April was poetry month, so 7th and 8th grade 2D students created and illustrated poems using old chapter book pages. They picked which words and phrases they wanted to use and “blacked out” the unused portions. Prior to, we discussed tone and mood and how both authors and artists can create moods within their work. Cross curricular coolness!
At Salina, we are literally in the shadow of the Ford Rouge plant. So when I saw this idea for construction paper “stones,” I immediately thought of Fordite, also known as Ford or Motor Agate.
Back when cars were spray painted by hand, overspray would accumulate on the skids used to hold up the car frames. This paint would build up and be baked repeatedly. When chunks of it were removed and polished, something awesome happened…
Cars are painted differently now, so authentic Fordite is in limited supply.
3D students mimicked this effect by gluing layers of construction paper together and sanding it once dry. A coat of Mod Podge was applied to protect the piece and add shine.
Some students chose to make a thicker “stone” and some chose a thinner look to turn into a pendant.
I loved this project:)
My first hour middle school students have been working with a variety of media as they discover and perfect their skills!
Pop art candy paintings emphasized design and composition.
We looked at how illuminated manuscripts were made and how important these special illustrations were to religious text. Here is one of our art show students with her illuminated letter R.
The paintings below are inspired by the Aboriginal dot paintings of Australia. Some of the paintings will be on display at Salina’s Diversity Night event next month.
Congratulations to our art show participants! Their work was selected to represent Salina in the district wide art show happening RIGHT NOW through May 12th at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center.
We also have some very talented middle school students at Salina! I can’t forget about them. Here are some of the projects 3D art has been working on.
Students learned a few basic folding techniques to create these paper reliefs. Some also came up with their own folds.
Next is one of our papier mache projects, oversized DONUTS! They were made with newspaper, acrylic paint, and a glossy varnish.
I would eat them all. No shame.
We have also worked with plaster strips to create masks.
Currently, we are working on construction paper pendants/stones. You wouldn’t believe they are made from paper. Check back for photos soon.
5th grade did some work with abstraction and color theory with these watercolor trees. They were inspired by Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian.
Before we started the tree paintings, we made a basic color wheel. Students mixed their primary (the circles) and secondary colors (the squares) together to create intermediate colors (the triangles).
When they painted their trees, they were reminded to use colors that “got along well.” Their color wheel helped with that task.
Though students used the same subject matter and technique, each tree was different and unique! Art is cool like that 😎
5th grade also looked to Wayne Thiebaud with this lesson on value. They needed to create a light, medium, and dark value with only their pencil for the outside of the cake.
For the inside of the cake, they chose one color along with black to create a value scale of their chosen color.
And finally, we run into Roy Lichtenstein again through the use of onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia words are ones that sound like the thing they are describing. Words like meow, boom, bang, zing, and quack!
Their word had to be done in block or bubble letters. Students were allowed to use whatever colors they wanted for this project. After 4th grades’ cityscapes, I did not want to see red, blue, and yellow for a while. Hehe.
I’m going to try to (briefly) catch you up on what each grade has been up to here at Salina. Let’s start with 4th grade!
These “watercolor” cupcakes were inspired by artist Wayne Thiebaud and his delicious looking paintings of cakes, pies, and other sweets.
We outlined our drawings with black permanent marker and then outlined on the inside of those lines with colorful waterbased markers. Students then used a wet paintbrush to paint over the colorful marker causing it to bleed and turn into paint!
It gives you a very cool painterly effect and magically adds value!
This next project focused on creating a cityscape and we used the work of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein to help us. We discussed what made a cityscape and how it was different from a previous project where we made a landscape. We only we able to use primary colors, replicating the comic book feel of Lichtenstein’s work. Each cityscape also had to include a sun in the style of the Lichtenstein painting below.
Lastly, students added the Benday dots that Lichtenstein was famous for using.
