7th Grade: Andy Warhol/Color Unit

This is one of my favorite color projects - Andy Warhol Color Portraits.
Based on his two-layer silkscreened work, this adaptation of the process presents students to not only Warhol but to color theory and an introduction to Photoshop CS3 where they are able to familiarize themselves with the workspace/interface and experiment with some more complicated elements such as color correction and layering create some of their own iconic portraits.

8th Grade "Chuck Close" Portraits: Value study

Each year following an introduction to gridded self-portraiture that includes a book & video discussion about contemporary artist, Chuck Close, I take pictures of my 8th grade students with a digital camera, and print the pictures in grayscale to at least 6 inches by 8 inches. Students draw a 1/4-inch grid over the entire photograph, and then create a ½ -inch grid on drawing paper to double the size of the image. They use numbers and letters along the sides of the gridded photograph, and corresponding numbers and letters along the sides of their paper. Squares may be divided further (into quarter- and half-inches) if necessary.

Students begin by establishing the contour lines around their head and shoulders, and then use the grids (like coordinates on a map) to "plot" and place their features. Most students find it helpful to use a cover sheet over their photograph to see a "row" of squares or to isolate individual squares.

I encourage them to turn the photo and paper 90-degrees about every 10 minutes to facilitate their "right-brained" ability to see spatial relationships and to avoid the predictable and unavoidable "left-brained" concerns about drawing their eyes or a mouth or an ear. I tell them they're not DRAWING body parts--they're simply drawing lines! :-)

Sixth Grade: SMALL big worlds Coming Soon!

Upper School Plaster Forms

Sophomore and junior art students in Ms. Puccia's Art One class recently completed a series of 3-D body molds. These sculptures-in-the-round are composed of plaster-craft (porous fabric embedded with plaster) and traditional liquid plaster. Once the student-artists completed a diverse group of molds from their own body, they combined the pieces to create a larger form. The sculptures are explorations in positive/negative space, implied movement, organic shapes and mass.

Sixth & Seventh Graders Explore Color Theory

Really great link with really great and creative ideas: http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/index.php

Sixth Graders: 100 object project

Hi everyone. For my first blog posting I've uploaded a selection of images in the slide show from the first of three ongoing projects I'm assigning my sixth graders. Enjoy!

For part one of the 100 object assignment, students had to brainstorm and make a list of 100 materials that could be used to make sculptural work. For part two they had to start collecting at least 100 of the same thing and figure out an ingenious manner of connecting the objects and build a surface. Size was dictated by their objects and manner of linkage.

They found that they could not underestimate the impact of the points of connection; there were at least 100 of these as well. They experiment with different kinds of connectors and ways of connecting. They had the choice of altering (flattening, coloring, melting, flaying, embellishing, etc…) the 100 things or not. Their connections could stiffen their surface or cause a draping effect- they had to consider the difference of soldering 100 keys together and what kind of effect that would create versus joining them with jump rings.