Endangered Species Prints

This was a popular lesson with my 7th graders. They learned about Andy Warhol's Endangered Species prints and researched the Endangered Species Act before choosing a species that is currently threatened or endangered to focus their artwork. 

I uploaded the lesson plan and all the resources on the smARTteacher!

We used polyfoam plates and students engraved their designs with a wood stylus. They tried out printing with markers and with relief ink.

To print with markers, color directly on the foam plate, wet your drawing paper with a damp sponge, then place the paper damp side down on top of the plate and rub the back to transfer the image.

Next, the students used relief ink. They could do one color or multiple. The students got really in to printmaking! Some that finished their first prints early and became the class experts, helping others. They wanted to do printmaking the rest of the year!

The last part of the assignment was to create a display that had a photo of and facts about their animal, an artist statement, and their best print.

Elementary Fruit and Vegetable Art

 Some big news at our elementary school last spring was getting approval to start a garden! The students had researched and made a presentation to the school board and were raising money for supplies. I gave the students the option of making art to promote the garden in the last couple weeks of school. 

I encouraged the 5th graders to think of puns for garden produce...

For 4th graders I printed off pages from a public domain gardening book and they drew or painted on top, letting the text show through...

And 3rd graders were shown examples of collage

Almost every student chose to make something "to help the garden". I'm excited about the potential for observational drawings and maybe even making some outdoor art to go around the garden in the future!

7th Grade Weather Data Visualization

This unit was super fun and one that I would definitely do again! This spring I needed to structure my middle school classes a lot differently due to seeing the students every other day so I was basically coming up with all new lessons. I found out that they were going to be doing a weather unit in science and after a workshop on data visualization at the Virtual NAEA Convention it all came together!

We started by watching the Art Made of Storms TED Talk by artist Nathalie Miebach and discussed how she turned different points of data into visual elements. The students brainstormed and selected two different pieces of weather-related data they could collect based on their observations of our weather over the month of April. I gave them a few minutes at the beginning of each class to track their data.

In May, the students explored more artists whose work visualizes data and came up with a plan for a work of art. Their artwork was only limited to available materials in the classroom or from home. It was really fun to see all the different solutions

This student tracked the temperature and her mood

 then made the piece below.

This student used the transparency of the paint to express one of her data points.

The color of each ring on the shirt represents the temperature range.

 

Mixed Media & Digital Postage Stamp Artwork

Here's another lesson that is planned for half hands-on in my classroom and half computer-based when the students were in another room. This would work for a hybrid situation!

The students all got the same basic information to start with- the history of postage stamps and videos about the art and design of stamps. 

Next, the students in my classroom chose one or more vintage postage stamps and came up with an idea for how to incorporate them into a work of art! Any two-dimensional media was allowed and a lot of students tried new processes. Some also incorporated vintage photos that I saved from a dumpster.

Here are some photos of the hands-on artwork!

Here is some of the digital artwork: