Project 1: Folders
At the beginning of each year, students make a folder to store artwork in. It is designed to slide into the storage space assigned to each of them, known as their "cubbies".
This is a fun introductory project in which students use a variety of methods to design their folder covers so that I can "learn something about them."
This is a fun introductory project in which students use a variety of methods to design their folder covers so that I can "learn something about them."
Project 2: Accordion Fold Design Name Books
Students explore the Principles of design by using analogous and complementary colored strips and squares, plus the letters of their names, to design four pages of this book. Pages are then folded and the book assembled so that it spells out each student's name. This project will start in the first marking period and finish up at the beginning of the second.
Project 3: Paper Engineering or Papier Mache
A three dimensional project, this starts by examining the idea of representing movement in sculpture, and by making a wire armature of some kind of living creature. The armature then is covered with a papier mache "skin", and detailed with paper pulp. The final step is "polychroming" the sculpture by adding color and textural ornamentation.
Paper engineering projects involve using basic paper engineering processes to make 3-Dimensional objects. This may include Altered book projects. All are organized around a theme.
Paper engineering projects involve using basic paper engineering processes to make 3-Dimensional objects. This may include Altered book projects. All are organized around a theme.
Project 4: Drawing Unit
No activity in the Art Room is greeted with more ambivalence than drawing. It is the point at which students's perceptions of their own abilities seem the most conflicted. But drawing is a fundamental aspect of the visual world, and an essential part of any visual practice. Moreover, it makes critical connections between eye and hand and mind and body. So we draw!
We start the semester with a series of classic exercises in drawing from observation, which explored use of line, and analysis of form. All of these exercises are connected to a conversation about spatial illusion through Art History.
We also looked at using drawing and mark-making to create a range of values that describe volume, and concluded the unit with an extended drawing that incorporated aspects of all the previous lessons.
We start the semester with a series of classic exercises in drawing from observation, which explored use of line, and analysis of form. All of these exercises are connected to a conversation about spatial illusion through Art History.
We also looked at using drawing and mark-making to create a range of values that describe volume, and concluded the unit with an extended drawing that incorporated aspects of all the previous lessons.
Project Five: Color Unit
This project is all about color, its basic properties and how to control them. In the course of learning something about color, we will also learn a few things about painting, starting with the different kinds of brushes and the strokes they make. Students make color mixing swatch studies, and "paste Papers". Students will then make make Pop Art Portraits, using the grid-based painting processed inspired by Chuck Close.
Project Six: Modelling and Color
If we can get to it, the last unit of the year is usually one in which we work with malleable 3-D materials to shape form, and then add color, emphasizing its expressive qualities. Often this project is a "personal mythology" mask, in which the student creates a mask that represents some unseen aspect of themselves.