HS Oil Painting Self-Portarits

In the spirit of building skills. My IB Year 1 Visual Art students started the year learning oil painting techniques. Not a single student had prior experience using oils. As I told the class at the beginning of the project, "this won't be your best oil painting, but it will be your most important one." Below are the results.

The example I made in class. Shameless self-promotion.

   

Pencil Self-Portrait Middle School

I pitted one grade 6 class against a grade 7/8 class. I wanted to see if I taught both classes the project the same way if there would be any notable differences in the drawings. I was curious if the 1-2 gap would be evident in the fine motor skills. I have to admit, the results of both classes were outstanding.

Here are my findings based on my experiment. When I started teaching Art at the middle school level 19 years ago, this was a typical project for a grade 6 class at my school district. It was part of the curriculum and the students in the district had mandated art at the elementary level.

When I taught middle school again 7 years later at one of the "best" districts San Diego, I carried over the curriculum to grade six, and noted the skills, vocabulary, how to manage space were lacking and disproportionate. For most students, grade 6 was their first real art class. The learning gap was wide and varied. I learned that first year, there were no art specialist at the elementary level. Sadly, when I left, the principal made the shortsighted decision to discontinue art. I was disappointed.  

I'm happy to be back in an environment where art is valued at all age levels, the elementary art specialist do a stellar job preparing our students for middle school art, and my teammate and I prepare our students for high school and beyond.

Middle School Tempera Self-Portratits

There portraits are from my middle school class last year, quarter 4. One of the frustrating aspects of being a Middle School Art Teacher teaching exploratory/wheel classes is cycling through a new batch of kids every 9 weeks. Just when you start to get into a groove with class, they move on.

With this project, I wanted the students to play with black outlines, blend colors but make the image appear flat. When we took photographs, the topic was funny expressions.  

Black and White self-portraits Middle school

Size: 18" x 18"
Learning Objective: to make and apply light, medium, and dark values.
Learning to see yourself from an unusual angle.

Tempera paint and really bad paint brushes (new and better ones arriving next year!)

Below are my student examples.