Students teaching students

I have an extremely talented student in my Adv. class.  The majority of my students are in awe of this young man's work, especially his pen and colored pencil drawings. 
I decided to let him give a demo to my Art 2 students and Adv. students one day last week.  He was extremely nervous at first, but once he got into the swing of things he did a great job.  The classes were very attentive to what he had to show and they are now applying what they learned to their own projects.
I hope to bring in former students into my classroom to give demos to my students.  I believe my former students are a great resource and my students will enjoy learning from them.
I will post the picture of the piece he was doing for the demo soon.

Imagination

I started with a completely different project this year, mostly out of necessity. There are many schedule changes in the beginning of the school year and there is no point in starting drawing lessons until the classes get settled. 
I decided to give a lesson on imagination to my Art 1 students.  I spoke to them about creativity and imagination then had them create the pieces pictured on top.  The kids created these lines using ink and straws, they then had to use their imaginations and look for images within the lines they had created. 
The first one is a wolf, the second is butterflies and the third is a bear (I photographed it before it was completed).  I believe the students enjoyed this project and gave them some time to relax before the real work began.
The last two are from my Art 2 kids and are part of the project that I wrote about in my last post.
My Adv. and AP kids are also hard at work, I will post some pictures soon, along with a door project that my art club is working on.
Have a good weekend.

Musical instruments

Our fine arts dept. was giving away damaged instruments this summer and I was lucky enough to pick up a few.  I decided to use them for the first assignment of the new school year.  School started last Monday and as the kids walked in, I instructed them to pick up an instrument and start drawing.   The kids are finishing up, some just need to add some finishing details.
The top two are oil pastel completed by Art 3 and 4 students and the bottom two are watercolor completed by Art 2 students. 
As soon as more are completed I will take pictures and post. 

wow

Wow, I can't believe it has been two months since I last posted, my apologies.  I have been enjoying my summer vacations, but I have been hard at work.  I have work in five galleries and so I take full advantage of my summer vacations to work hard at creating some new inventory.  I have a few more weeks to enjoy my vacations.  How about you, are you enjoying your summer?
As for the pictures, these are from a project I did last spring with my Art 2 kids.  They had to pick an artist or movement and create a book based on what they chose.  This is one of my favorite assignments.
See you soon.

Summer Vacations

Summer vacations began last week, but it seems that I am busier than ever.  My second oldest graduated high school on Fri. and we threw a party to celebrate.  It took a good two days to recover from the celebration.  On Mon. I took my newly graduated son to the university to get some paper work done, we spent the whole day running around. 
Today I gave a teacher workshop and attended another.  After the workshops I had to run to our central office in order to be recognized by our Super and Board of Directors for the acheivement of my student that won the Congressional Art Award (prior post).  We will be leaving to Wash. DC next week.  I'm a little nervous because I have never been to Washington DC and I will have to drive around a bit. 
As for the pictures that you are looking at,  I do this project every year at the end of the year. They are paper puppets and are created by Art 1 kids.  Everything you see is made out of paper, there are NO pen or pencil marks on the puppets. 
This is a great end of the year project and the kids enjoy making these puppets.  They get better and better every year.  I did this project when I was a middle school teacher and I remember it being a great hit with my middle school kids.
Have a safe and relaxing summer.

Several of my students finished their clay projects sooner than others.  I asked those students to create some clay busts.  I didn't give them any restrictions, I mostly wanted them to continue working while my other students completed their projects. 

The majority of them created super heroes, with the exception of two.  I decided to post these pictures, although they are in different stages of completion.

I just finished teaching my art 1 kids figure drawing.  I usually teach two different methods, but with only 2 weeks left, I decided to only teach one.  I believe the kids did a great job.  I especially like the creative ones. 

They are now working on paper puppets, hopefully this project will take the rest of the school year to complete.  My adv. kids are still working on clay (we are cutting it pretty short)  and my art 2 kids are making books. 

I can't believe how quickly this school year has flown.  I just hope my summer doesn't go by so fast.  I am already preparing canvases for the summer and designing some new jewelry pieces to work on.  I am hoping to sell my jewelry at various art festivals during the summer.  Oh man, I'm already planning for summer, I can't wait!