2016 Digital Photo Start-up Survey

2016 Digital Photo Start-up Survey

Drawing Games

In grades 3 - 8, we started this year out with some drawing games.  It was a good way to get warmed-up and get used to making art together again.  There was a lot of laughter!

Here are descriptions of a few of the games.  They might be fun for families to play together in restaurants or at other times when you are required to wait around.   These games require only paper and a pen or pencil and make good drawing practice.  (All drawing is good drawing practice!)

Blind Contour Drawing - a classic art school excercise

 To make a blind contour drawing try closely observing your subject and drawing its outlines (contours) without looking at the drawing in the process. 

I Draw, You Draw What I Draw

Sit across from each other in partner groups (or group of three). Similar to a blind contour drawing - the idea is to mimic what the other person draws by watching him/her and NOT looking at your own paper. 

3/4s play "I Draw, You Draw"

6th graders play "I Draw, You Draw"

Exquisite Corpse - a classic drawing game, invented by the Surrealists of early 20th century in Paris and played by many famous artists since then (and a big hit at Open!)

An early "cadaver exquis" by Andre Breton and others (circ. 1920)

An exquisite corpse by Josephine Meckseper, Laurie Anderson, Olaf Breuning, and Nick Mauss

Fold a long piece of paper into four approximately equal sections. Lightly label the sections: "head", "upper torso", "upper legs", "lower legs".

Start a drawing of a figure in the top section of the paper.  Draw a head, neck and shoulders.  It need not be a human head.  It can be any type of head you can imagine.  Extend any lines
that meet the bottom edge of this section down very slightly into the next section.  Fold the top section back so that only the extended lines show. 

FOR THE BEST RESULTS, IN EACH SECTION INCLUDE TEXTURES AND A FULL RANGE OF VALUES.

Trade papers with another player, keeping the top sections hidden.  On the paper you receive, draw an upper torso - shoulders to waist, extending the edges of the body down slightly into the next section and then stopping. Fold the paper so that only that small portion of your drawing shows.

Pass your paper along.   The next player should draw a lower torso and upper legs - waist to knees, extending the edges of the body down slightly into the next section and then stopping, then fold the paper so that only a small portion of the drawing shows. 

Pass your paper along.   The next player should draw lower legs and feet - knees down. Keep the drawing folded and pass it back to the original artist. 

The artist who started the drawing should open up the drawing and add to all parts as needed to bring it all together. 

7/8 Painting Elective

Assessment

Pantone Color Challenge

Sumo Paint

ALL ABOUT ART AT AAO

CHOICE-BASED ART EDUCATION 
Choice-based art education is practiced in the Ann Arbor Open Art Studio. This approach regards students as artists and offers them real choices for responding to their own ideas and interests through their art-making. It supports multiple modes of learning for the diverse needs of students, and is modeled after the "Teaching for Artistic Behaviors" philosophy. You can read more about "Teaching for Artistic Behaviors" (TAB) here: http://teachingforartisticbehavior.org/.

CURRICULUM 
Class content is derived from the National Core Arts Standards. This document can be viewed at http://nationalartsstandards.org/sites/default/files/Visual%20Arts%20at%20a%20Glance%20rev.pdf.  

ELEMENTS OF ART AND PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
The elements of art and principles of design are another cornerstone of our art curriculum.  They provide an art vocabulary and framework used throughout the AAPS art program and beyond.  The elements of art can be thought of as the ingredients form which works of art are made.  The elements of art are: line, shape, color, value, form, texture, and space.  The principles of design can be thought of as a recipe for combining the elements in visually appealing ways.   The principles of design are: balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, and rhythm.  Visually pleasing works of art use all of these principles. 

CENTERS
Our art studio is set up with different media-based centers around the room.  By working together during clean-up time and mindfully caring for the materials, whole classes earn access to increasingly more centers as the school year progresses.  Students decide for themselves which of the available materials to use.

The Drawing Center

The Painting Center

The Collage Center

The Sculpture Center

CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING
In the AAO Art Studio, assignments usually take the form of open-ended challenges that call for creative problem-solving and allow for myriad responses.  For example, after a discussion and demonstration of tinting - lightening colors by adding white, kindergartners might be assigned the task of making a work of art in which they use tints.  They choose the subject and the medium.  After a discussion and demonstration of symmetrical versus asymmetrical balance in art, first and second grade students might be challenged to create their own work of art with one of these types of balance.  They might make a drawing, a painting, a collage or a sculpture. 3rd and 4th graders might have the task of creating a work of art with a color scheme, a full range of value, and at least one area of emphasis.  In the older grades we focus more on themes and expression, so 6th graders might analyze work by contemporary artists who make art inspired by ideas of place, and then make their own artworks about places that are significant to each of them.

The 1/2s have been exploring the use of geometric shapes in art.  In realistic art, geometric shapes are found in man-made subjects.  Some artists - like Charley Harper make things from nature out of geometric shapes.  This type of art is not realistic, but stylized.

"Cardinal Couple," Charley Harper, 2008 

The 1/2 students had a lot of different ideas about how to use geometric shapes in their art:

STUDIO HABITS OF MIND 

In the AAO Art Studio we focus on cultivating Studio Habits of Mind. Students practice thinking and engaging with their artwork in the ways that professional artists do. The eight Studio Habits of Mind that we refer to are:

Develop Craft: Learning to use tools, materials, artistic conventions; and learning to care for tools, materials, and space.

Engage & Persist: Learning to embrace problems of relevance within the art world and/or of personal importance, to develop focus conducive to working and persevering at tasks.

Envision: Learning to picture mentally what cannot be directly observed and imagine possible next steps in making a piece.

Express: Learning to create works that convey an idea, a feeling, or a personal meaning.

Observe: Learning to attend to visual contexts more closely than ordinary “looking” requires, and thereby to see things that otherwise might not be seen.

Reflect: Learning to think and talk with others about an aspect of one’s work or working process, and, learning to judge one’s own work and working process and the work of others.

Stretch & Explore: Learning to reach beyond one’s capacities, to explore playfully without a preconceived plan, and to embrace the opportunity to learn from mistakes.

Understand the (Art) World): Learning to interact as an artist with other artists i.e., in classrooms, in local arts organizations, and across the art field) and within the broader society. 

7/8 Drawing Elective, First Quarter - Fall 2015

This fall in the 7/8 art elective students focused on both observational and imaginative drawing, while also taking inspiration from the history of drawing.  We had a great time together.  Everybody worked very hard.  Improvements in drawing skills were clearly evident in the students’ final drawing projects – now on display in the hallway gallery around the auditorium.

At the beginning of the year, students were read the picture book “The Dot” by Peter H. Reynolds.  Every art student in the school (kindergarten through eighth!)  heard this inspiring story of creativity and then made their own “dot art” in response.  The 7/8s were tasked with creating a small work of dot art in each of a variety of media - graphite, charcoal, ink, and mixed media.  These small works served as an opportunity for experimentation and as the catalyst for a discussion about the pros and cons of the various available drawing media.  All of this dot art was featured in our Dot Show – honoring Dot Day (September 15^th), a day celebrating the message and spirit of this fabulous book.

At the beginning of each class we had a short but engaging discussions about a draughtsman or period of drawing from art history.  We looked at and discussed drawings from: Prehistory, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, Albrecht Durer, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Edgar Degas, Paul Klee, Kathe Kollwitz, Matthew Ritchie, and Marcel Dzama.

Slideshows: History of Drawing

Students completed a variety of projects in their sketchbooks.  These included a grid drawing, a still life, and three observational drawings.

For a final project, students completed a finished drawing, selecting their own subject and medium. The work they produced is beautiful and as individual as the students themselves.