Van Gogh Inspires Year 7

This was a great task that I undertook with my mentor teacher while on teaching rounds last year.

While this task was designed to allow students to practice using paint, it could easily be expanded into a much more in-depth task. Students could explore more of the work of Vincent Van Gogh and other Post-Impressionist artists or could look into colour theory, discussing why the artists placed certain colours next to or behind others.

Students began by finding a black and white portrait photograph which could be photocopied up to A3 size. They lightly traced the basic shapes of this image onto their A3 page and then added their first layer of thin paint. Each of the different main shapes (hair, face, clothing, background) were painted a different colour.

Once this first layer of paint had dried, students began layering their colours. They needed to pick a contrasting colour to the one they had painted the background. The paint strokes, short or long should give the painting some movement and texture.

Following this second layer, a third layer of paint was added. Again, this was done in short or long strokes and should have followed the lines that were painted in the previous layer.

This is the final artwork that was completed as an example to show students.

Inspired by Cubism Year 8

Given the task of creating a unit on the Cubist movement for a group of Year 8s, I created this art unit.

We began this unit by exploring some of the artists involved in the Cubist art movement. Through a variety of short clips and my presentation of information, students discovered the different styles of some Cubist artists.

Based off an online tutorial designed by Aaron Wemer I designed a task for the Year 8 class.

Students began by selecting a round object. Most students chose a wine glass, or wine bottle, as they were readily available props in the art room.

Using a heavy greylead pencil, students drew a simple line drawing of their object. This was drawn in the center of the page.

Looking at the drawing they had done, students then selected small or large sections of their drawing to repeat. These sections were drawn, so as to overlap the original drawing. The key to this stage was to ensure that the shapes and spaces within the lines did not become too small.

Once happy with their line drawings, students needed to join ALL the lines. There should be no line that is not connected to something. By joining the 'open' lines to something else, shapes were created. these shapes would later be coloured in.

We then used oil pastels to render the artworks. Students selected two colours that they would use for this task. The colours they they chose needed to be 'harmonious' allowing them to be blended.

https://ece.uwaterloo.ca/~dwharder/Presentations/Guidelines/VisualAids/LookAndFeel/ColourScheme/

Each of the separate shapes or spaces needed to be rendered individually. The direction of the rendering should have been the same for each of the shapes also, but it's wasn't the end of the world if this wasn't done correctly. Many of the students found blending the oil pastels quite challenging, so each student did a few trials before going ahead with their final artworks.

Here are some of the finished pieces...

Working with the oil pastels was quite a challenge because many students struggled to accurately render the sharp edges and corners. Another alternative to this could be coloured pencils, or even paint... although that could get a bit messy!

Face Jugs with Year 9

This was a fantastic project that I completed with a group of Year 9 students while I was undertaking my teaching rounds.

Many of the students in the class were disengaged, and didn't particularly want to study art, yet they had selected it as an elective. Thinking back to my Secondary School years, I remembered that my classes would always love it when we had the opportunity to work with clay, this was the starting point for the 'Face Jug Project'.

We began the project by looking at the human face. Students learned about the proportions of the face and worked with pen and paper to explore the shapes that make up the face. We looked at individual features, breaking them down into simple shapes.

http://4myp.blogspot.com.au/

Following this two dimensional exploration, student began to work with clay. Watching my tutorials, students produced a trial eye, nose and mouth. This process allowed them to get used to using the new medium of clay, learning how to join two pieces together and manipulate the material to produce life-like features.

I showed them a range of YouTube tutorials for the different features to show them diferent artists techniques.

Once satisfied by their trial features, we began work on the final jugs. Students used 'slab construction' to make the base structure of their jugs. They had to ensure that they were quite thick because they would need to cut into them later when adding the facial features.

Once the base structure was complete, students began adding their personalised facial features. While some students decided to create a well-proportioned face, others decided to make theirs cartoon-like. The jugs were glazed and under glazed giving them a range of uses.

Here are some of the finished products...

This was a really successful project for this Year 9 group. They really enjoyed  working through the process and most of them were very happy with their final artworks.

I think that the key to the success of this task was allowing students to have some fun with their designs. Allowing them to create dis-proportionate faces ensured that those who were less confident with their clay-manipulation skills felt like they could have a go and make their pots look a little strange.

A resource for myself & others

Welcome to Artmosphere!

 

Firstly a bit about me. Throughout my final years of Secondary School I knew exactly what I wanted to do, I would be a graphic designer. I completed my VCE studies and was accepted into Swinburne University of Technology. I loved my studies at Swinburne, but towards the end of my degree, I began to realise that graphic design wasn't for me. While I loved to create art and design, I didn't want to do it as my full time job. Having graduated from my Communication Design degree I decided to take a year off. Working a range of jobs (including the odd freelance project) and traveling around Europe, I decided that teaching would be the next thing to try.

I applied and was accepted into Melbourne Universities Master of Teaching and absolutely loved it. While it was probably one of the most challenging years of my life, I learned so much about interacting with young people.

This blog will work as a place for me to gather resources and present work that I do with my Art and Design classes. I hope to include project plans as well as photos of the journey that my students take from project start to end. Throughout my year of teacher training, and the last year of casual relief teaching work, I have learned that great ideas for classroom projects don't always go exactly to plan, so I'm sure there will be some helpful tips and revised plans.

I hope you enjoy my posts!