Snowflakes for Sandy Hook

Earlier in the week I came across a couple blogs that were doing a fun way to help the kids in Newtown, CT. As an educator and a parent, I am still unable to truly process what happened that day a short week ago. I kept thinking of ways to give back to the community and help put smiles on the innocent victims faces. When I saw "Snowflakes for Sandy Hook" I knew this was the way my students and I could help. This is what was on the PTA website:

Welcome students to a Winter Wonderland

When school resumes for Sandy Hook, it will be in a new building. Parent-volunteers are working to ensure that the students are welcomed back by a winter wonderland with the entire school decorated with as many unique snowflakes as possible. We encourage senders to be as creative as possible, remembering that no two snowflakes are alike. Please make and send snowflakes by January 12, 2013 to the Connecticut PTSA.

The junior high school spent the morning before break creating many beautiful snowflakes. It makes me so proud to see my students giving back to the community.

Printmaking

8th graders have been working on a printmaking assignment. They were inspired by the works of Pop Artists, using everyday "objects" as their inspiration. Their final goal for the assignment was to create four "good" prints using four different colors. Most students love this assignment because they are using a different material. The results below are a great example of what the finished assignment should look like.

Value Still Life

While I was on maternity leave at the beginning of the school year, my long term substitute started a still life with my 8th graders.  I have 2 life skills students in my one class, so the assignment illustrated below is an adapted lesson for them (which I love so much I will most likely use for all my students next semester).

My long term substitute printed out a black and white image of a still life. The students cut out different shades of the same color and glued directly on top of the printed image resulting in what you see below---they look AMAZING!  I can’t get over how good they look, so impressed and inspired to do this lesson again. 

 

8th grade Silhouette Paintings

8th graders have been working with painting to demonstrate value.  The goal of the assignment was to mix colors together to go from light to dark in the bands surrounding the silhouette.  The most difficult part for most students was controlling the amount of paint they used—I kept reminding them that in order to waste less paint, always mix the darker color into the light (I feel like I am saying that in my sleep).  Another successful assignment from my 8th graders.  They loved working with the subject of their choice, and using paint to create the end design.  It’s been a messy assignment, but a fun one with great results!

Work in progress

Complementary Color Wheels

In 7th grade we are reviewing the color wheel.  Students first worked on a color wheel worksheet filling in each piece using colored pencils.  They chose 8 colors they wanted for their final drawing and began their complementary color wheel which is shown below.  Instead of just creating a plain colored background, students practiced shading with colored pencils.  The objects were later colored in the complementary color inside the triangle (make sense?)  Just for review here is a link to a color wheel (scroll down the page a bit)-the complement is directly parallel.

 

Parkesburg Today

 

I’m honored to have my little old website featured in Parkesburg Today.  Click on the link to check out the article about the arts at Octorara Junior High School. 

Value/Op Art Hands

I’ve just returned from maternity leave and got my 8th graders started on a small VALUE assignment.  The goal of this assignment was to make their hands appear to be popping forward.  Students used their colored pencils to create dark and light tones--I think their work was pretty successful!

Line Portraits

8th graders worked with LINE as their focus for the month of February.  The images below represent some amazing examples of using lines to “complete” half of a portrait. 

Figure Drawings

My 8th graders are still working with the element of value, so I had them take a photograph of a  mannequin.  They had fun figuring out the composition and how to bend the arms and legs to make it an appealing image to draw from.  Below are some examples of how they turned out---overall I would say this was a very successful lesson.  

8th grade-MOSAIC

8th grade has been busy working on their CD mosaics.  I let them choose their subject matter this semester, and some did choose to do landscapes (like last semester did), but others took off and running and created some pretty amazing works of art!  With the Hunger Games movie coming out soon, my 3rd period class has created a lot of work based on the novels.  The “mockingjay” pin is represented below.  It is absolutely INCREDIBLE!

 

7th grade VALUE

It’s a new semester and a whole new group of students have entered the Art Room.  We are working through the same Elements as last semester, and my 7th grade has been busy working with VALUE.  Here is a view of last semesters work with a brief explanation of why/what we were doing. 

The images below are amazing examples of what is going on in the room!

A brief glimpse at the work done using oil pastels.  Just like last semester, I would say the two examples are a huge success!