eyes from direct observation, which is a pretty difficult challenge. They have tackled it with amazing results! They really took the time to make them look realistic through shading. We are now going to practice some eyes in colored pencil as well as watercolor pencil. The drawings are going to be transferred onto a piece of wood for an installation project here at the school.

Graffiti Madness!

The art students have been hard at work coloring their graffiti tags. Everyone loves this project. Each tag is different, reflecting the unique personality of the artist.The students learned some new vocabulary concepts on this project including gradation, overlapping, analogous colors and complementary colors. Look for all of them to be up on Artsonia in the next couple of days.

Hard Work Pays Off!

The Advanced Art students must have been very busy working on their shoe projects this past weekend. All their hard work really paid off! The results shown in class today were amazing! The pieces are almost complete with some minor revisions being made for tomorrow. The students were able to choose what type of composition they were going to use, and also which medium they wanted to use. You can see in the photos all the different individual approaches to the project. All the shoes were drawn from direct observation which is very challenging to most students this age.

We held an in-class critique today called a TAG critique. In this type of critique students are asked to select someone else's work and TAG it. They have to do the following:

 T: Tell the artist something they like about the piece

 A: Ask the artist a question about the piece

G: Give the artist a suggestion about something to add or revise in the piece

Through this process, the students were able to reflect on their work and come up with some ways of completing or changing their work. Everyone participates in this casual, no stress critique. It's a great way to learn how to talk more about our own art and the work of others.

I can't wait to see the final results in class tomorrow. The students will be photographing their work and uploading it to the Artsonia site. It will be very interesting to see all the unique results and read their individual artist statements. I am so proud of their effort on this first project! Way to go! We have some very talented students here at JMMS!

What's Your Tag?

Well, it was a long, short week, but we finally have some progress to show on our graffiti tags! Parents, I'm sure you have already heard about this project- it's a pretty popular one. Don't worry, there is no spray paint involved in these tags!

In class, we looked at several examples of graffiti and street art and had a lively discussion about whether it should be legal, or whether it really is vandalism. There were many points of view on both sides. We then broke graffiti tags down into the elements of art used to create them and began drawing our own tags. The students could use their name or a nickname (lots of gamer tags came up) and drew their tag in graffiti style letters. Adding a drop shadow to make their name look 3-D was challenging for many students, but everyone was able to get it eventually. Here are a few tags from class on Friday. This week we will learn how to color them, using gradation techniques with oil pastel. More photos to come later this week.

Starting on the Right Foot

The Advanced Art students are busy drawing their shoes this week. After looking at several artworks containing shoes, each student selected their materials and began coming up with their composition layouts. Drawings are in the preliminary stages, but already they are looking great! Students will be using a variety of materials including colored pencil, pastels, charcoal, paint and cardboard. It's going to be interesting to see each student's unique solution.

Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks to see the final results!

Letters, Sharpies, and a Sketchbook Challenge

Well, it's only day 4 of the school year and we already have completed some artwork! We are off to a great start! Everyone completed their letters today in my regular Art classes and began uploading them onto their Artsonia account. You should be able to see all the work on Artsonia in the next couple of days. Here are some examples of the many solutions the students came up with.

The Advanced Art class has been working on a sketchbook challenge assignment titled "100 Things I Love". They were challenged to fit 100 things on a page, using words or text, or a combination of both, and using any materials they choose. Here are a just a few.