6th Grade Watercolor Tone Grids

The 6th grade has been experimenting with watercolor and how to mix tones, tints, and shades. With their mixed colors, the students are filling in a grid, using great patience and care. This lesson teaches the art students how to mix colors neatly and clearly as well as how to use fine motor control with their painting process. I love the outcome so far...and the students are SO focused!

6th Grade Color Wheels

Today the 6th grade began painting their own color wheels. This lesson is great because it shows students how the colors are placed on the color wheel as well as how to use fine control of their paint brushes in making two different values of one color.

We viewed a great video of an artist painting trees and how he used value [going from light to dark] to create depth in his painting. The students learned to make two value shades of a paint color today on their color wheel. They will use this skill of value painting to create depth in their own projects over and over again in the next few weeks as we continue our current unit; "Paint like a Pro!"

Andy Goldsworthy

Last Friday my students and I discussed the sculpture artist Andy Goldsworthy. He is British and works entirely with natural objects. We viewed a great video called Rivers and Tides that showed how Andy made his sculptures and also observed some of his work on his website. The students thought that his art was hard to make and tedious, but fun to look at. They loved the ice sculptures and the floating leaves the most.

One student made a great observation by saying that all of his art materials were free! [he just had to hunt them down and gathering them in nature]

Visuals of a 6th grade and 7th grade student reactions:



Sketchbook Update

My middle school students have been working so hard on their sketching! The first five minutes of every class is dedicated to sketching. It is either an observational sketch [something placed on their table to draw] or a challenge! Here are some of the students sketchbooks in progress.

Gesture & Figure Drawing

The 6th grade has been leanring about gesture drawing. On Thursday of last week, the students got to read about gesture drawing and then we able to model in front of the class and draw in that style. It was a lot of fun as we had students stand on a table and pose for 45 seconds in front of the class.

The 6th grade learned that gesture drawing is quick, has very little details, shows a body in a pose, and uses broad swift strokes. After practicing gesture drawing, the students then went on a magazine hunt. In the magazines the students had to find one figure in motion and cut it out. After they cut it out, they had to redraw the body in motion, using the gesture drawing skills they just practiced and then the value scales they learned to color in the bodies. The results have been awesome!