These kids make me laugh :)  Happy Halloween!

Art 2 Painted Still Life

My Art 2 kids finally finished their paintings.  For this class I wanted them to experiment with their backgrounds.  I then wanted them to mix their own colors for their paintings, never taking paint straight out of the bottle.  Some of these kids had not been my students last year and had not been exposed to painting before.  I hope this project boosted their confidence. 
All of these paintings were done with acrylic.  Some of the backgrounds include:
Crayons with watercolors.
Never Dull on magazine
Shaving cream with watercolors.
Until next time.

Pen Shading

I think I have mentioned before that I just LOVE pen drawings.  I very rarely allow students to draw with a pencil.  In my years of teaching I have only allowed one student to create a portfolio with pencil drawings.  The concept of shading with a pen is difficult to grasp, but so worth the trouble of learning it.  Some students grasp the concept quite quickly. 
Even though this piece has a few issues, I believe this adv. student did a great job with her shading.
This is the first time I have this young lady in my class, she had been with another teacher and never did any drawings!  All she did was collage and paint (with very little direction) so now she is trying desperately to create some drawings for her portfolio.  Now I just need to put her creativity together with her new found ability. 

Painted Still Life

This is what my Art 2 students are creating.  Even though they were exposed (or should've been) to painting in Art 1, I like to assign them a still life painting to get them to pracitice their painting techniques.  I'd rather they come up with their own still life, but it is so difficult to get them to set up some good compositions on their own.  I set up this still life, but I didn't want them to all look the same, so I pushed them to create their own unique background.  If you look through my blog, you will find some "stills" that were created last year.  I didn't push them on backgrounds last year, but I was happy with the results.  I'm already thinking of how I am going to change this up next year.

So far I am pleased with their efforts, I do hope they come out well.

Pen and Ink Shoes

I give this sketchbook assignment every year to all my art classes, from beginning to adv.  There's nothing like shoes to help students learn how to draw.  The first two photos were made by two of my Art 1students and the last one is by an Adv. student. 

I only allow pen drawings in their sketchbooks, I just don't like pencil in those books, they begin to smear after a while, even after spraying.  OK, the real reason is because I don't think there is anything prettier than a pen drawing.

The top two drawings were done with a sumi brush and india ink.