I can. not. believe. that one half of our winter term is over already. These kids are doing so great! We've been busy learning new skills and techniques and exercising their creative muscles. How fun are these exquisite corpse pictures we made? Exquisite corpse is a fun surrealist game where each person draws a different part of a body without seeing what the person before drew.
We started the term off with some bright and fun fiber art. We learned about Mary Everest Boole and her invention, string art. She wanted to teach kids about angles, and she thought this would be a good way to do it. I have to credit this blog post for the instructions.
Also, the middle schoolers tried some wire and paper sculptures.
We learned about the impressionist Mary Cassatt and her paintings of people, especially mothers and their children. We tried chalk pastel--a finicky medium--and created these drawings of families and pets.
Meanwhile, the middle schoolers did two lessons back to back in figure drawing. They came a long way in those two short classes. We talked a lot about skeletal structure and the major muscle groups. Knowing what's going on inside helps.
The early elementary students looked at the work of Henri Rousseau. We made up a great story about his painting "Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!)" Then we did some paintings of our own exotic animals, like these giraffes. The late elementary students looked at the pen and ink drawings of Quentin Blake, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh. We talked about their very different styles. Then the kids tried their hand at drawing with pen--this can be daunting because there's no erasing! They did a great job.
We moved on to collages next. The early elementary students looked at the work of Reggie Laurent and we learned how to cut out shapes. The late elementary students learned about mosaics and made some of their own.
The middle schoolers also tried something new--screen printing! I've never done this with my classes before, and it was super fun! I try to do some sort of printmaking every semester, and I am glad this worked so I can add it to the lesson plan stock. We talked about Andy Warhol and his ideas about art and mass production.
