Stuffed Animal Mascots
Students designed and created these cute stuffed animals, or Mascots as we call them, because they are good luck charms! Students learned how to sew by hand, including the running stitch and oversewing stitch.
Gridded Drawings
Students worked to apply all of their drawing skills learned in this project. They learned about photo-realist painter Chuck Close who uses grids to create hyper-realistic artworks. Students took a photograph and gridded it and their drawing paper and copied the photograph square by square. They did a wonderful job and greatly improved their drawing skills!
Davis Middle School
Grizzell Middle School
Awesome job 7th grade!!!!
Clay Mugs
Students chose a theme and used clay to create these creative mugs!
Awesome work 7th grade!
Stuffed Animals
Students designed and created these cute stuffed animals, or Mascots as we call them, because they are good luck charms! Students learned how to sew by hand, including the running stitch and oversewing stitch.
Artist Trading Cards
Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are miniature artworks done on paper the size of playing cards and are traded when finished. You can do anything you want on an ATC including drawing, painting, collage (cutting up paper or magazines and gluing the pieces down in a different way). We worked on using different watercolor techniques and using creativity!
Nicely done 7th grade!!
Gridded Drawings
Students worked to apply all of their drawing skills learned in this project. They learned about photo-realist painter Chuck Close who uses grids to create hyper-realistic artworks. Students took a photograph (seen in post below) and gridded it and their drawing paper and copied the photograph square by square. They did a wonderful job and greatly improved their drawing skills!
Zentangle on Marbled Paper
Students learned about Japanese Paper Marbling and made several beautiful pieces of marbled paper (Suminagashi) using liquid watercolor paint and shaving cream. Students then made Zentangles on their paper. Zentangle is a fun and relaxing way to draw using lines, shapes, and patterns that increases, focus, creativity, and dexterity.
Clay Sandwiches
Students were Very creative with this project where they made a sandwich of some kind and gave it a personality. Also, the top bun comes off to expose a secret box in the middle!
Awesome job, these were Super creative, fun, and cute!!
Stuffed Animals
Great job!!!!
Self-Portraits
This project serves as a great opportunity for the students to really get creative and express themselves. The drawing and painting shows the student's interests and personality and showcases exaggerated and original drawings as well as watercolor techniques. Very fun project!
Awesome job!!
Artist Trading Cards
Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are miniature artworks done on paper the size of playing cards and are traded when finished. You can do anything you want on an ATC including drawing, painting, collage (cutting up paper or magazines and gluing the pieces down in a different way). We worked on using different watercolor techniques and using creativity!
Gridded Drawings
Students worked to apply all of their drawing skills learned in this project. They learned about photo-realist painter Chuck Close who uses grids to create hyper-realistic artworks. Students took a photograph (seen in post below) and gridded it and their drawing paper and copied the photograph square by square. They did a wonderful job and greatly improved their drawing skills!
Awesome Job 7th grade!!! Your hard work and attention to detail paid off!
See student photographs below!
1. Composition
Composition involves bringing all your drawing skills together and decided where to place things in your artwork. To practice this, students brought in an object to photograph. They learned about the Rule of Thirds, Balance (Symmetry and Asymmetry), Lighting, and Point of view and how they can be used to take a good photograph. Students then created a grid on the printed photo and on a piece of drawing paper and drew their photograph.
Balance
The Rule of Thirds
Air Jordan!
Save the city!
A plain background helps the object become the main focus
Zentangle on Marbled Paper
Students learned about Japanese Paper Marbling and made several beautiful pieces of marbled paper (Suminagashi) using liquid watercolor paint and shaving cream. Students then made Zentangles on their paper. Zentangle is a fun and relaxing way to draw using lines, shapes, and patterns that increases, focus, creativity, and dexterity.
Cake Making
For this project, students worked together in groups to create a cake that embodies Davis Middle School Pride. They worked together to come up with the design concept as well as used buttercream icing, fondant icing, and food coloring to create these awesome and delicious cakes!
Mr. Howe- our Fergus mascot at school!
Yes, of Course we ate them! :)
Clay Sandwiches
Students were Very creative with this project where they made a sandwich of some kind and gave it a personality. Also, the top bun comes off to expose a secret box in the middle!
A Christmas Burger!
Very creative!! Awesome job!
OP Art- Optical Illusions
Students learned about the art movement that started in the 1960’s called Op Art. Op Art is a style that uses geometric forms (shapes) and color contrast (opposite colors) to create the illusion of movement or 3-D space. The students practiced making many optical illusions and selected their favorite design for their final artwork. They did a wonderful job using creativity, good balance, composition, and craftsmanship in their artworks.
Stuffed Animals
Students designed and created these cute stuffed animals, or Mascots as we call them, because they are good luck charms! Students learned how to sew by hand, including the running stitch and oversewing stitch.
Self-Portraits
This project serves as a great opportunity for the students to really get creative and express themselves. The drawing and painting shows the student's interests and personality and showcases exaggerated and original drawings as well as watercolor techniques. Very fun project!
Awesome job 7th grade!
Artist Trading Cards
Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are miniature artworks done on paper the size of playing cards and are traded when finished. You can do anything you want on an ATC including drawing, painting, collage (cutting up paper or magazines and gluing the pieces down in a different way). We worked on using different watercolor techniques and using creativity!
Awesome job 7th Graders! Very creative and fun!
Gridded Drawings
Students designed and created these cute stuffed animals, or Mascots as we call them, because they are good luck charms! Students learned how to sew by hand, including the running stitch and oversewing stitch.
Very cute and well done!!!
Gridded Drawings
Students worked to apply all of their drawing skills learned in this project. They learned about photo-realist painter Chuck Close who uses grids to create hyper-realistic artworks. Students took a photograph and gridded it and their drawing paper and copied the photograph square by square. They did a wonderful job and greatly improved their drawing skills!
Davis Middle School
Grizzell Middle School
Awesome job 7th grade!!!!
Clay Mugs
Students chose a theme and used clay to create these creative mugs!
Ugg Mug
Triplet Mugs
Minecraft Mug
Awesome work 7th grade!
Stuffed Animals
Students designed and created these cute stuffed animals, or Mascots as we call them, because they are good luck charms! Students learned how to sew by hand, including the running stitch and oversewing stitch.
Awesome job 7th grade!!
Artist Trading Cards
Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are miniature artworks done on paper the size of playing cards and are traded when finished. You can do anything you want on an ATC including drawing, painting, collage (cutting up paper or magazines and gluing the pieces down in a different way). We worked on using different watercolor techniques and using creativity!
Nicely done 7th grade!!
Gridded Drawings
Students worked to apply all of their drawing skills learned in this project. They learned about photo-realist painter Chuck Close who uses grids to create hyper-realistic artworks. Students took a photograph (seen in post below) and gridded it and their drawing paper and copied the photograph square by square. They did a wonderful job and greatly improved their drawing skills!
I swear these drawings were done by 7th graders!
Pretty awesome, huh? Great job 7th grade!!
Zentangle on Marbled Paper
Students learned about Japanese Paper Marbling and made several beautiful pieces of marbled paper (Suminagashi) using liquid watercolor paint and shaving cream. Students then made Zentangles on their paper. Zentangle is a fun and relaxing way to draw using lines, shapes, and patterns that increases, focus, creativity, and dexterity.
Some students chose to draw their Zentangle on white paper and color it in- very creative!
Other students decided to combine their marbled papers to create really striking artworks!
Very creative! Fantastic work 7th grade!!
Cultivating Creativity
Cre8
WHAT IS CREATIVITY?
Creativity is the ability to think and act in ways that are new and novel. There are two basic kinds of creativity, innovation and invention. Innovation is thinking creatively about something that already exists (e.g., the tape recorder, Walkman, and CD player are all innovations on the phonograph). Invention is creating something that did not exist before (e.g. the phonograph).
WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE CREATIVE?
- Creativity is an important 21st century skill. Studies show that students of the arts in all disciplines outperformed their non-arts peers on the SAT by 91 points in 2009 (Caperton, 2010).
- "A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the number one “leadership competency” of the future" (Bronson & Merryman, 2010).
- Many employers want employees who are creative and can see connections, have bright ideas, are innovative, communicate and work well with others and are able to solve problems ("National curriculum," 2009).
HOW CAN I BECOME MORE CREATIVE?
To be innovative and inventive (creative) requires divergent thinking (i.e. generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (i.e. combining those ideas into the best result). There are four categories of divergent thinking when brainstorming and problem solving:
- fluency (i.e. generating a quantity of ideas or solutions)
- originality (i.e. generating ideas that are statistically unusual-less than 5% of the population),
- flexibility (i.e. abandoning old ways of thinking and using a variety of categories to create a new schema or use for an object)
- elaboration (i.e. adding details in order to expand upon an idea) (Sanchez, 2011; Woolfolk, 1998).
Challenge yourself regularly to brainstorm solutions for problems or new ideas. Examine your brainstorm for the four above categories of divergent thinking. Identify your strong and weak areas and practice, practice, practice!
Here are some exercises you can do to practice:
- Fluency- List all the things you can think of that are blue or have the word “blue” in them. (for ex: blueberry, sky)
- Originality- Design the ultimate school desk.
- Flexibility- What are other uses for a paperclip?
- Elaboration- Add details on to the letter “B” so that it is part of a larger picture.
One way students practiced this in class is by selecting 2 artworks of their choice and then creating an original image inspired by the artworks they selected. They also wrote a reflection of their work to describe their thought process:
Clay Sandwiches
Students were Very creative with this project where they made a sandwich of some kind and gave it a personality. Also, the top bun comes off to expose a secret box in the middle!
Ninja Themed Sandwich!
Stuffed Animals
Students designed and created these cute stuffed animals, or Mascots as we call them, because they are good luck charms! Students learned how to sew by hand, including the running stitch and oversewing stitch.
Great job!!!!
Self-Portraits
This project serves as a great opportunity for the students to really get creative and express themselves. The drawing and painting shows the student's interests and personality and showcases exaggerated and original drawings as well as watercolor techniques. Very fun project!
Artist Trading Cards
Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are miniature artworks done on paper the size of playing cards and are traded when finished. You can do anything you want on an ATC including drawing, painting, collage (cutting up paper or magazines and gluing the pieces down in a different way). We worked on using different watercolor techniques and using creativity!
Awesome Job!!
Gridded Drawings
Students worked to apply all of their drawing skills learned in this project. They learned about photo-realist painter Chuck Close who uses grids to create hyper-realistic artworks. Students took a photograph (seen in post below) and gridded it and their drawing paper and copied the photograph square by square. They did a wonderful job and greatly improved their drawing skills!
Air Jordan
See student photographs below!
1. Composition
Composition involves bringing all your drawing skills together and decided where to place things in your artwork. To practice this, students brought in an object to photograph. They learned about the Rule of Thirds, Balance (Symmetry and Asymmetry), Lighting, and Point of view and how they can be used to take a good photograph. Students then created a grid on the printed photo and on a piece of drawing paper and drew their photograph.
Balance
The Rule of Thirds
If
you place your point of interest where these lines intersect (the green dots)
your image will be more pleasing to the eye and create a better point of
interest for the viewer.
2. Point of View
Air Jordan!
Save the city!
3. The Background
Basketball Player through and through!
A plain background helps the object become the main focus
4. Lighting
Watching the sunset together
Angelic Bear
Awesome Job 7th grade!!!
The 5 Skills of Drawing
Before and After Instruction Drawings- Awesome Improvement!
1. The Perception of Edges: EX: Line and Contour Drawings and Upside-Down Drawings
Tip for Drawing Edges: Lightly draw the basic shapes first, then go back and trace the lines of the object with your eye and simultaneously draw the detailed lines to make up the subject, using the basic shapes as guidelines to ensure you have the correct proportion.
Drawing things upside-down is a great exercise for training the eye. You take a picture, put it upside-down and draw what you see upside-down also. This helps you stop thinking about the object you are trying to draw and instead helps you to look more at line, scale, and proportion. Instead of thinking "I'm drawing a horse", you should think "I'm drawing lines," and you'll end up with a really nice drawing!
Blind Contour Drawing/Semi-Blind Contour Drawing
Blind-Contour drawing is where you look only at the 3D object you are drawing and not at all at your paper. You slowly trace the edges of the object with your eye and simultaneously draw with your pencil using one continuous line. These drawings are quick- 30 seconds-2 minutes- and are a great drawing warm-up! It helps you to really see the object you are drawing, improves hand-eye coordination, and will help you draw what you see!
2. The Perception of Spaces: EX: Gesture Drawings, Positive and Negative Spaces and distances between lines
Gesture drawings are quick and scribbly. They capture basic shapes and help the artist ensure correct size and proportion for further drawing.
Gesture Drawing
Students used Gesture drawing as the first step and base for a more detailed drawing. They used a light colored pencil to do their gesture drawing. Second, they went in with a medium colored pencil to define the correct shape and do a tight sketch of their drawing object. Finally, they used a dark colored pencil to draw the detailed contour (or edge) of the object.
Tips for drawing Positive and Negative Spaces: Examine the Negative Space (space around the drawing subject) just as much as you examine the Positive Space (the drawing subject). "Size" both the positive and negative shapes to help ensure correct proportion.
What do you see? A vase (black) or 2 facial profiles looking at each other (white)?
Examining Positive Space (the subject) and Negative Space (the space around the subject) can help you draw accurate lines, shapes, and have correct proportion and perspective of an object.
3. The Perception of Relationships: EX: Proportion (sizes) & Perspective (angles)
Tips for Proportion: Use your pencil to "size" the objects you are drawing. Hold your arm out straight and measure form the top of your pencil with your thumb. Then check the size of your drawing to make sure everything drawn is the correct size.
These are students Pre-Instructional and Post-Instructional Drawings of the hallway. Students learned how to "size" with their pencils (which helps with drawing things in proportion) and how to draw in One-Point Perspective (which helps with drawing angles and showing depth in a drawing). Huge improvement, huh?
4. The Perception of Lights and Shadows: EX: Shading
Tips for Shading:
- Shade the object in the same direction as the outside line of the form to help make the object look more 3D.
- Squint your eyes at the object and your drawing, make sure your drawing shows about 5 values and your shading is gradual and blends well.
- Squint your eyes at the object and your paper to make sure the location of the shadows and highlights are correct.
- Black and white should be used sparingly only for the darkest values and the smallest brightest highlights.
Students did value scales where they practiced gradual shading from black to white. They learned how to use a light source in their drawings and practiced shading using a light source.
5. The Perception of Composition: EX: 3D object to a 2D drawing
Composition involves bringing all your drawing skills together and decided where to place things in your artwork. To practice this, students brought in an object to photograph. They learned about the Rule of Thirds, Balance (Symmetry and Asymmetry), Lighting, and Point of view and how they can be used to take a good photograph. Students then created a grid on the printed photo and on a piece of drawing paper and drew their photograph.
Using the Rule of Thirds is often a great way to set up a composition for any type of artwork. Simply place the main point of interest at any of the green dots or along the red lines to create an image that is pleasing to the eye.
See more about this in the "Photography" Post.
Zentangle on Marbled Paper
Students learned about Japanese Paper Marbling and made several beautiful pieces of marbled paper (Suminagashi) using liquid watercolor paint and shaving cream. Students then made Zentangles on their paper. Zentangle is a fun and relaxing way to draw using lines, shapes, and patterns that increases, focus, creativity, and dexterity.
Great work 7th grade!
Cake Making
For this project, students worked together in groups to create a cake that embodies Davis Middle School Pride. They worked together to come up with the design concept as well as used buttercream icing, fondant icing, and food coloring to create these awesome and delicious cakes!
Clay Sandwiches
Students were Very creative with this project where they made a sandwich of some kind and gave it a personality. Also, the top bun comes off to expose a secret box in the middle!
Love the french fry dipped in ketchup on the left
**No dogs were harmed in the making of this burger
A Christmas Burger!
onion ring eyes!
Very creative!! Awesome job!
OP Art- Optical Illusions
Students learned about the art movement that started in the 1960’s called Op Art. Op Art is a style that uses geometric forms (shapes) and color contrast (opposite colors) to create the illusion of movement or 3-D space. The students practiced making many optical illusions and selected their favorite design for their final artwork. They did a wonderful job using creativity, good balance, composition, and craftsmanship in their artworks.
Awesome Job!!
Stuffed Animals
Students designed and created these cute stuffed animals, or Mascots as we call them, because they are good luck charms! Students learned how to sew by hand, including the running stitch and oversewing stitch.
"I loved this project because I found even more ways to show who I am!"
"I loved this project because I love fabric, being creative, and I love, love, Love Stuffed Animals!"
So cute! Great job!!
Self-Portraits
This project serves as a great opportunity for the students to really get creative and express themselves. The drawing and painting shows the student's interests and personality and showcases exaggerated and original drawings as well as watercolor techniques. Very fun project!
"I enjoyed this assignment because it taught me painting techniques and it taught me to express myself through painting. I loved learning to use stencils to enhance my artwork."
Artist Trading Cards
Artist Trading Cards (ATC) are miniature artworks done on paper the size of playing cards and are traded when finished. You can do anything you want on an ATC including drawing, painting, collage (cutting up paper or magazines and gluing the pieces down in a different way). We worked on using different watercolor techniques and using creativity!
Anti-Pollution Card
Gridded Drawings
For this project, students
learned about photo-realist painter Chuck Close who uses grids to create hyper-realistic artworks. Students selected a photograph and gridded it and their drawing paper and copied the photograph square by square. They did a wonderful job and greatly improved
their drawing skills!
Awesome job 7th grade!!
Beanie Baby Comics
For this assignment, students applied their drawing skills and drew and shaded what they saw. They chose and set up the beanie babies to create these hilarious comics! See the post below "The 5 Skills of Drawing" to see the specific skills they learned. Click on the comics to make them larger.
 |
| This one Cracks me up!! Click on it to see it larger |
The 5 Skills of Drawing
1. The Perception of Edges: EX: Upside-Down Drawings, Line and Contour Drawings
Tip for Drawing Edges: Lightly draw the basic shapes first, then go back and trace the lines of the object with your eye and simultaneously draw the detailed lines to make up the subject, using the basic shapes as guidelines to ensure you have the correct proportion.
Drawing things upside-down is a great exercise for training the eye. You take a picture, put it upside-down and draw what you see upside-down also. This helps you stop thinking about the object you are trying to draw and instead helps you to look more at line, scale, and proportion. Instead of thinking "I'm drawing a horse", you should think "I'm drawing lines," and you'll end up with a really nice drawing!
Blind Contour Drawing/Semi-Blind Contour Drawing
Blind-Contour drawing is where you look only at the 3D object you are drawing and not at all at your paper. You slowly trace the edges of the object with your eye and simultaneously draw with your pencil using one continuous line. These drawings are quick- 30 seconds-2 minutes- and are a great drawing warm-up! It helps you to really see the object you are drawing, improves hand-eye coordination, and will help you draw what you see!
2. The Perception of Spaces: EX: Positive and Negative Spaces and distances between lines
Tips for drawing Positive and Negative Spaces: Examine the Negative Space (space around the drawing subject) just as much as you examine the Positive Space (the drawing subject). "Size" both the positive and negative shapes to help ensure correct proportion.
What do you see? A vase (black) or 2 facial profiles looking at each other (white)?
Examining Positive Space (the subject) and Negative Space (the space around the subject) can help you draw accurate lines, shapes, and have correct proportion and perspective of an object.
3. The Perception of Relationships: EX: Proportion (sizes) & Perspective (angles)
Tips for Proportion: Use your pencil to "size" the objects you are drawing. Hold your arm out straight and measure form the top of your pencil with your thumb. Then check the size of your drawing to make sure everything drawn is the correct size.
These are students Pre-Instructional and Post-Instructional Drawings of the hallway. Students learned how to "size" with their pencils (which helps with drawing things in proportion) and how to draw in One-Point Perspective (which helps with drawing angles and showing depth in a drawing). Huge improvement, huh?
4. The Perception of Lights and Shadows: EX: Shading
Tips for Shading:
- Shade the object in the same direction as the outside line of the form to help make the object look more 3D.
- Squint your eyes at the object and your drawing, make sure your drawing shows about 5 values and your shading is gradual and blends well.
- Squint your eyes at the object and your paper to make sure the location of the shadows and highlights are correct.
- Black and white should be used sparingly only for the darkest values and the smallest brightest highlights.
Students did value scales where they practiced gradual shading from black to white. They learned how to use a light source in their drawings and practiced shading using a light source.
5. The Perception of Gestalt (or Wholeness): EX: 3D object to a 2D drawing
Gestalt involves bringing all your drawing skills together. To practice this, I acted as a model for the students and they drew me for exercise in gesture drawing and body proportion. Students drew mannequin heads as an exercise in facial proportion and gestalt.
Photos of comics and gridded drawings above!
Paper Marbling & Zentangle
Paper Marbling & Zentangle
Students learned about Japanese Paper Marbling and made several beautiful pieces of marbled paper (Suminagashi) using liquid watercolor paint and shaving cream. Students then made Zentangles on their paper. Zentangle is a fun and relaxing way to draw using lines, shapes, and patterns that increases, focus, creativity, and dexterity.
We also made Origami, Love this penguin family!
Awesome job 7th grade!!!
Clay Piggy Banks
Surrealist Landscape Paintings
Students studied Surrealism, an art movement from the 1920's where artists used the element of surprise and unexpected combinations to create dream-like artworks. Students chose their own landscape to paint and added unexpected elements to create these Surrealist Landscapes.
Paint a Song
Each student selected a song and expressed that song through painting. Students listened to their songs and brainstormed, thinking of colors, images, moods, memories, and other things associated with the song. They used a lot of creativity in making these artworks while enhancing their painting skills. They did a wonderful job with this project!
Song: "Music Box" by Regina Spektor
Song: "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z
Each student selected a song and expressed that song through painting. Students listened to their songs and brainstormed, thinking of colors, images, moods, memories, and other things associated with the song. They used a lot of creativity in making these artworks while enhancing their painting skills. They did a wonderful job with this project!
Song: "Music Box" by Regina Spektor
Song: "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z
Song: "Put Your Records On" by Corrine Bailey
Gorgeous Gridded Self-Portraits
Cake Wars!
Each student studied an artist from the art movement, then they worked as a group to make a cake that represented their artists and the art movement!
Surrealist artists studied: Salvador Dali, M.C. Escher, Marc Chagall, and Rene Magritte
Impressionist artists studied: Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas
Cubist artists studied: Pablo Picasso, Georges "Barbeque" Braque, Juan Gris
Op Art artists studied: Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuszkiewicz, and Yaacov Agam
Pop Art artists studied: Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenburg
Cake inspired artwork done by the artist Jackson Pollock
Kids eating their cake at the end of the week- Yum.
Comics
Double click on the image to make it bigger so you can read it and appreciate the Beautiful drawings and colored pencil skills
How fun are these!
Radial Designs
Still LIfe Drawing
They did an Excellent job apply their drawing skills on this still life!
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