Sculptures inspired by Alberto Giacometti

6th grade wheel students recently learned about Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966). Although Giacometti was a brilliant artist in painting, printmaking, and drawing, we focused on his sculptures. Here are two examples of bronze sculptures created by Giacometti:

 

Students began this project with a sessions of gesture drawing.
We had students model for a few minutes at a time while the class captured their pose. This exercise helped students think about the poses they wanted their figure sculptures to be in.
The sculpture process started with a wire armature, then they were "bulked up" with foil, then coated with paper mache.
To make them look a little more like bronze, students applied metallic paint with a dry brush.

Landmark postcard prints

6th grade wheel students just completed their printmaking projects. 

Each student had to chose one of various international landmarks and create a block print postcard for it.

Students used reference images to create detailed drawings of their chosen landmark. 

The images were then transferred to their printing plate, carved out, then prints were made. 

Students were given a wide range of paper and ink color choices and were given the opportunity to print as many as they cared to. 

They had a blast with this project.

This is just a the preliminary drawing. Incredible, and only in 6th grade!

A modern take on Greek pottery design

Students in Art Appreciation created designs based on Greek pottery.
We discussed images traditionally portrayed on Greek pottery.
Students had three options on this project:
1) Create a design that depicted a scene from Greek mythology
2) Create a design based on a scene from they own lives
3) Create a design based on a popular story from their own time/culture
Watercolors and ink were used to complete their pieces.
Students had the option of creating their pieces using with black or red-figure pottery as their source of color inspiration.

red-figure

black-figure

Here are a few great student examples:

Scene from an Albanian children's book.

Cover from Albanian storybook.

Scene from student's life.

Three Little Pigs, Greek style.

Squidward the Greek.

A traditional approach. Beautifully done!

Monster's Inc. 

A personal story of a soccer game mishap.

Creative ways of surviving the FCAT in the Art Room

During FCAT week, I taught some students how to play my favorite game...dominoes. 

This is the way I like to see dominoes used, the traditional way.

It was inevitable that they would be used in other ways. 

As promised, I am finally posting this magnificent domino knock-down video.

Good job guys!