Elements of Art Photo Scavenger Hunt

Last year I gave my high school students several options for a project to review the Elements of Art. It ended up taking a long time so this year I turned it in to a one day group activity.  It was a safe bet that at least one student in each group would have a smart phone so they worked together to take one photo for each of the Elements of Art. My plan to have them turn in their work kind of fell apart with different devices not letting pictures go through on the school's system so I will have to work on that for next year. Overall, I think it was a fun and engaging way for the students to look for and think about Elements of Art. Here is a little collage of some of the photos I took when we were doing the activity.

Elements of Art

I think this was probably the longest I've gone without writing a blog post since I started teaching! As a PreK-12th grade art teacher/StuCo sponsor/Art Club sponsor/Jr Class/Prom Sponsor/Grad student/Wife and mom, it's been a little busy. I have been posting pictures more regularly on the Instagram account I made just for my school's art dept. so feel free to follow along there if you're interested in more regular glimpses- @JHArtClass.

The Elements of Art are not my favorite thing to teach. It's good to be able to use the vocabulary, but I don't like to spend a bunch of time on them in isolation. I wanted to do a quick review project at the beginning of the year for 8th grade and my graphics classes to get it out of the way.

8th grade students had to represent each of the Elements on a piece of paper using whichever supplies they wanted.

High school graphics students could use one piece of paper, make Artist Trading Cards, put together a photo collage, or come up with a different idea. Projects were graded on how well each theme was communicated, craftsmanship, and unity.

 Students were allowed to use their phones for photography.

This student used a collage app on her phone to put the photos together in one document.

This student printed off her photos as ATCs.

It was kind of a test to see how they did with a starting point and some choices but the project took a little longer than I wanted it to. Next year I may just do it in one day with a group photo challenge.