Our first project of the year was inspired by two artists. Lotte Reiniger and Brittney Lee. Lotte Reiniger was a silhouette animation artist, and was a true pioneer of her time. She created the first, full length, stop animation film, predating Walt Disney by a decade. She used scissors and black paper to create her characters. Below is a Google Doodle celebrating her 117th birthday. An artist at Google made this short animation in the same style as Reiniger. If you're interested in learning more you can look at her Wikipedia page, and several of her films are available to view on YouTube. Here is video from behind the scenes of the Google Doodle animation. The second artist, Brittney Lee, is a character designer at Disney, and on the side does amazing paper cut art. I love her style and attention to detail. Her subject matter is whimsical and illustrative. Here is a link to her Instagram account, and another to her blog (it hasn't been updated in a few months, but it still has several years worth of her art work to look at). In all three classes we have started working on our own paper art. The middle school is currently reading the book The Outsiders, as a tie in to their Language Arts they will be doing an image based on a classic car. The elementary school kids got to pick their own subject. We spent last week sketching and working on a final image that will be used as a template for our finial project. Here is a little sneak peek at all paper we'll be using: Thanks for stopping by! Again, if you have any questions about how your student is doing, or if you'd simply like to chat about art you love, don't hesitate to find me after school or send me an email.
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We've had a great few weeks back at school! Here's what we've been up to in art! On the first day of art everyone received their new sketchbook for the year, we went over class rules, and drew on the covers of the sketch books. I love to start each year off with contour drawing. Contour drawing is, simply put, using lines to create an outline of an image. In practice, contour drawing is more about learning to look at what you're drawing, learning to notice as many details about your subject as possible. We did four exercises for our contour drawings. I brought in tree snail shells and everyone received one to draw. First, the kids took two minutes looking at their shells, trying to notice little details, patterns on the shell, etc. Next we started drawing, doing these activities: 1. Put the shell down, closed their eyes, and drew what they could remember about the shell. 2. Pick up the shell, close your eyes, and draw what you feel. 3. Blind contour drawing: look at your shell, but not at your paper. 4. Contour drawing, spend time looking at both your shell and your paper. After we did those four activities we discussed which ones the student's found easier/liked more/frustrated them. It was fun to hear what everyone thought of the exercises. There were several different answers, and it was fun to discuss why they liked one more than another. The third art class we spent time doing gesture drawing. Gesture drawing is about capturing the action, motion, and pose of a subject. If you google gesture drawing you'll often find drawings of people, but gesture drawing can be applied to inanimate objects as well. For the older groups I had a slide show of models, and in the younger elementary everyone took turns posing. (Gesture drawing of a ballerina) (Mr. Nick's class)
As we get started on the upcoming school year I wanted to share some rules and supplies I have for the kids when it's art time.
Miss Nadia's Art Rules
Each student from 1st-8th grade will receive their own sketchbook. This sketchbook is only used for art assignments. Almost all of the assignments will start in their sketchbook, and I use them to generate their grade each quarter. Several of the students love to draw in their free time, and I recommend that they bring a personal sketchbook/notebook for non art time. Modern Office supply usually has sketchbooks if you need to find one. We have a fairly well stocked art supply closet, but on occasion I may ask for families to help provide some materials (example: last year we made our sketchbooks, and each student brought in a cereal box to make the covers). A few things I always appreciate are old magazines for collage. If you have any, please let me know. I look forward to have a creative year with all the kids! |
AuthorArt teacher at Whispering Palms School on Saipan. I love getting my hands dirty and paint on my face. ArchivesCategories |