Oil pastel leaves Middle School Art Project

Students made initial life drawings outside. Our school has plenty of vegetation to choose from.
Learning Objective: draw from life: shape, proportion. Apply color theory concepts in rendering objects.

Below are a few of my student examples.

Two point perspective building drawing HS Art

It has been a few years since I've last attempted a two-point perspective drawing project. I've been into lines and ink recently and thought the kids should be as well. I have one gifted 14 year -old who goes to town with lines; pencils fear him. His challenge was to tone down his expressive lines and try less detail...maybe you will be able to tell which is his project.

Our biggest challenge was proportion. Students often struggled with that which is closer should be larger. You might see some evidence of this in the final product. I was famous for saying "wow, that tree fits into that door nicely."

Grade 8 monochromatic cropped self portraits

First grade 8 project of the year that I hung-up and almost forgot about. When parents came to open house guess who forgot to walk them out to see their daughter and sons self-portraits. Here on some quick tips on how to confuse a middle school student.
1. Take a photo of only a part of their face
2. Ask them to draw it. 
The initial protest when the kids saw their photo was that they felt incomplete. They were convinced that the paintings would not look like them when completed whereas I think they capture the true essence of what they look like. A nice touch was to fuse the portraits together. After all for better or worse this class is like glue. 

Koki demonstrates scale