Drawing
Every Day Drawing Challenge 2020 Edition
“Drawing takes time. A line has time in it.” – David Hockney A long, long time ago shortly after iPads were first released by Apple, under the vision of Superintendent Joseph Maruszczak, my school district made a commitment to include iPads in instruction. We were early adopters in the public school sector. We started in […]
Summer Memories
“Memory is history recorded in our brain, memory is a painter, it paints pictures of the past and of the day.” – Grandma Moses I am thrilled to be back with my fifth and sixth grade students now that we are back in session again. I am teaching remotely and daily the faces of the kids […]
Drawing Act 150 Submissions
The first section of chapter thirty-eight of the General Statutes is hereby amended so as to include Drawing among the branches of learning which are by said section required to be taught in public schools. – Massachusetts Drawing Act of 1870 I began posting about the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts Drawing Act on March […]
Drawing Act150/Human Made Object/Wk8 Remote Learning
“The teacher showed us how to see proportions, relationships, light and shadow, negative space, and space between space – something I never noticed before! In one week, I went from not knowing how to draw to sketching a detailed portrait. It literally changed the way I see things” Daniel H. Pink This post features the work […]
DrawingAct150/Light on White/Wk 7 Remote Learning
“There is strong shadow where there is much light.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe For the past two weeks, we’ve been looking at the way light falls on an object and trying to capture it in a drawing with pencil on paper. Our focus on drawing is directly influenced by the celebration of the Massachusetts Drawing […]
Drawing Act 150: Let’s Celebrate
“Drawing depends upon two faculties – understanding and taste; skill being the result of practice or experience. It is of the utmost consequence that the first faculty should be developed in harmony with the second.” – Walter Smith This May we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts Drawing Act. On May 16, 1870 legislators […]
Sketchbook Cover Constellations
“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.” – Stephen Hawking Sketchbook Covers We started a new semester (2 terms) on January 23. After making folders to hold artwork for the next few months, […]
Winter Scenes
“I got all my boyhood in vanilla winter waves around the kitchen stove.” – Jack Kerouac Yesterday was March 1. Spring is just 17 days away. Yet, except for cold air, it hasn’t felt or looked very wintery around here. Fortunately, my fifth and sixth grade art students can create winter from memory and their imaginations. […]
April Showers Bring May Flowers
“Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love.” – Stevie Wonder For the last few classes, students have been working on drawing flowers. The focus of this project is on drawing from observation, abstraction of composition, […]
Charcoal Still Life Drawings at the Art Show at the Miscoe EXPO
“All the visible world is only light on form.” Andrew Loomis For the past few weeks, my fifth grade students have been creating charcoal still life drawings. They began by sketching a still life positioned in the middle of the table, while observing light, shadow, and form in their sketchbooks. We had explored ellipses just […]
Digital Art: SketchNoting
“All our knowledge is the offspring of our perceptions.” – Leonardo da Vinci When I searched for an appropriate quote for this post about SketchNoting, I was thinking of note taking as idea gathering and remembering, working through thoughts in a visible way. Of course my mind jumped to Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, which are […]
Digital Art: Self Portraits vs. Selfies
“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.” – George Bernard Shaw A large part of November found my art classes engaged in Digital Art Making with their iPads. One of the projects was Self Portraits accomplished through the rotoscoping (tracing outlines) method traditionally used in […]
Light-Up Artwork with Paper Circuits
“Art history is littered with work that involves light.” – James Turrell, Artist Following the lead of artist, James Turrell, in the early days of April, we worked on drawings with oil pastel to which we added LED lights, by creating Paper Circuits. We used multi-colored LED lights, copper tape, a battery and a piece […]
Making Mandalas
Compasses, protractors, and rulers…oh my! Mandalas: Where art and math collide. As shared in the last post about Sketchbooks, this term we created Mandalas on the covers of our newly made sketchbooks. We used protractors, compasses, rulers, pencils, and markers. Here is a short video showing how to make them: Once the Mandalas were underway […]
Snow Scenes on Artsonia
It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea. – Dylan Thomas As our term winds down amid snowy snow days, we have been creating digital art on iPads. This week we are making stop motion animations, while […]
Celebrating Art at the MAEA Youth Art Month Exhibit in Boston
The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds. – Elliot Eisner Once again I am happy to showcase six middle […]
Self-Portraits Published On Artsonia
“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Self Portraits For the past few weeks, all 5/6 art students have been working in self-portraits. Fifth grade artists have been learning to mix unique flesh tones and show shadows with darker complementary […]
Shell Drawings On Display At The Art Show At M.E.S.S
Shell still life drawings will be on display at the Art Show at the Miscoe Elective Student Showcase (M.E.S.S.). This one is by Grace M:
Digital Rotoscoped Self Portraits On Display At The Art Show At M.E.S.S.
Sixth grade digital rotoscoped self portraits will be on display at the Art Show at the Miscoe Elective Student Showcase (M.E.S.S.). This one is by Bradley L:
D is for December/D is for Digital Art
In the 5/6 art room we’ve had a great week or so learning to create digital art on iPads. During a frenetic time in the world outside the room, this focused work has been cozy, calming, and generally pretty quiet. After introductory tutorials in person and provided as a reference in Google Classroom, the students […]
