To This Day Project

So many of us have been bullied in our lives. Perhaps we even were the bully in some situations. My eighth graders are just finishing up one of the most meaningful projects we have ever done exploring this issue. We shed some tears and watched Shane Koyczan’s “To This Day Project”. After a few minutes into the video, the class was completely silent as they took in the illustrations and let themselves feel the emotions of the poetry.

This project brought up a great discussion on how students have been bullied in the past, ways they have seen people be bullied and how we can help stop bullying around our world.

The second day of this project was spent discussing and looking at some work by some famous Expressionist artists.

: The Scream by Edvard Munch-1893

: Fate of the Animals by Franz Marc-1913

: Street Dresden by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner-1908

Out of respect for my students’ privacy I am not going to post any of their artwork for this project. This was a really personal assignment and much more about the process than the product. I will however post a picture of a drawing that one of my students brought in to share with us.

Why do artists make portraits?

Gustave Courbet
“Desperate Man (Self Portrait)”
1843

7th & 8th Graders started their unit on portraiture by answering the question: Why do artist make portraits? They went on a hunt to find famous portraits that would help them answer the question. They then posted and shared their voice on our Padlet Page (more on this later).

After we had some ideas as to why, we dove into making our own portraits. The first thing students did was make a pre-instruction portrait. This was done so they could see their growth at the end. With the help of some really cool resources from http://tmatthewsfineart.blogspot.com ( The blog of a wonderful artist who helps others embrace their creative side), As a class we looked at some of the most common mistakes made when drawing portraits.

The image was than compared to a real face. This really helped students!

Students spent a few days reviewing how to map out the face and practiced areas that they didn’t feel confident in. With the help of pinterest they looked at various ways other artists draw eyes/nose/mouth etc.

The last step was to add some shading. This is the area almost all students did not even attempt on their preliminary portraits. We practiced a couple different techniques and used symbols to show where to put our values on the below template.

The photos below were taken as students compared their before and afters. They were amazed at how much they improved.

portrait before:after.003

Teaching Positive Behavior with a Vision Board

As artists our goal is to create. What many people don’t realize is that our biggest and most important creation is ourselves.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

―George Bernard Shaw

My 6th-8th graders are fighting through the “Winter Blues” in our Art Room. As we all know Iowa winters can be brutal and I get the feeling we are just getting started. Warm weather seems like such a distant memory and spring seems just as far away. We often go through the motions of these feelings thinking that we have no choice. To help my students fight through their gloomy days I realized they needed to dream and visualize who they want to be and what they hope to accomplish in this new year.

It’s all about attitude, choices, thinking positively, and believing that you can do what you are meant to do – that you are worth it. We all have challenges in our lives that we will face. What matters is how we deal with and respond to those challenges, and how we can show compassion and empathy for those around us who may be going through their own challenges.

One of the ways we are going to accomplish this is through making a vision board.

What is a vision board?

A vision board is a visual reminder of what you want out of life. It can include images or words that trigger excitement and passion in you. It can be useful to create a vision board and place it in a space where you will frequently be reminded to go for your dreams. The vision board is a powerful tool when you are trying to manifest changes, opportunities or experiences into your life.

Since we are so lucky to be a 1:1 school, we will be using digital devices to create our vision boards. 6th grade will be using the Pic Collage app for their iPads and 7th-8th grade will use Keynote on their laptops.

Here is my example created on Pic Collage