Tag: visual arts

6th Grade – Chuck Close-inspired Self Portraits

6th Grade – Chuck Close-inspired Self Portraits

Description of the Unit – Students observed and discussed the work of contemporary American painter Chuck Close, a technically innovative artist known particularly for his large-scale photo-realist portraits. Students applied Close’s use of a grid to break down a self-portrait into individually colored squares that together create a cohesive whole.

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8th Grade – Chiaroscuro Drawing with CJ Hendry

8th Grade – Chiaroscuro Drawing with CJ Hendry

Description of the Unit –

We begin by diving into the fascinating art of CJ Hendry. Hendry expresses having no formal art training and considers herself “not very creative.” Yet she’s a dedicated, innovative artist whose works are primarily hyper-realistic, large scale pencil drawings of (mostly) luxury objects that sometimes take 200 hours to complete. Working with pencil on paper her pieces are achieved through layers of what she refers to as scribbles. Watching her work (you can see some fun videos of her at work here: https://youtu.be/KB8vc9M4QWs and https://youtu.be/KixMpzhMS-o) students become awe-struck by the way her tireless pencil strokes beget such lifelike representations of real-life objects.

two images of artist CJ Hendryy working on her drawings, one of a pair of men's Gucci shoes, another of a boxing glove
Artist CJ Hendry at work
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8th grade – watercolor & mixed media

8th grade – watercolor & mixed media

Description of the Unit – This is a purely technical unit that allows students to explore combining watercolor painting techniques with other media.

An 8th grade student's technique sheet representing watercolor mixed with various media
An 8th grade student’s technique sheet. These are experiments that add a variety of media to watercolor to test the effects
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7th Grade – Japanese Notan Designs

7th Grade – Japanese Notan Designs

Description of the Unit –

In this unit, students observed the traditional Japanese art of Notan designs, exploring the relationship between positive and negative space between elaborately cut designs, and how this relationship affects composition, balance and symmetry. Students created their own Notan designs.

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4th Grade Surrealist Collage

4th Grade Surrealist Collage

Description of the Unit – Observing the work of several Surrealist collage artists, like Julien Pacaud, students will learn about the meaning of the term Surrealism, and how it is used in collage art. They will then go on to create their own weird, wild and wonderful collages, using varied sources such as books, magazines, and hand-made paper, while also including an image of themselves within the composition.

Surrealist collages by Julien Pacaud, unknown, and Ayham Jabr
Surrealist collages by (l-r): Julien Pacaud, unknown artist, and Ayham Jabr
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6th Grade – Frank Stella, Protractor Series Designs

6th Grade – Frank Stella, Protractor Series Designs

Description of the Unit – Students will observe and discuss the work of Frank Stella, focusing particularly on his Protractor series, and will themselves use a protractor to create designs inspired by this series.

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7th & 8th grade – famous painting halloween costumes

7th & 8th grade – famous painting halloween costumes

Description of the Unit – To celebrate Halloween, students chose a famous painting featuring any kind of portrait, such as one of Vincent van Gogh’s or Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits. They recreated the painting onto posterboard, cutting out the area with the face so that they could ultimately “wear” the painting as a Halloween costume!

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