Range and variety

Well, it was another adventurous week in the art room!

I just started teaching full time about a year ago, and am constantly trying to adjust my expectations based on the student's skill level practicing guided lessons to help them raise their level of understanding of art.

It is not just about getting a project done, but learning and committing themselves to doing it WELL. Some students will tend to race through the process, just wanting to finish as quickly as possible, while others take their time and build on their knowledge and develop good quality skills. Does this mean that only some of them are artists?

I believe that everyone has the ability to create, whatever their area of expertise. What I am trying to do is provide them with some background skills and support so that they will develop the confidence to find their own paths.

That being said, there is something about guided projects that help students to establish a foundation of artistic learning that helps to expand their ability to truly "see" the world around them.

Working with Tesselations is a way to make connections between the world of art and math. In creating these images, the grade 7/8 students have been looking at geometry and how translations can be used to create an interesting work of art. They have been working with their tesselations to create images of animals, monsters, dinosaurs and even tiki statues. We have also been focusing on quality workmanship, and developing a good layering style with pencil crayon. As you can see, there is some good focus and quality work happening.

Grade 1/2 students are learning how to use a variety of media, building up their skills and understanding of how things work as well as how things can work together. By experimenting with oil pastel and liquid tempera, they were able to create these designs, which, according to one of the students, "look like fireworks!" :-)

The grade 10 and 11 students are building their understanding of value and shape, working with pencil and pencil crayon to produce dimensionality within their work. These images are for the guided drawing warm-up, to help get the students into the artistic frame of mind, ready to focus on their major project.