Snow globes

Sixth graders made snow globes of any subject matter they wanted.  Yes, this is on display for concert day, but hobbies, interests, pets, anything goes.  Students love free choice to make what they want.  What a perfect assignment for doing that@!

STAR SHIRTS

 6th graders get to make their own STAR SHIRTS.  STAR at our school stands for: 
Shows respect
Treats others with kindness
Acts Responsibly
Reaches for our best together
On STAR days kids get together in STAR groups to talk about being good citizens and making good choices.  We get together about once a month for these activities....

 Kindergarten through 5th grade already have "STAR SHIRTS" that were designed by me...  :)  and they are supposed to wear them for every STAR day...  Well, 6th grade is special because they get to tie-dye and make their own STAR shirts.  NICE!  I love the way they turned out! 
CAUTION:  word to the wise:  Make a note to take home to the parents before hand about wearing old clothes the day they do tie-dye...  If it gets on their clothing...  it's dye- it will be there forever. 

Chuck Close Self Portraits- analogous colors

LOVE IT!!!!  I found this idea from the site:  artiswhatiteach.blogspot.com.  She is an amazing teacher.  I then took photos of all the students in 6th grade, went to another site www.dumpr.net to change the photo's into drawings.  The kids took their portrait, outlined it with a thin sharpie marker and traced it to a half sheet of paper.  We then drew a grid overtop of our portrait with a ruler.  The students drew different designs inside each grid.  Then we used analogous colors (colors very similar- next to each other on the color wheel) to color our portraits.
I really enjoyed this project!!!

Fauvism Animal Heads

I was pleasantly surprised.   I thought of this assignment all on my own.  I love (as well as the students seem to enjoy) florescent colored paints.  Perfect for Fauvism: : a movement in painting typified by the work of Matisse and characterized by vivid colors, free treatment of form, and a resulting vibrant and decorative effect (thanks webster online dictionary).  Basically I told the students drawing a picture with totally expressive- non-realistic colors to paint.  Based mainly on emotions and feelings rather than showing the true color of the object.  
So, the students were given some pictures of animal heads that they could choose from to draw.  After drawing, they painted using florescent colors of tempera.  After the paint dried, they were given black oil pastel to outline as well as oil pastels to add some dimension to the animal so the color didn't look so "flat".  Here are some examples of their work:

Symmetrical/Positive/Negative Shapes

 I love how this project turns out.  It's a typical Positive/Negative Shape assignment.  The more complicated the design the more difficult it is....
Directions:  Take 1/2 sheet of 12x18" paper (It will be 6x18").  Draw shapes that do not touch.  Encourage students to use the space.  Many times the shapes do not utilize the whole sheet of paper and their project becomes too "easy" and too boring to look at.  I also have the students put an "x" on the negative shapes that will be cut and glued to the other side.... so that it's a little easier to know which part moves over to the other side of the full 12x18" sheet.  I demonstrate this on the elmo, on the board because there can be some "craftsmanship issues" if the gluing isn't done well.  The examples here have done an excellent job.  I do show some "non-examples" of student work that just is sloppy.  I think that helps them to understand what I'm expecting them to do.

Repeating Figures

Ugh...  Forgive me, there was a blog where I got this idea from.... but I cannot recall where.  I love the way this turned out.  Nice way to introduce rhythm, movement and figures.
I had students that finished their project early to look through some of the many magazines I have in my room of full body figures.  When I introduced the project they had an idea of what I had in mind.  The students went through the pile of "figures" from magazines.  When they found one they liked, the student cut away all the background from the figure.  EMPHASIS:  Careful when cutting.  The success of your project depends on how careful and neat you cut.  Trace figure onto 3 sheets of paper, cut.  Glue to black construction paper and add different shapes and designs to the background.
Nice, eh?

Stain Glass Windows!

This was a fun, short project that students made with scratch art paper.  The students first got a sheet of manilla drawing paper.  They created their "stain glass window" design full of shapes onto the drawing paper.  The students showed me their drawings, cut out the shapes and traced the design onto the scratch art paper.  After scratching away all of the black from the shape, this was their overall result of the project.  I love looking at all of the shapes the students came up with.  The students had a nice variety of symmetrical designs.

3-D Masks

 6th graders make these awesome Construction Paper Masks!  We start out with a flat piece of construction paper and the students use all kinds of creativity making facial decor, hair pieces and designs for their project.  This project idea comes from an art teacher Peggy Flores.  She creates lessons for students.  I found this project and just fell in love with the way the students create their pieces!  It's a favorite!

"It's all in the Vase"

This idea came from a 2011 fall issue of Arts and Activities Magazine.  I was a little nervous about what it would turn out like, but I was so PLEASANTLY surprised at the student artwork.  The magazine article inspired me to ask the students if they were creating a vase- what would they put on the vase?  What (instead of flowers) would come out of the vase?  The students were then to choose a famous artist through art history and create a project referencing their chosen artist.  They could also use any art media they wanted to replicate the "style" of that artist.  Here are some of their pieces of work!  Enjoy!

2 point perspective

My sixth graders were given some choices about what they wanted to do when they worked on 2 point perspective.  A lot of them chose making the candy box project (perhaps they like the subject matter way too much) but some of the other options included: dice, a cityscape, initials of their name, inside a room...  here are a few of their examples.