Mr. Bob's Middle & High School Art Room: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

High School Beginning Art Linocuts

In keeping with the theme of linocuts, I had my other Art classes do 4-6 color reduction prints (to see process read the previous blog. This post is dedicated only to showing some results-more to follow.

Farida's

Zeina's

Abdo's

George's

Antarah's

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Block Reduction Printmaking with Grade 8

The first time I ever used a gouge was in third grade in Mrs. Hargrovers Art class. I quickly learned the dangers of the tool when the tip accidentally went into my finger and subsequently taken to the nurse by Mrs. H. Aside from the little mishap I became a fan of printmaking from that day forward. This is why I keep iodine, bandaids, and cotton handy during this project.

As Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is just around the corner I figured it is time to bust out the softkut blocks and gouges and share a little bit on what goes on in Mexico in addition to how other cultures remember the passings of their loved ones and ancestors. We looked at some José Guadalupe Posada and Artemio Rodriguez prints in addition to images and a chat about the celebrations.

Posada

Rodriguez

Some students don't feel comfortable drawing skulls so they have an option of making a face.
Supplies: paper, gouge, softcut blocks, ink, brayer, sheet of glass, and pencil
Vocabulary: Reduction print, brayer, ink plate, gouge, block/plate, edition, pulling, inking, and baren

Step one: design an image on paper with pencil.

Step two: transfer image to a softku block.

Step three: use gouge to remove the "white" areas.

Step four: print background color with a light color.

Background color results.

Step five: use gouge to remove the background.

Step six: print dark color over background image.

Pulling a print.

Final outcomes:
well registered print (left)
off-registered print (center)
over-inked print (right)

Step seven: sign and number prints with pencil.

Here's Johnny....

Printing the first color

Using a brayer to roll-on the ink.

Final prints.

Sherif's

Farida's

Amna's

Vighnesh's

Tamara's

Aly's

Ahmed M.'s

Ahmed's

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Grade 7 Leaves

When I taught elementary school several years ago (ok-more than a decade ago!) I did this project with Grade 5 with much success. One of the challenging aspects of teaching art in the Middle East is that most students don't grow up with the culture of art the way that students in the western world do. Much of this has to do with religion. For example in a Christian society God has a face as does Mary, saints, angels, and so on. In Islam it is forbidden to depict God through art and thus art is approached more in terms of design and object. This post is not intended to be a religious discussion, I wanted to show the difference of the internal wiring of people brought up in other parts of the world. I learned this in college during my study of Islamic Art but it has finally hit home after living here for a couple of years, funny how sometimes it takes 20 plus years for a concept to truly sink in.

Supplies: Paper, oil pastels, india ink, a scratching tool, iron, newspaper, black construction paper.
Concepts: Lines, colors mixing,

Step one: Take students outside to look at leaves, if time allows, bring paper and pencils along to make drawings. Additionally you can discuss parts of the leaf and get into the science of it.

Step two: Students will make 9 drawings and use oil pastels to add color. I strongly suggest to reinforce color mixing and the color wheel. Demonstrate which colors mix well and which ones don't. Make a list that they can refer back to. I have my students mix a min. of 3 colors.

Step three: Ink all the leaves with a coat of watered down india ink and past off with a paper towel.

Step four: Use a scratch tool to make lines in the the leaves, this might be a good time to introduce or reinforce types of lines.

Step five: Use an iron and newspaper to remove wax of the oil pastels

Step six: glue squares on black construction paper and have students sign.

Andrea

Farida G.

Idriss

Mona

Shady

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Recovered Images and more

I was smart enough to save images of my student's work prior to the disappearance of the posts mentioned earlier. So I thought I'd publish them again minus the learning objectives and as a bonus include a couple of projects done from the year before. Enjoy!