Fun Friday: Tie Dye

About every-other Friday, my high school classes are offered a "Fun Friday." Fun Friday exposes students to art forms they may otherwise not experience. This fun Friday, we did sharpie and rubbing alcohol tie dyed shirts. This form of tie dye is cool because you have a lot of control over the colors, shapes, and designed. Students experimented with the materials all class long and created some intricate and complex patterns and designs.

 

 

 

Clay!

This semester we've been doing a lot of clay at both the middle and high school levels. Below you can find a lot of examples! I will write the grade and/or project under the picture. Enjoy!

 



8th grade birdhouse

7th grade fairy house

8th grade coil pot

 

8th grade luminary

 

High school cup (focus: texture)

High school ceramic sculpture (theme: good and evil)

 

8th grade bird house

8th grade luminary

High school bowl

8th grade mug

8th grade fairy house

 

8th grade ceramic sculpture

High school mug (theme: good and evil)

7th grade turtle bowl

High school bowl (theme: good and evil)

High school bowl (theme: good and evil)

High school honeypot bowl (theme: good and evil)

High school jug

8th grade hand sculpture

High school mug

7th grade mug (focus: texture)

High school bowl (theme: good and evil)

8th grade hands

 

8th grade cup (focus: texture)

 

Ink Blowing!

Every other Friday, the high school art classes are treated with "Fun Friday." Fun Friday introduces art students to new and interesting mediums that they might not be exposed to otherwise. For this Fun Friday, we experimented with ink blowing and watercolors. The students' art turned out to be very complex, colorful, and Kandinsky-esque. I've put and example of a Kandinsky painting at the end of this post (he was a famous Russian abstract painter).

And here's a work by Kandinsky (see some similarities?):

Oil Pastel Close-Ups (...and Awesome Posters!)

For high school 2D art, students were instructed to create an up-close "painting" using oil pastels. This project was inspired by the work of Georgia O'Keeffe -- an American artist famous for close-up paintings of flowers. Here are a few close ups of close ups(!), followed by a group shot of everyone's on display. Great craftsmanship, effort, and creativity, everyone!!

 

 

Also, I've been making these posters of amazing things students say about what they learned. I'm hanging them all over the school! All these students are so great (and smart! and intuitive!)!

 

Group Drawings!

For our first project of the second semester, middle school students worked in pairs or groups to create gridded, geometric works of art. Students used colored pencils and focused on differentiating "bright" and "dark" colors to emphasize contrast within their work. The projects turned out really well and they are being hung all over the school this week! Good craftsmanship, everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, we have a moving image GIF from two students. They have a warning statement for you: "If you are sensitive to flashing lights and/or awesome artwork, please proceed with caution!"