As a beginning of the year and get to know you activity, I asked my students to write their name and what they "love" about art, making art and experiencing art class. Each of their responses were collected and I knew that I needed to display them. Here is a photo of the display in the hallway outside the art room. We don't have a lot of bulletin boards in the classroom or hallway, so I often need to improvise. Here, a large piece of kraft paper is decorated with oil pastels and each post-it is attached with tape. The kids love walking by and reading their classmates and their own responses. Welcome back to the 2013-14 school year! I'm excited for all of the fun projects, trips and events going on this year in the intermediate art classes. Students entered the art room on the first day to find a few changes to the layout and decor. This year's art and design program will focus on the use of technology for lesson delivery, more hands on - collaborative activities and as always; exposure to as many types of media as possible to reach every learner! This week, grade 8 classes experienced the new "Five Alive Challenge". An anticipatory activity to get students in the creative mood. For this challenge they had 5 minutes to complete their task. The subject today: Draw a horse. A very difficult animal to draw, students were shown an image for only a few seconds and asked to draw for the fun of it....the results were great. When complete, the class did a "Gallery Walk" to view everyone's drawings. It was fun and they saw the value in this: to be open-minded, to not be so critical, to work under pressure and to laugh. Yes, drawings below are done by 8th graders...think they are funny? Try drawing a horse from memory! Click to set custom HTML For their final Design Technology unit of the year, the grade 7's have been learning about creating and preserving natural habitats to promote a positive wildlife presence around Ridley. Both classes were lucky to have a guest from the school come in to talk about all of the insects, wildlife and plants we have on campus. Mr. Chris Clarke takes care of the outside of Ridley College and is very informed about preservation and beneficial insects and animals. Literally, the students had to learn about the birds and the bees and how important they are to our ecosystem. As spring is in full bloom we are able to see these creatures hard at work. As a first project, we created wooden bird feeders (these are actually more useful in winter as food isn't as readily available as in spring) but they were fun to make either way. Students were given three sizes of wood and made most of the cuts themselves. They learned to use coping saws, scroll saws, drill press, various sanding machines, files, nails and glue. I think they are looking great and don't know too many birds who wouldn't be attracted to their bright colours! To see the final products check out our artsonia gallery! The grade 8's have been working on products designed for kids. As a woodworking project they created working gumball machines featuring bright colours, characters and designs. They loved this project and learned some new skills using machines like the scroll saw, coping saw, drill press and lots of sanding. Some students even managed to create trays for the candy to fall into and some great changes to the standard box shape! They are finishing up in the next week and images will be posted to our artsonia gallery! As always, please leave comments on your favourites! These great pieces will also be on display at our annual art festival held May 30th from 2-4pm, looking forward to seeing/meeting parents there! Students in grade 8 are learning about an artist of their choice. Their findings will be presented using a great tool called Prezi. http://www.prezi.com
Students: Please submit your link in the comments below! Grade 8 students have been learning to use various tools in Adobe Illustrator including the pen tool, fill & stroke colour, gradients, layers and text. They chose a silhouette (preferably an animal) and traced the outside using the pen tool. Students broke the outline into sharp edged shapes and these were filled with colour. Students were asked to add a text component that could be a simple as their name, nickname or an invented company name. As always in design, the typeface chosen is incredibly important to the overall logo. The results were outstanding! Mrs. Aulds Example Students in grade 7 are building on their graphic design skills by using Adobe Illustrator. We have been practicing making our own brushes, which is really easy, and the products are great. The brushes can be made really simple or really complex. After a brush is made it is applied to another shape (circle, square, or even a line). Students will be compiling what they have learned so far to create an abstract illustrator composition. Students in grade 7 are learning to use Adobe Illustrator. We started with some very basic skills using some tools and settings to create a spirograph design. For this task students learned to make a shape, about fill and stroke, how to rotate and copy and play with blending modes and opacity. A very simple assignment with great results. As they were more familiar some students branched out of the simple design and got creative like the one below. |
about me
Ashley Auld is the grade 7&8 art + design teacher at Ridley College in St.Catharines, Ont. Before taking her position at Ridley she was the owner and lead artist of TCS art studio where she ran full year programs for preK to adult. Always looking to connect learning & technology this site is devoted to showcasing how fun art at Ridley can be! Archives
September 2013
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