Walker Middle Magnet School Art: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

Mythical Creatures from 7th and 8th graders

Now that we are finally wrapping up our mythical creature sculptures, I can share more photos.
Students worked very hard on these and it shows.

Meet, The Pankey.

(Half panda, half monkey)

Here are more student creations:

The Pengcat

The Slizard

The Bunnyfly

Alfred the Elf

The Ravenox

Dusty, The Zebrulf

The Castwan

Rufus, The Pecosnalion

Can't wait to share more of these.

Excerpts from stories will be coming soon too.

Today's student comment of the day:

"Ms. Sawyer, I invented a new color, it's called Bob's Sunflower."

This is what I was shown.

I believe Bob's Sunflower is the one at bottom center, but not 100% on that.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Mythical Creatures (Works in Progress)

So far, a lot of the creatures students are sculpting are quite interesting.

Here is a little information about our process.

Of course, we started with a sketch. Planning is everything!

Next, we made an armature out of wire. I called this our skeleton.

Then, we bulked our creatures up with foil, paper, and tape. I called this the muscles.

After that, we covered them with paper mache. I called this our skin.

Students are still "putting the skin on", but many of the structures are impressive, especially for this being their first time sculpting in this way.

Preliminary sketch for student sculpture.

Basic sculpture, pre-sanding and painting.

Crazy for origami!

The students in my 3rd rotation of the elective wheel loved making origami cubes.

I promised them that near the end of our time together, I would allow them to make different sizes.

The cubes are created by making 6 sonobe units. We also learned how to make a pyramid called "Toshie's Jewel", made from 3 sonobe units.The kids went crazy making these in different sizes and colors.

See how our origami towers grew...

At the end of 2nd period.

By the middle of 3rd period.

And I think all the folding may have gotten to their heads. :)

Friday, October 14, 2011

...and so it begins

I had no idea what I started with the zombie/ dragon challenge.

Or that a unit on mythology would open the challenge flood gates.

In Art Appreciation this week, we began a unit on Greek Mythology this week. Students developed their own mythological creatures, create sculptures of them, and will write a short story.

In these stories, students will play the hero role, and their creatures will be their opponents. Somehow, I have become a popular character in some of these stories.

Some students are actually creating mini me's to put on their mythical creature sculptures.

We've just started, but I'm hearing some great ideas. Here is a "gift" students left for me on my demo table:

That is supposed to be me (made out of a kneaded eraser) riding the armature for one of my demo creatures.

I can't wait to see what the final sculptures are going to look like.

Thanks guys, for your humor and creativity.

You make teaching fun!

Friday, October 7, 2011

Color Wheels in Art Appreciation

This project was not only aimed at teaching students basic color theory, but also to get them thinking differently about the term diversity.

Diversity has been a common topic of discussion at Walker since we've adopted the theme of International Studies.

I found that, when talking about diversity, students were having a difficult time seeing diversity as anything but cultural. I thought having them create "diversity color wheels" would help them see that there are many types of diversity.

Diversity means variety, or assortment. Each student had to choose a theme and create a variety of designs based on a common theme.