The 7th and 8th graders have been creating 1 point perspective drawings. Working from a small photocopied part of a room, they had to find the vanishing point, and then create the walls of the room. They were required to add at least 4 new elements to the room drawn in perspective, but most students added much more than that! As a bonus, some students are now learning the basics of 2 point perspective. Here are some finished 8th grade work:
Can you find the vanishing points?
The 7th and 8th graders are finishing up flipbooks and stop-motion animation movies. Some of the flipbooks have been recorded, and I uploaded them to vimeo.com. Please visit vimeo.com/morseart to see them. When the stop-motion movies are edited, they will go up there as well. Check it out!
Some 7th graders at work, drawing for the stop-motion movie:
The 8th graders just finished their pen&ink shoe drawings, which came out wonderfully! They first learned and practiced 5 basic techniques for shading with pen&ink: hatching, cross hatching, stippling, contour lines, and scribbling. After making an observational drawing of a sneaker, the shading techniques had to be applied into the shoes. Light, medium, and dark values were encouraged for complete drawings. Inspiration was drawn from MC Escher’s pencil drawings, and from David Macaulay‘s fantastically illustrated books: City; Castle; Mill; Cathedral; etc.
The 8th graders came during their Social Studies classes to create a personal Coat of Arms. Each student had to choose particular symbols and images that hold certain values. For example, a tower symbolizes protection, while a hydra symbolizes mysteriousness. The students also had to determine their mark of cadency, or birth order. A first born child is symbolized by a zig zag line, while a second born child with a crescent. Even the colors were representative of important values!
The 8th graders graduated last night, and I’m happy to know that many plan to take art at CRLS next year. Their legacy tiles were on display for families to see. Hopefully soon the tiles will be permanently installed somewhere in the building!
Enjoy the summer vacation, the next Morse Art update will be in September!!
The 8th graders are beginning what will hopefully become a yearly tradition for our graduating class. They are each creating a tile with their footprint, name, and year; which will be permanently installed throughout the school. Next week they will glaze the tiles, and maybe I can have them installed before their graduation?!
The 7th and 8th graders are working their way through a reduction linoleum block printing unit. So far, the 8th graders have printed 2 layers, with one to go. Here are some prints in progress:
The 8th graders have spent 2 classes practising the printing skills with monoprints. Understanding that a monoprint only allows one unique print, they listed other words that start with ‘mono’. For their monoprints, the students started with a paper stencil; one that should have equal amounts of positive and negative space. The stencil was placed on an inked sheet of plexi-glass, and then printed by hand. I think their practice will result in great prints for their upcoming long-term project!
More photos coming soon!
The 8th graders graduated Tuesday night. Here are some photos from their art gallery in the main lobby, representing all the work they accomplished this year.
The 8th graders are finishing their final project at the Morse School. The drawings of cereal box covers combine the artistic styles of Andy Warhol’s Pop Art and Picasso’s Cubism. Students used viewfinders to focus on one small part of the box at a time, and drew on small squares of paper. Once all the squares were drawn, they were puzzled together. Sometimes the individual drawings matched up, but most of the time they did not! It took awhile, and many master cubist paintings later, for the 8th graders to realize that it was okay for the parts to be mismatched.
More of these drawings, as well as most of the 8th grade art from this year will be hung in the main lobby for the 8th grade art show.
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