Drawing with Shapes

6th Grade Girls at Grant Middle School 

learned to transform simple shapes, into complex shapes and patterns, to form a work of art with a foreground that emerges from its background (2/6/13)

my example of transformed heart

This is my example of how you can transform a heart into a clover, leaf, dragonfly, or butterfly, by combining, and adding details.

highlighting emerging shapes on the smart board

We played an interactive I-Spy game where students picked out emerging shapes out of photographs.  We talked about how they pop out and how they are subtle and different ways nature uses camouflage and artists can change the color, shape, and details of something to make it blend in or stand out more.

students transformed shape ideas

Students brainstormed shapes that look alike, then cut out their "simple shape" out of card stock, and traced it, then adjusting, combining and adding details to transform their shape into a new more complex foreground ideas for their art work.  

students successful foreground and background

Next student's decided how to repeat their simple shape to form a background and which complex shape they would place in the foreground.

After sketching their ideas out on a big sheet of paper they colored them in with color pencil, watercolor pencil, or pastels.  We focused on having the foreground emerge from the background using emphasis of color on the complex shape or less emphasis if the shape already stands out well from the background.  Here are the results!

students worked well together to get finished

example of subtle emergence
bunny camouflages into the
background using color

emphasis on the turtle in the middle
with placement and color

student that was missing caught up
quickly by choosing charcoal a medium
that covered the areas she wanted quickly

I was very proud of the overall results, the girls listened to directions well, worked hard and came away with some very unique products and skills.

Book Binding

Mini Lesson I taught with 6th grade girls at Grant Middle School 1/21/13

The process of Japanese Stab Binding was challenging for many of the students, but they stuck with it and in many cases created their own variations on the stitches to make beautiful usable books that they were eager to take with them and write in as soon as they were finished. I was lucky to get a few photos.

this was my demo

student during the stitching process

example of how student changed the stitch by crossing them

student added a ribbon closure

one student wrote with Japanese characters on the front 

I was very proud with everyone's final products

Drawing With Spark

First Lesson I taught while Student Teaching at Grant Middle School 1/29/13 

Objective:
Students will learn the importance of looking while drawing.

Process:

Student's had three opportunities to draw.  

First 3 min drawing: Students looked at the word on their table and using their imagination drew what they thought the word looked like.  

pumpkin

mug

Second 1 min drawing: Students were given a 3D representation of the word on their table and they had to draw what they saw without looking down at their drawing paper.

pumpkin

mug

Third 12 min drawing:  Students used the 3D subject again, but this time practiced looking up and down between the subject and their drawing.

pumpkin

mug

Reflection:

In the end we played a game where I took one volunteer from each table to bring up their three drawings and the rest of the class had to figure out which drawing was which and back up their answer.  Students were more comfortable with the drawing from imagination, but preferred their results in the last observation drawing.  These drawings ended up being more detailed and accurate, which the student picked up on in the reflection.  Controlling where students looked for inspiration in each drawing got them to become more aware of how they tend to draw individually, from inspiration, guessing, looking, comparing, or a combination of these.