I had a beautiful bulletin board up in the main office with my best examples but in the flurry of that first month of school - I put the bulletin board up after less than 1 month of school - in September - I didn't take a photo of it. So, the examples here:
1. are NOT my top students unfortunately
2. this is their very FIRST art project of the school year
3. and I only have 1 class of Intro. to Art so this is all I've got for you.
However, it will give you an idea of how I did it.
1. Tell students of YOUR successes and failures in life - this lets them know not to be so scared of failure - those experiences help us find out what we want to do and don't want to do in life. Failures are just as important as successes as a learning tool.
2. Students choose a quote. I photocopy ones I see on the internet to give them ideas and they are allowed to find one of their own as long as I give the okay with it (EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT - or you will get quotes that do not fit the spirit of the project at all). Sometimes students will come up with quotes of their own. I accept this as long as the quotes are long enough (see #4) and go with the spirit of the project (see my first post, "What Would.....").
3. Students practice different fonts one whole class time. I have my students show me their name in 3 different styles for their points for that day.
4. Students use a ruler to measure off 2"x1" boxes on an 8 1/2"X11" of 9"X12" paper and write their quote. Tell them they cannot split up a word on two lines but the quote must be at least 40 characters. Otherwise, you'll have some students doing half the work expecting to receive as good a grade as ones who did twice the work.
5. They use a pencil to show how they will split each box into 5 pieces with color (you'll see how in some photos it will have "primary colors" in the quote area, or "secondary colors," etc....). This helps them get to understand color theory better.
6. Students receive an 18"X24" paper to put their quote in a 9"X12" area, and surround it by the goals and things that they want in their lives - at least 5 things.
7. After drawing it all in pencil, they use colored pencils to color it - time to teach cross-hatching technique - and tell them it should be so solid that it looks like paint. You'll see that a couple of students didn't follow this point well so it's difficult to read but I kept those examples in here so that you could see why it's important that they understand why covering the surface is exceptionally important for contrast. I ask them to keep the words white or black depending on what will contrast to their color scheme the most. I tell them that for an A, B, or C grade, everything must be colored (I included the "road" quote example simply because I liked the quote so much - that student was moved to a different classroom before she was able to complete coloring her project.
I could see this project used in any subject by just adjusting it a bit. I gave this project to a French teacher who had her students choose French quotes, or translate an English quote into a French language quote and completed the project.
The project with the eyes was made by a young woman who wants to be a make-up artist to the stars. She was moved from the class before the project was completed
Yes, I know - my student aides put up these projects and the way they taped them is just so wrong. :( But with 200 students, it's been tough keeping up with all the ceramic firings and such, and actually the colored pencil did not attach to the tape because it's waxy so they come down without ruining the projects - Yay!
I had shades examples as well as complementary but the good examples were taken home when the office bulletin board was taken down.
So, you can see that the primary, secondary, etc... only refers to the quote area. I needed to let them have more freedom to express their goals with any colors they chose.
This student decided to do this extra credit quote. I showed this example to my Intro. to Art and Ceramics students and it inspired some more creative fonts. This student gave me permission to use this photo online so here it is! Scroll from side to side and top to bottom to see the entire quote. It's hard for me to say which word's font I like the most!
This year, I decided to have the students make full on vision boards of what they want in their futures!
For this project, students were given specifice instructions such as one quote had to be focused on effort or perseverence because that is often what stops people from reaching their goals, and the other could be any quote of their own choosing. Then, they were asked to do one full body of a person, realistic in nature, agreed upon by teacher, and well as their dream house graphed - I know that it's unusual here but I felt that it was an opportunity for students to see the effects of perspective before second semester when they will receive direct teaching on how to do perspective. They were asked also to do a realistic drawing of a face of a person, and other criteria. Students were given the choice of which things they wanted to put on the back of their paper and which they wanted on the front. This lessoned the worrying of students feeling that they may not do something well enough and then having it on the front of their papers. The downside was that many students' best drawing were on the backsides of their papers! But, if I had to do it over again, I might choose the same process simply because when students would find out that they were capable of doing wonderful work, it gave them courage to choose more challenging things to draw. So, they really are vision boards - what students want for their futures.
However, the last 2 (IMG_0239, and IMG_0240) are from one student. You can see in one photo the front of her paper and in the other photo the back of her page. She is a truly tortured individual. It took us 3 days of working together to find positive quotes that we could agree upon simply because the ones she chose again were so based in the negative like "No pain, no gain," and "If you're going through hell, keep on going," and "The pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow." Eventually we worked it out. She has never taken an art class. She is already a senior so it's a bit late for more art classes at Hamilton. However, she was so motivated by this project and the power she felt in letting the world know her feelings that she now has decided that she wants to become an artist. And I am so fortunate because her mom truly supports her decision!
I felt that it would motivate her and several other students if I gave them the opportunity to do entries for the Gene Autry Museum High School Exhibition. Six students decided to do it. The 2D AP Art teacher will pick them up from students shortly after school resumes. Then, I will pick them up from her house to bring them to the Autry. For the ones that are not accepted, I'm thinking that I can put them in the Scholastic Contest so at least those who have put in the effort will have some recognition and have something for their College Applications.
I think that the thing that made me feel best about this project was that several of my students said that they didn't know if they even liked to draw at first because they had so little experience with art. However, by the time they got mid-project, they realized that they really enjoyed it and were surprised at what they were capable of!
More than that, that last young woman with all the passion and pain - I was texting her mom last week and she told me that her daughter now wants to be an artist! Her mom is so happy because she said that she was worried because her daughter wasn't motivated toward her future before but she is now! My response to her was, "Great! She will have a Loud Voice in art!" I know she will!
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