Using the work of artists such as MC Escher (printmaker, graphic artist; 1898-1972) and Katsushika Hokusai (painter, printmaker; 1760 – 1849) as a jumping off point, students worked on creating their own edition of prints. They worked with foam plates, brayers and printing ink. They were encouraged to create at least 4 prints of their background plate so that they could be selective about the final pieces they displayed. Once students achieved successful background prints they were also encouraged to layer their prints with multiple colors and a process of selectively reprinting select portions of their image.
Using the work of artists such as MC Escher (printmaker, graphic artist; 1898-1972) and Katsushika Hokusai (painter, printmaker; 1760 – 1849) as a jumping off point, students worked on creating their own edition of prints. They worked with foam plates, brayers and printing ink. They were encouraged to create at least 4 prints of their background plate so that they could be selective about the final pieces they displayed. Once students achieved successful background prints they were also encouraged to layer their prints with multiple colors and a process of selectively reprinting select portions of their image.
In the second trimester sixth graders begin a long project to deeply study a topic related to the Medieval Era. This study crosses their art and humanities classes, and sees them join a “guild” where they perform the bulk of their topic design, research, project design and presentation preparation. They are able to invest deeply in their subject area and spend a considerable amount of time on it. In art class as the guild work begins to near its end the students design a fabric collage, and through the use of symbols, design and imagery they visually depict something about their guild and guild project. These fabric collages get hung on banners together with the other members of their guild, and displayed during the Medieval Festival presentations. The collages presented below are individual pieces by students who chose to present their collage separately as a piece for the art show.
Drawing is a fundamental art skill. Many other artistic disciplines are built on the ability to represent images in line. Sixth graders undertook a series of exercises designed to aid their drawing ability by helping to improve the way they observe the world around them for their drawing purposes. The exercises build up from careful and close observation to larger compositional and overview observations. Below you will find pieces from specific exercises by students who elected to display them as part of their show work.
The exercises were:
Blind contour drawing – This exercise involves “tracing” the contours, or edges, of a subject with the eyes while mimicking those movements with a pencil on paper. The artist does not remove their eyes from the subject, so they do not look at the drawing while it is in process. The point is to help improve the careful observation skills and to help the eyes and hand work together.
Flipped image drawing – By drawing from an image that has been turned upside down you help confuse the preconceived notions of what we believe something looks like so that we can look more carefully and discern the reality of what we observe.
Negative space drawing – This exercise helps teach you to see the entirety of a composition, and begins to teach a draw-er that there are no parts of a drawing that are “not included.”
Speed or gesture drawing – This type of drawing helps a draw-er learn to break a subject down into more fundamental forms both for planning and composition, as well as learning to look at more complex subjects from a more simple starting point.
Grid drawing – This final exercise showed students how to use a basic grid overlaying an image to plan proportion and location by laying in the basic structure of a drawing via a reference guide.
Throughout the course of the year sixth graders have the option to work from an “advanced sketchbook menu” when they finish a project early or have extra classes. These menu items are a variety of projects that can be completed in the time the student has, or extended as far as the student would like to take it. There are also personal pieces that students completed on their own time and from their own inspiration on display here if they requested to submit something extra to the art show.
Project: Choose several words. They could be a sentence or just a series of random words. Fill an entire page of your sketchbook with bubble letter versions of those words. The letters should touch each other and be a variety of sizes. They can run in different directions, twist around the page, or be laid out however you like as long as the letters touch each other and take up a lot of space on the page. Then choose one of these two options: 1) fill the letters in with a solid fill (like black, pencil, or a color) and fill the leftover negative space with pattern (either one or multiple), OR 2) fill the background with a solid fill and the letters with pattern.
Ziva DeMattia
Project: You are hired by NASA to act as their art consultant. They inform you that they are about to undertake the most amazing mission somewhere completely unexpected. Before they inform the public they want to have all the public relations material complete. They have most of it done, but no one can seem to get the mission patch right. They want you to look at the patches for the Apollo moon missions, and then use them as an inspiration to design two options for them to choose from. They should be different shapes and include different elements. (YOU can choose where the mission is to! And if you want to include names of the astronauts, not required, but you can make those up as well.)
Dillon DalalSurana
Project: Draw 10 noses from observation of photographs from 10 different people. You should do your best to replicate the differences of each individual nose. You should be able to identify the person in the photograph (i.e. famous people or personal photographs, but not random images). Put the name of the person who the nose belongs to under each drawing. Remember the rules and techniques of observational drawing.
Esther Kellerman
Toby Petrzella
Project: You are going to start your own business. Choose what kind of business you’ll run (anything you want) and decide on a name. Design three versions of your logo that include your company name in some way and are different from one another. They should be in color. Start by drawing 3 boxes that are 3.5×2 inches each in pencil. Each logo should be approximately the size of one box.
Erick Santiago
Project: Put on some music. Draw freely nonrepresentational doodles until that piece of music is over. Match the pace of drawing and your type of line with the type of music. When the song is over put on a completely different pace of song. Repeat matching the pace of drawing and type of line with the music. Do this until the page is completely filled. You can use whatever colors you like or you can draw in a single tool. If you choose colors, work with a variety. If you work with a single tool use a variety of pressures.
Zoe Barrett-Kahn
Major Novogratz
Sydney Royce
Juliet Sandler
Project: Tinker Hatfield is a shoe designer responsible for some of the most famous Nike shoe designs ever. He’s the man responsible for most of the Air Jordan designs. He’s also responsible for designing the futuristic self-lacing shoes from the movie Back To The Future 2. Let’s take inspiration from him. Design a completely new pair of shoes. Use a pair or pairs of real shoes to do initial drawings from observation to create the model on which your design will build. You may make them for any purpose you like (walking, casual, sports, fashion, etc…). Include some unexpected feature, anything you want. Do drawings of your design from multiple angles showing off your patterns, colors, and special feature somehow. Think between 3-5 angles of the shoe.
Nico Rudder
Julian Silver
Dante Tejerina
Project: Find the list of titles for 7 famous paintings below in the attached pages. Read through them all and find one that sounds interesting to you. None of the pieces are abstract or completely non representational, and all of them are 2 dimensional works. Without looking up the original piece recreate on a full page in your sketchbook what you think the piece looks like purely from the title. You may use any materials or techniques you would like (drawing, painting, collage, etc…) as long as your piece is completely inspired by the title of the original work. Think about the original artist and what they may have created to make them decide on that name, then make a version of the work you think they made. You may do research (looking up a picture of the artist, looking up pictures of items/places mentioned in the title, finding a visual reference for something specific, etc…), but you should not look up the piece itself. If you would like to look up the original piece after you have finished you may.
Paloma Sherak
Kehinde Wiley – Head of a Young Girl With Flowers
*This piece to the right is the original “Head
of a Young Girl With Flowers” by Kehinde Wiley
PersonalProjects
These pieces were created by students out of their own motivation and exploration, but they decided they would like to include them in their exhibits for the art show.
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was an influential painter who is perhaps best known for her self portraits. She is celebrated for her use of color, her exploration of female experience, her attention to Mexican and indigenous culture and much more. Her work has a strong theme of exploring her personal history and identity.
Sixth graders followed a long observational drawing unit with a self portrait drawing that utilized those skills. These portraits were then completed in a material of the student’s choosing, and by including elements that drew inspiration from Frida Kahlo’s work to explore something about their OWN identity and history in their piece.
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was an influential painter who is perhaps best known for her self portraits. She is celebrated for her use of color, her exploration of female experience, her attention to Mexican and indigenous culture and much more. Her work has a strong theme of exploring her personal history and identity.
Sixth graders followed a long observational drawing unit with a self portrait drawing that utilized those skills. These portraits were then completed in a material of the student’s choosing, and by including elements that drew inspiration from Frida Kahlo’s work to explore something about their OWN identity and history in their piece.
6th graders studied a number of aspects of Medieval-era illuminated manuscripts, including composite beasts (i.e. – griffins, basilisks, manticores, etc…), illuminated letters, the representation of natural elements, fine brushwork and more. In this gallery you will find work from these units of study.
Composite beasts – Medieval era illuminated manuscripts sometimes contained paintings of fictitious creatures among the lavish decorations. For these drawings students first brainstormed several potential combinations of real, existing animals, chose at least one of their ideas, and then used visual references to apply observational drawing techniques as they created a more finished drawing.
Pascal Duravcevic
Major Novogratz
Tiffany Palapo
Beni Okamoto
Toby Petrzela
Juliet Sandler
Illuminated letters – Many manuscripts contain the famous illuminated letter, or enlarged and highly decorative first letter of the text on the page. These letters occasionally housed scenes or designs that would illustrate something about the text that followed. Students who chose this project used one of the initials of their name, and included their composite beast creation in the design. The design was supported by observational drawing from real life flowers that they did as warmup exercises. You may also find some of these drawings displayed here if the student chose to show that work. These were then completed with watercolor paint.
Oren Casriel
Dillon DalalSurana
Iris Edelstein
Aedan Grover-Scher
Grace Magliocco
Erick Santiago
Tiffany Palapo
Illuminated manuscript – Students were also given the choice to illuminate a passage of text. The layout, inclusion of their composite beast, decorative elements and paint technique were all inspired by their assessment of authentic illumination examples from the Medieval-era. Students were allowed to choose any text they wanted for the purpose of their piece.
6th graders studied a number of aspects of Medieval-era illuminated manuscripts, including composite beasts (i.e. – griffins, basilisks, manticores, etc…), illuminated letters, the representation of natural elements, fine brushwork and more. In this gallery you will find work from these units of study.
Composite beasts – Medieval era illuminated manuscripts sometimes contained paintings of fictitious creatures among the lavish decorations. For these drawings students first brainstormed several potential combinations of real, existing animals, chose at least one of their ideas, and then used visual references to apply observational drawing techniques as they created a more finished drawing.
Ziva DeMattia
Paloma Sherak
Illuminated letters – Many manuscripts contain the famous illuminated letter, or enlarged and highly decorative first letter of the text on the page. These letters occasionally housed scenes or designs that would illustrate something about the text that followed. Students who chose this project used one of the initials of their name, and included their composite beast creation in the design. The design was supported by observational drawing from real life flowers that they did as warmup exercises. You may also find some of these drawings displayed here if the student chose to show that work. These were then completed with watercolor paint.
Zoe Barrett-Kahn
Holly Baumann
Ziva DeMattia
Sawyer Gersh
Graydon Kirchmann
Cydney Klass
Lila McCormick
Lily Rosenthal
Julian Silver
Will Taschler
Dante Tejerina
Illuminated manuscript – Students were also given the choice to illuminate a passage of text. The layout, inclusion of their composite beast, decorative elements and paint technique were all inspired by their assessment of authentic illumination examples from the Medieval-era. Students were allowed to choose any text they wanted for the purpose of their piece.
