Middle School Geometric Line Drawing and Painting

After the "Drawing from a Bag" exercises the students select four or five objects to fill a page in a proscribed fashion, with some objects extending off the paper, others touching an edge, etc. The page is then divided into fourths and then each quadrant is divided on a diagonal. The students then pick a complementary color scheme and paint the composition changing colors each time they cross a line. This exercise helps develop critical thinking skills, increases perception and requires decision making in terms of the objects selected and how they are arranged.

Observing and drawing the pliers

Drawing the cheese slicer with all its detail

Checking out a faucet handle

Working out the overall compositon

Painting with a complementary color scheme

Working in the third quadrant

4/5 Historical Character Masks

As each 4/5 student studies a specific historic figure in the classroom, they are crafting a paper mask of their person in art class. After observing the features particular to their individual, they are cutting, folding and gluing their papers to create some remarkable likenesses while learning about symmetry and the possibilities of paper. This project requires quite a bit of planning ahead and figuring out how to construct the desired features and then assemble them so the face can be recognized. 

Gluing some features

Eyebrows!

A finished mask

Susan B. Anthony

Hair in a bun on this one

K/1s Paint Pictures of their Houses

Thinking about the fall theme of community in the K/1 class led the students to the idea of sharing what their houses look like. Looking at an Edward Hopper painting, House by the Railroad, the students noticed the different shapes and angles that comprise that composition. Each student brought in a photo of their house, observed the specifics of overall shape, colors, window and door placement roof lines, etc. and tried their hand and getting that down on paper. This was quite a challenge that required a lot of careful observing and drawing and then painting with liquid watercolors. The differing views and renditions of details are delightful.

Hopper painting

Working from the photo

Painting the roof

A finished group

A finished two story house

A log home

2/3s Design Clothes Typical of Early Settlement Days

As the 2/3s learn about how our land has changed over time, they are looking at the life styles and clothing of Native Americans and early settlers in Colonial times. Each student is designing clothes that they might have worn at the particular time they are focusing on. The clothing is drawn on paper, transferred to a transparency, and projected onto a life-size paper with a hole cut for the head. Once their clothing is redrawn and painted, the paper will hang where the student can stand behind it and look like they are actually dressed in their time period. This is a multi-stepped project that requires listening, and decision making, as well as drawing and painting skills.

Enlarging a colonial period outfit from a projected image

A native American costume to fit the artist

A Native American figure being painted with attention to realistic colors and textures

Thoughtful paint application. Notice the choice of brushes for different areas.

Painting the bow on a Native American

Sharpening up the outline

A dress from the Colonial period

A boy's outfit from Colonial times

A kneeling Native American

A standing figure with bow and arrows

Middle School Drawing Exercises

Working their way toward a somewhat abstract geometric painting, the middle school students began with a couple of drawing exercises to help them begin to draw what is actually in front of them. Picking from a series of numbered paper bags with objects in them, they have to put one hand in the bag and with the other hand draw precisely what they feel. No generic renditions of the object, but that precise thing with all its bumps and curves or what have you. After these objects are blindly drawn from feeling, in the next class they are drawn again while carefully observing them, hopefully capturing more detail than would have been possible before the blind drawings. These exercises improves eye hand coordination. The students have to evaluate and interpret visual information as they draw each line.

Hand in bag drawing

And another

And now the object from direct observation

Remembering how the scalloped spoon felt while it is being observed and drawn