Teaching About Art Styles

I recently designed an assignment to help students understand the four different art styles of abstraction, expressionism, fantasy, and realism.  There are two different lessons, one for sixth grade and one for seventh grade but these ideas could be used for older students as well.  I think it really helped students truly understand the differences between the styles of art.  At my school we have the Davis art books by Katter and Stewart so we read about the different styles of art first and of course had some discussion about those differences.  I carried that discussion into the lesson.

My sixth grade students had to draw four small drawings (6x12 inch nice white paper) of their hand in the four styles of art.  To take the “edge” off of the concept of drawing their hand I had students trace one of their hands.  Students always seem to think they can’t “draw” a hand.  I then had students carefully observe and draw all of the details of their hand.  They then shaded these in with pencil or colored them with colored pencils.  This was their “realistic” hand.  After that I let them work on whichever hand they chose next.  They had to really think about each style of art and how they were going to be innovative, inventive, creative, and original.  Every day they worked on this assignment I repeated those words and explained how important it is to be creative in today’s world.  I gave students many different materials to choose from for this project.   When they turned in this project they had to mount it on either a long poster board with the four drawing shown one after another or with two on top and two on the bottom.  They also had to find ways to make their art project look like all of the drawings belonged together so that it looked unified.  Students had to write a reflection statement that was thoughtful about what they had learned, which style of art they enjoyed working in the most, and how they might change things in the future to make improvements to their artwork.

My students loved this assignment and seemed very proud of what they had accomplished.  Some were surprised that drawing a hand was easier than they thought it would be because of how they started the drawing.  Below are some of the examples of the sixth grade student artwork.  I’ll explain briefly the seventh grade project after that with more examples.  I also created a great rubric that I would include but I am having difficulty accessing it from my home computer.  The only difference between the sixth and seventh grade rubrics are the words “developing” and “emerging” as the rubrics are created based on the state of Michigan visual art standards for sixth and seventh grade.

The seventh grade did a similar assignment but it was more challenging.  I took a photo of each student.  I enlarged these so students could put them on a half sheet of paper.  My paper was precut and slightly larger than the 6x12, but 6x12 would work great.  I gave students carbon paper to share.  They traced the main lines of their photos with the carbon paper between their paper and their photo.  Once they had a simple carbon tracing they took those and drew over the lines adding additional details and color.  I know the carbon paper helped struggling students feel like they could accomplish this task.  Students were given many different art mediums to choose from to create their projects just like the sixth graders.  They were also encouraged daily to be innovative, inventive, creative, and original.  Here are some examples from my students.  These students had to also present them on poster board and write a thoughtful reflection statement.

Mind Map Self Portrait

Adam

As an art teacher I tend to remember my students by the artwork they create.  Last year I was trying to come up with an art project that would help me get to know my students quicker.  I developed what I decided to call a “Mind Map Self Portrait”.  It was a lot of fun for my students and I learned a lot about their interests.

 I had the students use a graphic organizer to map out their interests.  You could create your own and have them fill it in.  That’s what I did.  A great resource for this is Kathy Schrock’sGuide for Educators.  You can either create your own ideas or use one from the links she gives under graphic organizers.  The students then used the interests they brainstormed about to complete their self portrait.  I let them use metallic markers, colored pencils, pretty much any material that they were comfortable with for this project.  These were drawn on 9 x 12 inch paper.  Some students used dark construction paper so they could get some special effects.  They also were allowed to use an overhead projector if they wanted to have another student trace their profile.  I let them do this because some students feel less adequate at creating a self portrait.  When they created their self portrait the students had to find a way to implement many of the words they had come up with from their mind map.

My students were middle school aged but this assignment could be used from the very young to even high school students.  The students had fun figuring out how to make their self portrait meaningful and I had fun learning about my students.  As you start the new school year maybe this will help you get to know your students better!  Here are samples from my students.  They are fun to look at and they all are different!

Cleanna

Elle

Emily

Hannah

Junuhel

Kaylara

Lela

Sadie

Shae

More projects like these can be viewed on my link for Artsonia.

My 8th Grade Class Visiting the Kalamazoo Art Institute in May 2011

These are just a few pictures taken when my 8th grade class visited the Kalamazoo Institute of Art in May.  We had a great time as you can see.

Metaphorical Painting with Seventh Graders

I developed an unusual lesson plan this last spring while I was taking a course on creativity that I wanted to share here.  I’m not going to go into the details of the lesson as most art teachers can figure out how to develop a lesson like this once they see the final projects.  I’m trying to encourage my students to think deeper and more critically as they create their artwork.  In the lesson I developed, students had to create a painting that was essentially a self portrait metaphor.  Now that is a mouthful and there was much planning I had to do with my students to help them understand the concept.  By the time we finished most students had a pretty good idea of what the difference is between a simile and a metaphor.  My students also had to write about themselves as the metaphor.  These are some of the students’ paintings and written reflections.

This first picture was done by a young lady that I think is highly creative.  She created her self portrait where she became a storm.  This is what she wrote:

“I am strong and amazing.  I feed earth with my rains.  My excitement races through me with bright yellow flashes.  My winds blow through the grasses and shake the trees.  My laughter bellows out in loud clasping thunder.  No one can stop me, I go where I please.  I am wild and free just like the birds themselves.  I raise ocean waves to their highest peak and wash away the dirty earth.  I dance and clean and sway in the wind for what seems like forever, until finally my job is done and I slowly fade away.  My name is Demi and I am the storm.”

I was so intrigued by Demi’s response because she is a very quiet student.  However when she is in art class, she always makes a huge statement.  Her art statement always seems somewhat like a storm took over and put life into this very quiet young lady.  I really want to do more of these intense assignments in the future.  I think it forced my students to really think about how they could not only accomplish this assignment but make it very meaningful for them.  I know the students really enjoyed painting these projects.

Another student wrote this:

“I am wild like a lion.  I fly over the houses like an airplane.  Sometimes I am violent and sometimes I am peaceful.  I can make you chill and sometimes I can even make you freeze.  I am always here sometimes cold, warm or hot.  I am the wind.  I am Susana.”

Susana is an ESL student.  I loved the way she put her face up in the sky and created this lovely, whimsical scene.  She loved doing this project.  I think it was one of her favorites.  With the blue puffs in the sky the viewer can really see and feel that wind disrupting this simple, quiet scene.  I think that it is also a good way to describe Susana.  She is quiet and warm at times but when she’s mad at another student she lets them know it!

The next student gave another response that I think was rather insightful.

“I am bright like the sky.  I am deadly like cancer.  I come out by day and leave by night.  I am happy when others are happy.  I am angry when people are mean so I will turn around and burn you!  I am bright like the sky.  I am the sun.  I am Jada.”

Jada told me that she is a good friend but if you do something to upset her she will “burn” you.  She had so much fun painting this project in “her style”.  She loved making the statement and I know her favorite part was the bit about burning mean people.

I would never have come up with this assignment without learning about the metaphor strategy.  I had to work hard to come up with a strong concept to use in art class for this lesson.  I love the end result.  The artwork is so fun and reading the student’s responses was so compelling.  I know my students felt “pushed” with this assignment.  They were asked to do something that they hadn’t done before.  Many of them didn’t even really know what a metaphor was.  They had vague ideas from language arts class.  I think most of them now have a good idea after this lesson.  I truly think that when asked to look at famous artwork in the future, many of them will respond to what they see and try to make connections to what the artist might have been trying to say with symbolism and metaphor.  More can be viewed at our Artsonia link. 

If you are interested in working with metaphors with your students this video is a great place to start.