In Intermediate, Proficient and Advanced art, I break the big chunks of our class time up by alternating a media project with 2 days of art history. We have mini assignments (sketch prompts, photography assignments, "my choice," etc) sprinkled in between, but I really like how I've finally settled into a routine with project/art history/project/art history.
After their charcoal project, Intermediate art used their first art history day to research the Renaissance movement and they wrote a critique of a work from the Renaissance on their second day. Their second project was "pen and ink," and they just finished their Baroque period research and critique.
Charcoal works by Intermediate students:
Pen and Ink Projects by Intermediate students:
Proficient Art students began with a drawing on toned paper followed by Impressionism research/critique, a colored pencil project and Post-Impressionism research/critique.
Toned Paper Drawings by Proficient art students:
Colored Pencil projects by Proficient art students:
Advanced art students have studied Dadaism and Surrealism, and they've created a watercolor painting and a mixed media collage. Here are samples of their work:
And last, but not least, my fabulous Beginning students. In these first 23 days, they've learned about the elements of art and principles of design, how to critique an artwork by describing, analyzing, interpreting and evaluating, and they've been doing a LOT of drawing. They've practiced blind-contour drawing, contour drawing, representing ellipses from different points of view, using thumbnail sketches to plan/design their composition and they've completed a variety of shading exercises. On the second day of class, they drew a self-portrait from a mirror. We spent about 6 classes working on the proportions of the face and how to draw facial features. After that, they completed another self-portrait from a mirror, and we were able to view the "before and after" drawings side by side. Here are examples of those:
