Category: Fall

Fall Still life

1/17/2018

This was one of those projects that had the chance of being great, but the final results were just okay. I have mentioned that when I moved to the middle school, I thought I would be leaving the tempera paint and crayons behind, trading up for acrylic and charcoal. I don't know why, but in my mind, those things were more sophisticated and suited to older students. This is the first and only acrylic painting project I have tackled so far.

I set up a still life made of up of fake leaves, fake sunflowers, fake fruit, with real pumpkins and gourds on every table. Students practiced drawing them, and then tried to 'zoom' in and draw a close up of some element of their still life on bigger 12X12 brown craft paper. We painted them still life pictures with acrylic paint....and we did not outline anything in sharpie. For that I am proud. I am guilty of black outlining everything. (a few kids wanted to and I let them, but it wasn't required)

We really focused on overlapping and value. Students would have to draw the textures in their sketches so they could paint them later.

This was also the year that a boy carved a pumkin and brought it to school for me! So thoughtful!!

Day 1
Look at a slide show about still life art. Focus on word: overlapping, hierarchy and proportion. Practice drawing the still life on the table in your sketchbook with a pencil. DO NOT move the objects. You could move around the table, but don't move anything, they need to be basically the same for each class. Once you have selected a view (I think we did several warm up sketches). Begin drawing it on 12x12 brown craft paper. Try to 'zoom' in on the objects so you don't have as much background to fill in later.
Day 2
We talked about color mixing to get a variety of tints, shades and types of oranges and greens. Students need to mix enough of the color that they need for the object they are painting, paying attention to shadows and highlights. Also, this is just the first layer, we will go back and add visual texture on top, once this dries.

Day 3-4
Adding shadows and visual texture. Also, finish painting the background. Watch this video on how to finish the still life. Early finishers can use 6X12 brown scraps to paint a fall painting, could be a sign or a free time just for fun since we have all this paint out.

Supplies
pencils and erasers
still life objects
12X12 brown craft paper
palletes
brushes
acrylic paint
water cups and paper towels

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Zentangle pumpkins

10/18/2016

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At the end of last semester, I taught my classes about zentangling with a zentangled animal silhouette project. It went really well and they LOVED using the pen and ink.

This semester, I knew I wanted to incorporate zentangling again. I ended up getting really sick and had to leave part of this project with a sub. Surprisingly, zentangles are pretty easy to leave with a sub---yay! But I did not have a chance to let them try out pen and ink. Boo.

Here is what I had posted on the board:

Here is what I left for my sub:

Today students will be drawing pumpkins! I set up a pumpkin still life by the red bulletin board, you can point it out if students need help visualizing how to draw pumpkins. (Early finishers could also sit at the white table and create a contour line drawing of the still life. I put felt tip markers and white paper on the white table just in case…..)
On a piece of white paper, students may choose a composition 2 or 3 pumpkins overlapping. You can demonstrate this on the board or point out my example. One of our vocabulary words is OVERLAP, so you might explain that it means that one object is in front of another object so that it is partially covering the one that is behind.
After drawing the pumpkins, students should add contour lines that start at the pumpkin’s stem and follow the curve of the surface of the pumpkins. Students can draw the pumpkins with pencil, and then trace in sharpie. If they mess up, make them use the back to retry, before giving them a new paper.
After drawing the outline, students can begin ZENTANGLING in each section of the surface of the pumpkin using SHARPIES. Students can use skinny sharpies for this step. A zentangle is a design made up of structured patterns. I have a packet for each student to look at for ideas and a couple of books with tons of zentangle ideas. If their designs are too simple, they can go in and add more CONTRAST or VARIETY to make them look more interesting. Students should work quietly, zen implies a quiet focus and should be calming and relaxing. (6th graders should not wander the room to talk to friends. I do let them get a pencil, ruler or a sharpie if they need those items, but they shouldn’t be at another table for no reason).
Make sure names are on their papers. Remind them not to use sharpie on the back for their names because this will show through to the front and mess up their drawing.
*Next time* we will color the background and attach to a frame. Students will also have a little more time to finish zentangling the pumpkins if they don’t finish today. 6th graders will probably do better with this because we did zentangling last year. I don’t want them to color the pumpkin, the plan is to leave it black and white, and only color the background so if you allow them to get out crayons/markers if they finish early, make sure they don’t color the pumpkin. I want to explain how to use secondary colors on the background.
Paper is 8X11 if you need to cut more.
Early finishers may either zentangle a bookmark or draw the still life at the white table.

When I got back from being sick, I explained how they could add more value to some of their mini optical illusions and to the edges of the pumpkins to make them look more round or 3-D. The ones that added the shading in pencil did a great job. I think I even spent a few minutes at the beginning of that class making a value scale in their sketchbooks and shading a sphere---just for practice!

I also stressed the importance of adding CONTRAST. I encouraged them to at least make a couple of their patterns BOLD like a checkerboard.

After zentangling, they were to color the background with SECONDARY colors. They could use a monochoromatic color scheme or a pattern, but I took all of the reds, pinks, yellows, grays, browns and etc. out of the crayon basket. Its amazing how beautiful the secondary colors are! I told them that I would keep yellow green, golden rod, red violet, and red orange in there to give them a variety of 'purples' 'oranges' and 'greens'. They also had to plan out what color they would use to 'matt' their artwork and they had to select a different shade of green, purple, and orange for their frames. They painted a design on the frame with black at a special painting station.

And a shoutout to the Tap and Glue caps I debuted on this project. It was the first time many of my students had used these caps. Some were elated! Some were perplexed. Regarless, I used half as much glue! And only a few mishaps for the ones who were absent the day I explained how to use them--who tried to take the top off and spilled glue EVERYWHERE.

If students finished early, I had them work at a drawing station. I set up a STILL LIFE of pumpkins and gourds. Once again, I did not let them draw with pencil first, and I was really happy with the results!

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Fall Still life

Zentangle pumpkins

Mrs. Mitchell

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