Klimt Collages

Middle School Students created these collages after viewing the work of Gustav Klimt. It was a fun way to use pattern, no stress, fun, metallic marker goodness. These are from last year! I need to blog more!!

Tape Sculptures--Inspired by Mark Jenkins

More photos of these to come! This is a favorite at summer camp where I teach high school figure drawing and figure sculpture. Middle schoolers love these too! Students are working on placing their work in an environment, and photographing them. Students cling wrap their model, then use clear packaging tape. The key when working on a real person is to have a ruler next to the body so that you can cut a seam on the ruler. Close call with a fire drill and a girl wrapped up--whew!

Students can choose to work in a group or individually with another object such as my junk picked horsey!

Branding--Energy Drink/Snowboard

Middle school students loved creating a brand--they were required to design a bottle or can, something wearable, an event they would be sponsoring--something that would feature their brand for that event. Thanks to Stephanie for the Snowboard design project. I have an overload so it has been great getting to have her at my school. The students just ate up the idea of designing a board and gear to go with it.

Clay Mugs and Vases Middle School

I find students really love making something functional. We will be having hot chocolate really soon when they are all fired! Then we have the "Queen of Coiling". This lovely girl is very into ceramics. LOVE IT!! Her Grandma got this prized vase!

Clay Castles

This project was a continuation of our Medieval unit. I had never done these before. . . not sure I will again. These took a lot of time. We first made our castles in paper so that we would have templates to trace onto our slabs. Then students rolled and rolled slabs. Then we had to get them to be the right moisture content to stand. Hmmm. Students are painting them now and finding it difficult to get into all the little nooks and crannies. I bought spray paint tonight and I am going to take them outside and go for it!! I will post our results later. This is something I always wanted to try. Next time I would give students more structure. Each student was given a bin to put their work in (dollar tree :) ) Their base had to fit inside the base. This project took a lot of clay! Whew! I did clay mugs with the other 2 classes and I am happier with those results. We shall see . . .

"A Single Sheet of Paper" Inspired by Peter Callesen

Peter Callesen makes insane works of art using intricately cut and sometimes sculpted paper. His work ranges from small scale works to installations all created with a simple material. He makes paper look amazing. I love his work. Students were introduced to this modern artist--yes he is still alive today--not some dead guy :) We created our own works using paper and some skillful cutting. I gave a strong lecture on exacto knife use!

Coat-Of-Arms

Middle Schoolers created a modern coat of arms that had to include 2 types of shading, a paragraph explaining their design, symbols that represented them, a shield, and a motto. Students worked large and were able to incorporate found images, along with many copies of heraldic animals and mottos. We practiced drawing a ribbon or scroll to place their motto on. It was fun to see their personalities represented.

Curved Line Designs

Thanks "Art with Mr. E"!!! These are middle school examples. It was nice to start the year with something abstract and a little mindless, yet beautiful. Students looked at OP art examples and really focused on shading with colored pencils. These look complicated, but the directions are really easy. I did them with my 4th and 5th graders, but larger markers, bigger shapes.