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.

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.

 

8th Grade Animal Collages

Last fall was a doozy. Groups of students in and out of quarantine. My two older kids in school were both quarantined at different times so I taught remotely more than once. I had a large 8th grade class for the size of my room which made social distancing impossible though we did our best with sneeze guards, assigned seats, sanitization of tables, and individual supply bags. Students did a lot of drawing because I was never able to get an order of watercolor in and my trays were given to the high school students. Finally at the end of the semester we did a collage project, which the students finished while I was once again teaching remotely!

I found that students needed more structured choices than in previous years so we went with the theme of animals since everyone loves animals! This is the slides presentation I made to introduce collage and show different styles.

The students had a lot of different papers to utilize in their projects. There were construction paper and painted paper scraps, magazines, and a big stack of scrapbook paper that was donated. The scrapbook paper had lots of texture and patterns so it was a nice addition.

I was so pleased with how the animal collages turned out, and though I didn't get to interact with the students a lot while they were finishing up, I'm sure they had to be proud of their work too!

8th Grade Space- a Choice Based Art Lesson

 I have struggled this year with not being able to find a way to give my middle school class as much choice as I usually do. The class is big for my classroom so social distancing is tricky plus supplies I wanted for their personal art supply kits were back ordered so they’ve mostly used drawing media. I wanted to cover a topic while at least allowing them to choose their direction so after observing the need in their independenent drawings, I picked the concept of space! 

We did some warm up activities and skill builders like practicing one and two point linear perspective, a simple landscape with atmospheric perspective, and a design using negative space. When it was time to plan their project, students could choose from suggestions or come up with their own idea as long as they used space!

I needed to modify a lesson for a student so she directed what shapes she wanted and where she wanted them. I printed out the design on card stock so she could connect the edges to the vanishing point. 

7th Grade Art of Conservation

Every year my 7th grade class, which runs second semester, makes artwork for either the Jr Duck Stamp Program or the State Fish Art Contest. Both programs teach about conservation through art and pull in a lot of science. We are able to cover a lot of drawing skills as well and it tends to build confidence so I love starting with it. 

On the first day of the unit, I ask students to draw a duck/goose or a fish and I don’t give much more instruction than that. I tell students it is their pre-assessment so I don’t offer any help or advice other than “do your best”. It’s so much fun to look at the before and after for each student at the end of the unit. It’s not usually the same animal but you can still see so much growth!

Here are the finished artworks from last January! The situation will be a little different this year but I'm going to figure out how to make it work.

This drawing placed in the State Fish Art Contest last year!