Friday, December 23, 2011

Fashion design HS

It is true, I'm attempting to teach something new. I've asked my former student to co-teach the unit with me as she is getting into the business. She recently showed me a new line of shoes she designed that will go into production in a few weeks!

We have a seamstress on campus and my goal is to actually have some of the drawings come to life so to speak. We have barely started with the sketches, but I'm excited about this unit. Here's a teaser.









Grade 7 Sugar-high sculptures

The day before Christmas break is always about class parties which translates to kids consuming mass amounts of sugar. Kids arrive to Art soaring from the sugar buzz. I like to capitalize on this energy by doing my favorite one-day group project...wooden stool sculptures. There are three table and thus three teams. Each group has 3 minutes to work out their ideas based on a series of objectives: 


The first learning objectives are: symmetrical versus asymmetrical 
The second learning objectives are: representational versus abstract 
The final is each team has five minutes to use all 22 stools and anything goes. 


Here is what I observed:
students strategizing, assigning tasks and roles, the person with the vision trying to sell her/his idea to the group, cooperation, competition, arguments, team building, excitement, etc. 
The students had fun but more importantly there was serious learning happening. 


Here are the results... 


symmetrical 
symmetrical


Abstract
Chaos

One of the groups project was the Pyramids of Giza.
Another group did the tombs.
Mummy

Glazing and the aftermath

The results are coming in...

no camera trickery, it is that big




Grade 7 results 
ditto
Grade 8 boxes
Glazing with grade 8

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Clay-The handbuilding month

Winter has arrived and so has the clay season in Egypt, more specifically in Mr. Bob's upstairs clay studio. From Dec-Feb all grades from K-12 will be doing handbuilding, wheel throwing, and glazing. He is our progress thus far.  



Kiln aka heater.


boxes and fish

The bottom of her cupcake box


Sponge Bob's eye's also act as mini-cups



next step is to ink the lines.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Chalk Pastel Landscapes

Last year it was 2-point perspective cityscapes and I'm not quite sure what has gotten into me this year. Our friend on campus downloaded a ton of Bob Ross episodes so I'm going to blame him for this. If you don't know who Bob Ross and his happy little squirrels are, consider yourself lucky or deprived.

The objectives for the students were to experiment with a complimentary colors scheme when shading (though some didn't do this) and mixing colors by adding one over the other to create a sense of heaviness. You might notice chalk lines on several of the pieces. The drawings are huge 19 x 25 inches so it created a nice little dust storm in the room.    

George
Noha
Zeina
Farida
Laila
Antarah
Yassin
Sarah
Farah
Assem
Abdel Rahman
Chris
Mena

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Landscape painting Grade 8

Last year we worked on the idea of one-point perspectives learning about fore, middle, and background. I also used students on our school's field to demonstrate the concept of "that which is closer appears larger." Although this landscape painting project hints a little at some of the material we previously covered, the major objective(s) this lesson was to learn mixing colors and rendering objects (mountains, trees, etc). As always students have a free choice on what sort of landscape they wish to create. Below are samples of the evidence.