A rite of passage in the art room for the middle school students at Amherst Middle School is the final project. Despite its name the project is started pretty early on in the semester because it has a bunch of components to it.
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| Anthony's project inspired by Roy Lichtenstein |
Here's a basic outline:
- Students are shown a Powerpoint presentation of famous artists and artwork (7th grade focused on the art from 1900-1950; 8th grade focused on 1950-today)
- Students choose an artist to research
- Students create a paper/brochure/poster/oral report, etc. about the artist's work and life (details below)
- Students propose a project to do that is inspired by the artist they researched, but should be personal to them (the sky's the limit here--they can use whatever media they wish, but no copying the artist)
- Students complete a final project
- Students write an artist statement about their project
It's quite the process and it really was a wonderful opportunity for me to get to know the students and help them explore a variety of materials. Some of the students struggled with the open-endedness of the project, or with the writing component, and again, it was a great opportunity for me to hone my teaching skills to help each student succeed. I really love these projects and how unique they are! Unfortunately, I do not have photos of all of the projects--that's the problem with doing something like this at the end of the semester--final grading and clean-up take away from documentation, but you get the idea. Students worked in acrylics, watercolor, colored pencil, clay, assemblage and more. We had a great range of 2D and 3D pieces. When I do this project again, I also have some ideas for tweaking it slightly to make it easier for the students to understand and to push them to develop their ideas even further, but it was a great first run for this project--definitely a keeper!
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The graphic organizer I created for the students to use for research.
I was hoping a design like this would help them organize the information better
than giving them a list of what was required. |
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Here's the final project proposal form they needed to fill out
prior to starting their final project. This gave me a chance to meet with them
and SEE what they were thinking of doing for their final piece. |
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| Beka's piece inspired by van Gogh, I think (it's hard to remember!) |
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| Carrie's piece inspired by Claes Oldenburg |
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| Clayton's helmet and shield inspired by ancient Greece |
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| Hannah's piece inspired by James Audubon |
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Hunter's house design inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright
(designed on the computer and printed in 3D) |
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| This little house was a lot of work! :-) |
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| Nathan's still life inspired by Paul Cezanne |
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| Nolan's sculpture inspired by Alberto Giacometti |
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Top: Daniel's piece inspired by Robert Delauney
Bottom: Patrick's piece inspired by modern street art |
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| Trey's piece inspired by Roy Lichtenstein |
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