Thursday, January 24, 2013

Background results

I will admit that I liked the backgrounds better than the final product. I had students experiment with contrasting and analogous colors when creating the faces. I felt that the faces for the most part were overly cartoonish and at times crowded or crammed in the space. There objectives for the project were minimal, I was more interested in seeing how the students interpreted my ideas, being this is my first attempt at this project. In the end I felt like the students had the opportunity to try out new concepts such as cropping and managing space with the faces.













Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Oil Pastel Dance scenes

I thought that I had lost these images after erasing a memory card, little did I know they were hidden in a folder at work. These projects were made at the beginning of the year when we studied the human figure and movement. My students did several life drawings in their sketchbooks and while some of that is reflected in the projects below, most of the ideas expressed here comes from a romanticized notions about dancing. Enjoy.  











High School Final Exam for Art etc.

New posts coming soon is the good news. The bad news is that my computer with everything apparently belongs to someone else in Spain. If you have any desire to teach elementary or middle/high school art (and Drama too) in Alexandria, Egypt, contact me. The kids, school, package, etc is a good deal. My wife (the ES art teacher) and I need change, so we accepted positions at a school in Ethiopia. 

We had semester finals last week and I tried something new (a usual). In the past I have made my finals a time to finish projects, have critiques, class celebrations, and I even gave a traditional test once! This year I made a different exam for each student where they had to write step-by-step instructions on how to make a a given project (they were to include vocabulary, concepts, and a list to tools/materials) and then make it. The results were good for the most part. Below is 2/3 of one student's written portion of the exam. Just to give you an idea. I am happy to report that most students retained and were able to demonstrate the info they learned.



Other good news is that Alice In Wonderland is in the history books. The show was a success. Sadly, I no longer have grade 8 for Drama and Art. Below are a few photos from the musical.


Hit of the show, The Girls of the Golden Afternoon.
I am the monarch of the sea...
Give me a zip-a-dee-doo-dah...yes, thanks to Disney somehow Song Of The South and Alice In Wonderland share the same song.
Off with her head!
There was a small Alice, a medium Alice and a boy Alice. Why, because we could. In the words of the Mad Hatter "rules can be so limiting."