pastel sunflowers 7/8 grades

 i saw this lesson on pinterest here and fell in love with it,

i began with a van gogh powerpoint on the smartboard.

we had our art talk about movement - shading - contrast - mediums - layers - overlapping

here's whar we did:
1) i gave my artists white paper and a pencil - yup you got it - more practicing! we discovered by sketching sunflower images from the board what was 'in front' and what was 'in back' and showed how shading enhanced the movement illusion we were going for

2) i chose the color of paper - and handed out all the colors of pastels to every artist plus - a soft pencil

artists drew LIGHTLY  - we know from previous experience erasing on this art paper isn't desirable.

2) there were no directions given to the 7/8th graders - some creative license is sooooo encouraged and the variety and uniqueness was rampant!

again - a nice example for how just as we are the best art and unique (our theme for the year) so was each one's art!

your vote matters!

 YOUR VOTE MATTERS!
so when november came around we voted on everything!
favorite color, favorite medium, and the ever popular 'IS IT ART?'
here's what we did:
every week for 6 weeks a new subject was up for voting.
i had no idea it would be such a hit!
i believe young artists need to have ownership in their art and art room room and as much as possible and have say in the direction of the art lessons.
for example:' what is your favorite color ' vote resulted in a future watercolor lesson they picked. some of course had the option to do their favorite with the exception of black!

other voting asked questions looked like these 2 votes.
my intent for these was to being the dialogue on self evaluation and looking at our self perception.

if my year theme (i have super powers and i am the best art) has any teeth in it - one of the discussions has to be - about if you think you are  a good artist - great and probably the most valuable art talk we have had - and led to problem solving (my soap box) about what to do to 'fix' art you may not like. another one of my blog posts talks more about this here

do you vote in your art room?

what's your superpower?

what's your superpower?
my theme for the year is 'you are unique, valuable and the best art ever!'
to kick this off i did this lesson at the beginning of the year with the whole school! it took waaaay to long - 3 classes for some but the results were spectacular!
what we did:
1) we started a conversation about superpowers. i started with me and it went something like this...
i know my superpowers because they are something i love to do - like art - something someone else like a friend, teacher, mom or sister has told me about me - funny, kind, good at math.

2) we had to do it BIG and 'fill the space' - challenging because often kiddos want to make everything tiiiinyyy....so we practiced filling a 5X7 with a head and torso shapes.

3) artists were only allowed primaries black and white - i use tempera cakes and the kids dug it! we practiced blending all kinds of colors and of course skin colors were the most challenging!

 4) while we waited between drying times it was important to have one of our 'art talks' which is to discuss and storm our brains for superpowers - REAL ones - not what we want but what we already are. That conversation was absolutely worth the extra time...such kind and funny exchanges.

 5) then we got out the sharpies - always a favorite - and wrote the out on white thick paper copying from our storm list.

 6) and when they were finished...oh my! so much color - so much joy - and superpowers!

do you have superpowers? tell me!