Our grade 6 students have finished their unit on portrait painting. Their unit question was “How do our personal experiences shape our identity?” and our significant concept was “Our culture affects our identity.” With their paintings, students were to select and represent themselves either through identity, culture or emotion. Some of these aspects could have been achieved through background, pose, colour and brushwork etc.
I think the unit needs some refinement, especially with painting noses! Until I get to that, you can view the artwork through Flickr here. If interested, you can read two student reflections here and here. (Note: I co-teach the grade with my colleague Mr. W)
My grade 9s are kind of my experiment class. We do 4 units in the year (still-life drawing, landscape pastels, painting & graphic design). We’ve just completed the third unit on painting. This unit builds on the previous units and students were required to conduct their own research and experiment in a style they see fit, or inspired by. I decided to give them a choice on whether to paint a landscape or a still life. All worked from a reference photo, but have had to have taken the photo themselves. Students thought of inquiring questions regarding styles/movements/artists as well as techniques regarding paint.
They basically taught themselves and several learnt via YouTube. From this, it led them to conduct a few personal experiments and make choices on how to complete their summative piece. I simply guided from the side and offered simple feedback on their planning doc and whilst painting. An interesting note is that one student said “this is art, we should’ve have to do writing.” This student may be in for a surprise if they continue onto IB Art.
To be honest, some were very derivative of famous artist’s works, but I thought I’d take a step back to see what they would come up with. Most showed a marked improvement over their initial monotone still life painting that was done as a pre-assessment. I think the work was an improvement over last year, but I’m not sure if it was the learning process or individual student talent. Ideally, I’d like to have them create more than one piece, but unfortunately we must plough through : (
View the student work here via Flickr and feel free to read a student reflection from the unit hereandhere if interested. Is it interesting that several girls chose food?!
My grade 10 class just completed some figure paintings. This was an extension from their figure drawing unit and for some, it was their first time painting! Students did this independently researching colour, brush techniques and the human form. You can click the photo below to view slightly larger.
I’ve been busy painting this mural in our school library. The video explains the process a bit. If interested, you can see some photos of designs and the design process via Flickr here. Also see the other smaller mural video here.
Our grade 6s have finished their portrait painting unit. The unit changed slightly from last year as students had to distinguish among the various functions of portraiture and create their own expressive portrait in paint to explore issues with identity, culture or emotion. You can view the slideshow below or view directly via Flickr here.
I finally finished painting the mini-mural on our elementary library wall. I videotaped the process and created a time lapse video of 9 hours condensed into 2 minutes. If interested, check my previous posts on my sketchblog regarding the developments of the design. Now to start the larger one.
My grade 8s finished their unit on abstract art. This was a new unit and the first time taught. Our unit question was “What makes art attractive?” with our concept being “The principles and elements of art help us to create and evaluate art.” There are three groups within grade 8 and it was interesting to see how each group interpreted what abstract means. Meaning, I had almost one whole group focus on hard-edge only. Interesting. You can see what we did week by week here. I have embedded student work below via Flickr. I have also included some prac work photos in the set.
My grade 6s just finished their portrait paintings. This is an MYP unit where students distinguished amongst the various functions of portraiture and created their own expressive portrait in paint to explore issues with identity, culture or emotion. The above picture outlines the unit. Click it for a larger view. If interested, you can see the week by week breakdown of what we did here. The slideshow of student work is embedded below, or you can go here.
Here’s a short (41 seconds) time lapse video from one of our grade 11 IB Art students for her acrylic painting of a woman in a shower. Congrats Maria! (For some strange reason, Edublogs is not permitting me to embed the video, so you will have to click the link. Sorry.) You may click the picture below for a slightly enlarged version.
