2nd, 3rd, 8th Grade Art

8th Grade

Forty students of mine participated in an annual mosaic. They collaboratively elected a theme then independently chose and represented an album cover. However, none formally explained any significance or art historical context, nor drafted and painted these covers from memory. Each created a flattened, cut, 7-inch square, clay tile and glazed it from a selection of 12 non-mixable colors. For display I kiln-fired, arranged, framed and grouted tiles in traditional checkers. 

Future mosaics could include: new geometric tile materials, sizes, shapes, student proposed tiled areas plus inlay, relief sculpture. Beforehand students looked at an M.C. Escher print with a tessellation, NYC subway mosaics and more geometric tilings. They collaborated in a mural design exercise by arranging cropped 3 x 3-inch sections of their own open-themed sharpie drawings and practiced mixing tones of acrylic colors then painting on 5 x 7-inch paper. 

5 x 7-inch paintings

3 x 3-inch drawings

8th graders reviewed 1, 2, and 3-point perspective drawing. Examples in Unbuilt America helped us develop a rubric. Using pencils and rulers students made studies from memories of familiar spaces. Next they learned about site-specific and plop art, and debated how to categorize some examples. Each drafted a proposal for either an installation or alteration to the current school grounds. No students proposed new ceramic tiled areas, however, a few made use of added instruction to include rubbing collage, digital editing, and rotoscoped animation. Students presented proposals and received feedback from classmates role playing how various school constituents would respond to the changes. Future assignments could involve 3D modeling software.

8th graders linocut printed fabric ink on t-shirts.  

Students explored cyanotype, van dyke, and albumen processes after looking at photomontages by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. They used DecoColor markers to draw opaquely on 4 x 6-inch transparencies and made 3 x 3-inch negatives from their own digital photos with Pictorico film. They time managed paper coating, exposing to sunlight, then washing. 

     

Classes freehand animated in books donated by their school library. Students considered how their metered pictures might relate to the words randomly included, and watched a video about William Kentridge before using digital cameras for a stop-motion animation. Another assignment could include a visit the Center for Book Arts and/or require editing video with audio.

8th Grade Art Elective's six students observed plastic sculptures and ceramic light fixtures. They designed lamps using a socket, switch, LED bulb along with cardboard, wood, clay, wire, and paper mache. Lessons could also include pottery wheels, research and writing about the development of light bulbs and lamps.

            

Elective students made presentations on professional photographers with PowerPoint before solar plate printing their own photos. They followed instructions in Photoshop to create a positive film transparency. Sharing contact cases and a makeshift black light box, they etched their transparencies while measuring solar plate exposure times. Students inked and press-printed their plates, some experimented with adding watercolor.

             

2nd Grade 

Students sketched, sculpted, glazed, then titled their own supernatural spirit-summoning clay masks before they observed, read, and wrote about wood-carved, Native American masks and totems from the Pacific Northwest at the American Museum of Natural History. 

Large bulletin boards in lobby 

Using lunch knives again 2nd graders carved styrofoam blocks, then painted, stacked, and joined them with popsicle sticks to balance two 7-foot totems. I did not advise trying to carve symbols from observation, but rather designing them based on a traditional Native American theme. For example, students brainstormed an original shame totem top. If doing this again, I would assign students to collaborate on one symbol per row with paper/mache armatures rather than carve styrofoam, due to dust and biodegradability. Next time 2nd graders could also weave in connection with social studies.

After visiting the AMNH's Hall of North American Mammals, classes observed species-labeled photos of more vertebrates that included birds and reptiles journaled by Lewis and Clark. Students both independently and collaboratively tried engineering freestanding armatures without bases using wire, tape, tin foil, and newsprint. They cast paper mache and painted. 

Marine animals were not optional nor part of guided questions on our AMNH class trip, though we also stopped by the Hall of Ocean Life. Nor were students quizzed on how anatomy enables habitat survival.

  

2nd graders tried animation and sequentially organizing a series of their drawings to depict motion. Students worked on a frame rate 12 drawings per second. They used a ratio, dividing their number of drawings by 12 to determine duration in seconds.

A printmaking lesson discussed symmetry and pattern before assigning sketches on graph paper. 2nd graders practiced measuring an XY coordinate plane with a ruler, first dividing their paper in four equal quadrants. They selected and transferred final designs into styrofoam plates, inked, registered and hand-printed. 

Pretzel 

2nd graders observed an architectural drawing labeled on XYZ planes for simulating 1-point perspective. On plain paper they designed a home with pencil, sharpie, plus varying opacities of watercolors. 

After looking at The Panorama of the City on the Queens Museum's website and considering weight and force in relation to balance, students slipped and scored clay as well as glued pre-cut wood pieces. A few cut wood with a supervised clamp and hand saw. 

Woodblock display

2nd grade reviewed color mixing with oil pastels, first blending and naming 10 of their own colors.  

Classes made self-portraits using mirrors. Our rubric comprised carefully observed shapes and colors, layering and blending tones, details, as well as contrasting foreground and background.

         

Students practiced working with brushes, mixing primary colored tempera to make secondary colors. 

We talked about landscape paintings and Albert Bierstadt's Storm in the Rocky Mountains at the Brooklyn Museum. A topic dialogue asked students to create paintings about their commute to school on 12 x 18-inch paper.

Paintings with captions by 2nd graders 

2nd graders contributed to a "road trip” themed school fundraiser. Each student was randomly assigned a state and given a map. Using pencils, cardstock and scissors they were asked to create a large border shape outline of their state and then cut a stencil. Two at a time, they geographically placed their stencils on stretched 50 x 72-inch canvases and painted. One class added roads.

In one period, for an “alma mater" theme, children photographed one another using a digital camera in front of a makeshift green screen. Some students also participated in an open-ended, stop-motion dance video. I arranged digital negatives of their portraits with a signed transparency and printed (school color) cyanotypes on 12 x 12-inch paper. 

3rd Grade 

3rd grade began the year recalling American tall tales they read in 2nd grade. Classes looked at compositions of text and illustration in Where the Wild Things Are. Each student was assigned to write and illustrate a short story. 

After sharing their stories, 3rd graders re-storyboarded in groups. They learned about stop-motion video using digital cameras on tripods and watched a documentary about the making of King Kong (1933). Groups sculpted characters using modeling clay, painted cardboard sets, then enacted and recorded their narratives. Perhaps more materials could include robotics. I edited all videos.

After typing Harlem Renaissance biographies in homerooms, 3rd grade art added portraits. First they made pencil and sharpie sketches while observing photographs. Watercolor portraits by Chris Ofili informed a rubric for adding a background, mixing colors, and varying opacities. 

Students also made props for a 3rd grade play about factors leading to the Great Migration. They tempera painted a blooming cotton field with pickers, sharecroppers, and cardboard boll weevils.

Classes visited MoMA to see Jacob Lawrence's Migration series. Back in school, they discussed Romare Bearden collages including Mother and Child. Students explored composing collages with at least 10 cut shapes before gluing and captioning.

Collages with typed captions

Further practicing with scissors, classes made puppet-silhouette videos narrated in Spanish and French. Upon introduction to Cambodian shadow puppets online, students storyboarded in self-selected groups. Using cardstock, scissors, one supervised x-acto knife, hole punchers, paper fasteners, tape, and dowels they made puppets with movable parts. Groups practiced choreographing movements. They performed and recorded their skits with a digital camera. Some added backgrounds by illuminating sharpie drawings on transparencies. Lastly they worked with their foreign language teachers to script and record dialogue into a laptop microphone. I combined the audio and video files. 

   

3rd grade discussed ways sounds are made by musical instruments they know and looked at instruments in the MET's collection as well as an animated example. They sketched invented instruments with labels or manuals on how they work. After reviewing how to make a ceramic whistle they sculpted their instruments.

   

Students animated. Again they recorded a short vocal to into a laptop microphone and I edited video and audio together.

 

3rd graders made NYC themed prints. The rubric consisted of inking, center registering, then hand-printing three clean prints from an original drawing etched in styrofoam. They also cut their styrofoam and reprinted within a large outline of the Statue of Liberty to make a sign for their Ellis Island reenactment. 

A question about a hypothetical fashion show began an assignment to free-stand sculpture, I assisted with hot gluing to cardboard bases. Classes discussed Neoclassical style as well as a Duane Hanson sculpture seen on a visit to the Whitney Museum. They balanced armatures, cast paper mache, painted, cut and collaged fabric. 

Aphrodite