Monday, May 3, 2010
Jungle Safari
Abstract Sculpture Inspired by Kandinsky
Low fire clay
This 3-D lesson is designed to jump start the 8th graders imagination about abstraction. First the students are introduced to the father of abstract expressionism Wassily Kandinsky through a glog http://jkodonnell.glogster.com/glog-1149/. Students are motivated by a quote from Kandinsky relating art to music and how they are both abstract in nature. The students will also get excited about using a new media as well. Students sketch a couple ideas about what they are going to construct out of clay. As a warm up exercise students are handed a ball of clay and pinch pots are demonstrated. Pinch pots are a great way for students to get acquainted with a new media and they are able to see instead success. Next the teacher demonstrates slab construction and works with the students step by step in order to make a free standing sculpture in full round. The students have to incorporate at least five elements and principles of design relating to Kandinsky's work. The teacher also demonstrates a free standing hand built sculpture of a abstracted tree form.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Where the Wild Things Are
Op Art
Painting with Gravity
Watercolor Weaving
Lexicon Collage
"You gain strength courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop and look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."
-Eleanor Roosevelt
ADDICTIVE
"The biggest liar is addiction"
-Anonymous
The Lexicon Collage project is a collaborative piece, were students choose a word from a predetermined list of words. After writing the word and the definition on the back the students then paint the background to express the descriptive word. Then the cards are passed to other students who complete the next step. They can either distress the background with sandpaper or x-acto knifes. Students then add more color lines using oil pastels, crayons, conte, and watercolors. The cards are then passed to other students again were they are able to add collage ideas. Either by gluing on magazine pictures, drawing textures, or doing transfers to further develop a visual definition of the word on the back of the card. After this step the cards are giving back to the original owner to add any finishing touches to make it their own. The card is then mounted on a piece of paper and labeled with the word it depicts and a definition or description of the word.