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!