Song Illustration Painting

The first project that my 9th grade students completed was a painting inspired by a song of their choice. While in their history class, student had to choose a song and analyze the meaning of the lyrics. In my class, I wanted them to choose a song they liked and illustrate it. Before starting, students planned out the song, the mood that the song was portraying, and the lyrics from the song they wanted to be inspired by. Some students struggled with what to draw, and I suggested that they think of what visually pops into their head when they are listening to the song or to watch the music video of the song for ideas.

Comic Strip Art

While studying a unit that talks about how art is a way to communicate a message, I assigned my 8th grade students to create their own comic strip. Before starting the project we looked at famous comic strip artists who have worked for companies like Marvel and DC. We also looked at modern African-American artist, James Kerry Marshall, who uses an art "form that is undervalued to show a subject that is underrepresented (African-American culture)".
To complete the project students students filled out a sheet that helped them plan a storyline, characters, title, and the layout of their boxes. After that, they outlined everything with permanent markers and colored them with watercolor paints.

Word Collage Paintings

My 7th grade students created a watercolor painting inspired by words! I gave each student a handout that had sentences about art on it. I gave them 3 minutes to cut out any words they wanted to individually. After that they arranged the words (using at least 1) in any way they wanted and glued it down to their paper to inspire their painting. Next, they drew out their ideas and painted.

Hand Zentangle Drawings

I introduced students in my 7th grade class to the concept of zentangle drawing. Students traced their arm and part of their hand on paper, then they outlined the lines with permanent marker and filled the hand in with zentangle drawings. We used permanent marker to help emphasize the idea that their lines should be bold and deliberate. The last step of this project was adding color with watercolor paint. I thought that this would be a fun project to start the year with!

First Week of School

The first week of school is over. It make me feel excited, reflective, and like there is a lot of work to do! During this first week, one thing that I did with students is have them complete a "pre-test". They were assigned to draw a tree, house, person, car, and self-portrait for me to be able to see what they already know about drawing, value, and perspective. Drawing can be hard for some students, but I was happy to discover that many students already love to draw. And I got some drawings that I thought were pretty good. Here's looking forward to a successful year!

New Year - New School!

Hello all! It is that time of year again when we all scramble to stock up on school supplies and pick out that perfect outfit for the first day of school. And for some people that also means hours of sorting and organizing art supplies.

I will be at a new school this year where I will be working full time teaching art to students in grades 7-9. I will be at MacDowell Montessori school, which is a K-12 school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is part of the Milwaukee Public School System. I am starting out sort of a new art program for the students there and have spent lots of time this past month changing a bare homeroom into an art room. Looking forward to a successful and fun year. Stay tuned for more posts throughout the school year...

 Carloads of stuff to bring in...

 The room before I moved in.

 I made paper chandeliers to identify different tables by color.

 My desk area with a little bit of Asian flair.

 Since there aren't a lot of cabinet, most of my storage is open bookcases,                                               so I made curtains to cover them.

Architecture Drawing

When looking at European art, you can't ignore the beautiful churches, palaces, and other interesting architecture. It is also good to look at art that is made from many different types of media, not just drawings and paintings. After studying this churches and the different types of towers and domes it has, students created their own versions of the "Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood" in St. Petersburg, Russia. 

Students first designed their buildings by drawing them with pencil, outlining the lines with a Sharpie marker, then painting them with watercolor paints and gold acrylic paint. 

Mixed Media Stained Glass

While looking at art in Europe, we looked at stained glass and how it is common especially in churches in Europe (and even America today). We looked at how the stained glass is made by coming up with a design, cutting glass that has been colored into specific shapes, then attaching the pieces with metal (which is what looks black). Today, stained glass is not only used for windows, but also for decorative items and lamps - like in Tiffany lamps. 

To make their own "stained glass", students used paper. They were given 1 inch tissue paper squares in any color they wanted, and used the squares to come up with a design by cutting them into shapes if they wanted. They brushed Mod Podge on a piece of paper, placed the tissue paper squares on top, then brushed Mod Podge on top of that again. The tissue paper and Mod Podge together have a translucent effect that, when it is dry, looks similar to stained glass. The final step was to add the "solder", which looks black. For us, I mixed some black acrylic paint with glue. This was easy to squirt out of a glue bottle, and when it is dry looks black and leaves a slightly raised texture.