Grade 8 Projects

  • Marking Period 1

    Students will do a daily warm-up of one detailed sketch in their sketchbook of a photo that they had chosen during the second week of school.  10-12 drawings in all will be created during the marking period.  We first discuss what kinds of photos are better choices for the short period of time that we will be doing the drawing.  If a student choices a more difficult drawing or wants to spend more time on it they may carry it over to the warm-up for the next class.  The drawings are expected to be detailed, not traced and contain shading and texture.  I demonstrate using photos from the same magazines of how to build the shaped one upon another after accessing the item. 

    Sketchbooks are 25% of their grades and are considered not just practice drawing and paying attention to details and elements but consistent daily effort. 

    Marking Period 2

    Warm-ups for the second marking period will begin after Thanksgiving vacation.  Students will be doing a short critique of a piece of art at the beginning of each class.  We will have already discussed the information that accompanies all mediums of art worldwide.  Sequentially from artist, title, date, materials, measurements and finally ending with owner/location of the artwork.  Students then must answer three questions using full sentences and discriptive adjectives.  They are instructed to use the elements listed on the cabinet doors to help them make constructive detailed answers.

    First they need to describe the subject matter to someone who couldn't see it.  Pretending it were an e-mail, text or as if speaking to a blind person.  Second they write what they first noticed about the art or their first impression.  And finally they give their opinions and personal thoughts about the art and support their comment with specific elements they like or dislike about it.

    As with the first marking period the warm-up will count for 25% of the final grade.

    Watercolor Painting

    8th grade students first begin preparing for the large watercolor painting by doing a experimental and practice 9 Panel watercolor technique exercise.  Students practice wet-on-wet which is the main technique they will be using in their large painting.  They practice brush control by creating 3 layer of wet-on-dry varying thick and thin lines using boy round pointed brushes and flat brushes. 

    They create mini paintings within the page using salt, tape, white crayon and rubber cement as resists.  They also create a day landscape and a night landscape using the above resists for clouds, reflections, moon and stars.  They learn to create shades for the 3 layers they create in the night scene.  And everyone enjoys blowing spiders by gently placing little bubbles of painting as the spiders body and blowing the legs out as they rotate the paper.

    Students create a soft pencil drawing to guide them throughout their painting time.  The lines are to eventually disappear into the painting and the paint will stand alone.  The beauty of the watercolor is the ability to paint layer upon layer.   This will be a rather large painting on college and professional weight paper.  Most students find it to be very relaxing once they are comfortable with the material.  Paintings will take several weeks to complete.