8th Grade 2-Point Perspective Dream Tree Houses

While I was subbing last spring, I was asked to teach two point perspective to the 8th graders. Instead of having them draw a standard house, I decided it would be fun to have them draw dream tree houses. This project is from Mini Matisse and she does it with 7th grade students, but the 8th graders enjoyed it. She also has a video that walks you step-by-step through the project (that was great for students who were absent and needed to catch up).

I had grand plans of also doing a shared project with my son's second grade classroom, but it didn't pan out due to time restrictions (but NEXT time I would have the littles brainstorm dream treehouse elements and have the 8th graders incorporate those into their work and then bring the treehouse images back to the second graders and have them write about the tree houses and create their own images).

This house has a car coming out of it!

I had the book, "Treehouses: The Art and Craft of Living Out on a Limb" by Peter Nelson on hand for some creative inspiration. WOW! Some of those tree houses are just fantastic!!

Vocab for the project: 2 point perspective, horizon line, vanishing points, parallel, horizontal, vertical, construction lines, recede, diverge, cube, depth

Anyway, the project was a great learning experience and I created two worksheets/handouts to go with the project. The first, a treehouse brainstorming sheet allowed the students to come up with ideas for their tree houses and tell me a story about their houses (those were fun to read!). I also came up with a an assessment checklist for the student and I to make sure that all of the expectations for the project were met.

Treehouse brainstorming sheet to be passed in with final drawing.

The checklist I used to assess the drawing.

Enjoy these creative dream tree houses! Sorry some of the pictures are wonky!

The bulletin board display. I added a title and the book by Nelson to the case as well.

To Brighten Your Day: Frank Lloyd Wright Windows

My Modern Art Class created some lovely faux stained glass windows based on the work of American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. I've done this project with students before, and the process can be seen in this post.

This time, I tweaked my presentation a bit. I showed a large poster of Fallingwater, one of Wright's most famous houses. I talked about what an architect does, and about Wright's design philosophy. We made some observations about the building and I pointed out the horizontal, vertical & diagonal lines of the building (later on, I showed how these same lines appear in his stained glass windows).

Then we discussed how Wright was, um, a bit of a control freak when it came to his interior designs. He designed every little pillow, lamp, rug and even the dishes that would go into the house. We looked at some of his stained glass window designs. I was fortunate to have a great article that I have had FOREVER, well, since 1995 anyway, that appeared in American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine about a quilter named Jackie Robinson, who recreates Wright's stained glass windows in fabric. This is an awesome article because it shows how she constructs the quilts and really helps the children see the windows broken down into sections; leading vs. glass, and shapes such as squares, rectangles, rhombi, and triangles. I think this article really helped me simplify his work for the children.

I tried to access the article through the American Patchwork & Quilting's official site, but they didn't have it available. However, Jackie Robinson has her own site called Animas Quilts Publishing. Robinson had published an entire book of quilt designs based on Wright's stained glass windows titled, "Quilts In The Tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright." It is currrently out of print, but there are a few copies still floating around out there. There is a Frank Lloyd Wright section of her site showing examples of Wright-inspired quilts made from her book.

So, here are the beautiful results of my Frank Lloyd Wright lesson! Enjoy!

Mondrian Art Portfolios

My homeschool art classes start up again this week! I'm so excited! This year's focus for the homeschool cooperative is the 1800's to today. That means, in art, we'll be exploring Modern art. It was so difficult for me to narrow down all of the wonderful artists and art movements that occurred during that time into 20 art lessons for the year. But I made list after list and contemplated and rearranged and now I'm fairly sure I have the curriculum down pat. Really. I do!

Mondrian-inspired art on a portfolio

So, now let's talk about the end of the year. Wait, WHAT?! No, seriously. There are a couple of things I need to keep in mind when doing my planning for the year and the biggest one occurs at the end of the year...

In the Spring, the homeschool cooperative holds a Grande Finale. It's a time when all of the big kids are honored for their achievements and there are plays and demonstrations and displays to check out. This is also the time when I have my students display their artwork from the year. One thing I learned VERY quickly (and for some of you, you may say "duh!" when you hear this): If you send artwork home you will never see it again. As a teacher this makes for a lame show at the end of the year. So this year, I thought I'd have the children create portfolios (folders) in which to keep their artwork during the semester. I already send out weekly emails letting parents know what we did in class, so they know we are doing something. This way I can hold onto the artwork for a bit and get a chance to photograph it.

Why photograph the artwork? Well...more on that later! I have a plan, my friends! But first, the portfolios! I decided to take one of the easy lessons I wanted to do and combine it with making the portfolios. This way, we can decorate the portfolios and learn about an artist! Mondrian was an easy choice for me, but feel free to substitute whichever artist you would like!

A Mondrian-inspired lesson is a good first lesson of the semester since it allows us to talk about basic art concepts such as:

• line (vertical and horizontal)
• shape (geometric, squares and rectangles)
• color (primaries: red, yellow and blue)
• balance

Mondrian Art Portfolios

Supplies Needed:

• 1 Sheet of white poster board, 22" x 28" (i bought mine at the dollar store for 50 cents)
• 1 Sheet of graph paper, 8 1/2" x 11"
• Glue Stick
• Masking tape
• Electrical tape, black
• Markers in Red, Blue and Yellow
• Black Sharpie Marker

Directions:

1. Fold the poster board in half to make a 14" x 22" pocket. Seal the side seam with masking tape.

2. Use the glue stick to attach the graph paper to the poster board. 

3. Use the electrical tape to create a border around the edge of the graph paper, then use more electrical tape to divide the graph paper into smaller squares. Use the grid on the graph paper as a guide for the tape.

4. Color in some of the squares and rectangles you created with the red, yellow and blue markers leaving some of the sections white.

5. Write your name with the black Sharpie on the upper right corner of both sides of your folder. The front side of your folder (the side with the artwork) is for decoration, but the plain side (the side with only the student's name on it) is a nice backdrop for photographing the students' artwork--their name is written in the upper right hand corner, so you can include that in the photo and it makes identifying the artwork in photos much easier later on!

An example of student work photographed on the reverse side
of the folder. I included the student's name in the photo
and I can crop it out later if I need to.

You could also include teacher name or class session info or the school year on the blank side under the student's name. Whatever works for you! Here's to an organized school year!

Movement With Lines

June 2020--PLEASE NOTE--this project has been updated for distance learning to now include a HOW TO VIDEO! The updated post is here.

And the new video can be viewed below OR on youtube. ENJOY!

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This is a great project that uses only a couple of supplies (and a bit of patience) to create a piece that transforms from "ho-hum" into "WOW!" This is a great way to illustrate how various lines can show movement. 

Horizontal lines are sleepy and calm. Vertical lines are strong and stand still, but diagonal lines seem to slide and move, bringing our eye from one side of the page to the other and then "whoosh!" off the page! We start off this exercise by using the ruler to create a series of diagonal lines and color them in with markers. Then, we cut the piece up and fan the strips out and create another type of line...a swirly, curving line that also shows movement! This is also a nice op-art activity. You can use complementary colors for your diagonal lines or a full rainbow of color. Experiment and enjoy the process!

Movement With Lines

Supplies Needed:

• One sheet of white construction paper, 9"x12"
• One sheet of black construction paper, 12"x18"
• Ruler
• Pencil and eraser
• Markers, assorted colors
• Glue sticks

Directions:

1. Draw a series of diagonal lines on the white construction paper. You can draw three smaller lines going across the page or fill the space with lines. Both look great, in my opinion.

2. Color in the diagonal lines using markers.

This is the "Before" Photo

3. Flip the page over and divide the page into twenty-four 1/2" wide strips. Use your ruler for this and try to be as precise as possible. BEFORE you cut the strips apart, number them on the back from 1-24 at one end (the same end of the strips for all numbers).

This photo is kind of hard to see, but it shows all of the strips
numbered on the back at the same end.

Now, this is where it gets a little bit tricky. I'm sure you can do this many ways, but I made three of these and I finally landed on this way of doing it.

4. Cut out the strip marked #12. Put glue on the back and glue it on your black construction paper background in the middle, like this:

Strip # 12 glued on in the center
of the black paper (hold the black
construction paper vertically)

5. Now you can cut strip #11 out and put glue on the back of it. Overlap the left edge of the strip over the left edge of the previous strip (in this case, strip #12), fanning the right edge out slightly (about 1/2"). Repeat with strips 10-1 (working away from you) until you get through strip #1, forming a nice curve with the strips. Use the photo as a guide.

7. Once you have finished gluing down strip #1. Place glue on the back of strip #13 and overlap the right edge of the strip over the right edge of strip #12, fanning the left edge down slightly (about 1/2").

8. Repeat with strips 14-24 until you get through all the strips, forming a nice curve in the opposite direction with the strips. Use the picture as a guide.

It is OK if the ends of the strips continue off the edge of the page. You can leave them that way or trim them to the edge of the black construction paper.

This project is good for the older child since they may be more tolerant of cuting up their artwork and transforming it into something else. Also, they are more capable of handling the precise measuring and cutting this project needs in order to be successful. It took me three times to get all the strips to fit on the black construction paper properly. But I really liked all of the other attempts I made too. It's an experiment, so don't get too stressed!

Enjoy!

One Point Perspective Paintings

The focus of this year with my home school art class is art from the 1500's-1700's. One of the things I really wanted to teach them about was perspective, but I felt like a couldn't quite find a project that would work for 2nd-5th graders that wouldn't turn into a circus! So I put it off and put it off, but then I saw Natalie's project on one point perspective at the blog, "SmArt Class," and I thought, "This just might work...."

This student has lots of lovely details in her picture!

Well, I'm happy to say, it did! The first week, I showed the students some examples of paintings with and without perspective in them. Then, I walked the students through a guided drawing exercise using Natalie's step-by-step instructions so I didn't miss anything.

The second week, the children finished their pencil drawings (most of them were still drawing windows on buildings) and added details for interest. Then they used Sharpies to ink their drawings. When done, they used erasers to remove their guide lines. I gave a demo on using watercolors properly. Rules I shared were:

• proper brush technique
• no splashing the water
• dabbing brushes dry on paper towels
• no scrubbing the brush
• how to create areas of color by using gradual washes of color, etc...

Most of the students were able to start their painting on week two.

The third week, students continued to add color to their pictures with watercolors. Everyone finished up by the end of this class.

The students were very proud of their pieces--they kept saying things such as, "It really looks like you can go down the road!" I was very happy I tried this project with my students!

Love the bridge and the car in this one!

Even the youngest students in my classes really got into this project!

Homemade Stamps for Printmaking

Here's a great way for you to explore stamping and printmaking. And, it's inexpensive, fast and fun!

This past fall, at the NH Art Educators Association Conference, I went to a printmaking talk given by Liam Sullivan from the NH Institute of Art. One of the ideas he had for younger students was to make a bunch of stamps using wine corks as the handle. He suggested using bottle caps and such and gave us all sorts of interesting ideas for making stamps. Well, I asked around and someone gave me a big bucket of wine corks and then I started collecting bottle caps, caps from glue sticks, foam shapes, buttons, etc. Once I had a sizable stash, I heated up the glue gun and glued my "findings" to the wine corks.

We used some of the stamps to make Modern-dayAdinkra Cloths, but we also did this simple project that I got from Liam's slideshow. The children had fun digging through the box of stamps I brought in trying out all of the different ones and were very impressed with their finished pieces. This project not only showcases printmaking, but is great for explaining pattern, line, and repetition.

Stamping Sampler (Or "Stampler")

Supplies Needed:

• Stamps (see above description)
• Tempera paint, assorted colors
• One 8 1/2" x 11" piece of yellow paper
• One 9" x 12" piece of construction paper for backing/matte
• Pencil
• Newspapers
• Glue stick

Directions:

1. Make the stamps according to the description above. Some good ideas for stamps are shapes cut from craft foam, milk jug caps, glue stick caps, and wooden shapes (I even cut a few NERF bullets crosswise and made some interesting stamps).

The possibilities for homemade stamps are endless!

2. Draw a line on your paper going from one side to the opposite side. The line can be horizontal, vertical, diagonal, wavy, curved, zigzag, etc. 

3. Select a stamp, dip it into the paint and stamp it repeatedly along the line you drew.

4. Choose another stamp and another color and stamp another row of stamps parallel to your first line of stamps. Continue until the entire page is filled with rows and rows of multi-colored stamps!

A work in progress. This piece uses a large sheet of construction paper (12" x 18").

5. Mount your finished paper onto a coordinating color of construction paper using a glue stick.

ENJOY!

Some examples from my home school class.