Artist Research Star Book

One of my jobs as a student teacher is to bring a new perspective into the lessons. One of the first lessons I  “updated” was the art fundamental students artist research paper. Instead of students picking an artist to research and write a paper on I had them make star books on the artist of their choice. I found the instructions for making the books here: http://www.making-mini-scrapbooks.com/starbook.html except I had students bind their books by gluing two paper strips across the binding for extra support. Students spent some time throughout  the month of October researching an artist of their choice. They even creating a replica of that artist’s work which I then shrunk down into an image to fit inside their book. The results were creative masterpieces instead of boring research papers and are a lot more exciting to make and display. I supplied them with scrapbook paper and miscellaneous objects to make their books really pop. The last picture is the grading rubric used for this assignment but if your interested in the whole packet, instructions, ect… leave a comment with your email.

We’re improving, Contour line drawing

For this lesson I asked the art fundamental students to draw a “contour line drawing” of a seashell they picked out of a bin. I didn’t explain what contour line was so I could see what their prior knowledge was. Then we spent a week on learning all about contour line, doing contour line drawings of their hands, feet, backpack, objects, eyes closed, eyes open, upside-down, you name it. For the final lesson students had to bring an object that represent them, hold it in their hand, and complete a semi-continuous contour line drawing of their hand and object. The improvement from the original sea shell drawing was amazing. Check it out: