Course Content of Art 1B

Seventh and eighth grade students may take Art 1B after successfully completing Art 1A. It is a semester course that may be repeated as often as desired since the curriculum varies each year. This is an intermediate level course and is designed to further the exploratiion of concepts and content gained in Art 1A. The first semester quarter focuses primarily in drawing skills and at least one clay project. Students are required to complete a series of related projects in one central theme. The second quarter focuses on two dimensional art and includes more drawing as well as a painting on canvas. The last project is usually an assemblage type of sculpture. Projects in Art 1B are more sophisticated and complex than projects in Art 1A; they require more thoughtful investigation, more patience, and more skill. More time is given to difficult assignments and challenges in order to fully grasp the medium, historical significance, and cultural heritage of the projects.

Current Projects 2007-2008 Second Semester

Studying Surrealism

Surrealistic Drawing Basics

Students will begin drawing on the first day of the semester with a series of quick pencil sketches of basic forms- cube, sphere, cone, and canister. Then we will study the surrealism of Salvador Dali and Joan Miró and develop the forms into charcoal drawings in the style of these surrealistic artists. Surrealism was both a literary and artistic movement that began in the 1920s-it is a style of art that defies reason, but uses realistic imagery and objects juxtaposed often in unnatural settings. Surrealism promotes unconscious thought through fantasy and imagination. So students' geometric forms can be floating, flying, or placed within another object, depending on their choices. Students will be asked to bring in an additional form from home to add to their drawing.

Surrealistic Chalk Drawing: a new language of shapes

The Second Project in the Surrealistic series is an abstracted pastel reproduction of a famous master painting. Students will imitate the style of Joan Miró by selecting a famous realistic painting and reducing and simplifying it to its basic shapes. Then they will separate the shapes, resize some, and draw them on an 18"x24" piece of black paper with chalk, paying special attention to the principles of variety, contrast, movement, and rhythm. Students will replicate the same colors in the original painting, and in addition add a ladder and horizon line to demonstrate moving from the real or conscious world to the unreal or surreal world, like Miró. See these pictures for an illustration of Miro's thought process that students are imitating:

      

Sketchbook Drawings - Ongoing

Students have weekly drawing assignments that are to be completed at home. Students will be illustrating a different principle of art each week during the first quarter.

Ceramic Tea Pots or Pitchers

   

 

 

Students must make a functional ceramic container with a spout that pours evenly without dripping. From traditional to modern tea pots and pitchers, students will have a wide variety of creative opportunities. There will be many technical difficulties that will be discussed such as how to make a spout that pours well and is at the proper height. Students will learn how to make a pulled handle and connect it carefully so that it will be strong and not break off. Other considerations are the balance of the spout and handle to the size of the container and how to create a lid that will not fall off during pouring.

Clay Frames and Etched Mirrors

Students are continuing to work in clay and will decide on a theme that can be created on both the clay frame and continued on the mirror etching. Students must pay attention to crafstmanship, careful design, and matching up of pattern and construction.

Blockprinting and Totems

Students will be creating a group project of a totem pole using linocut. Every table group will design a type and style of a Northwest Coast Native American totem pole. Each student's "piece" of the pole will be able to stand alone as an individual block print, but each totem must fit snugly into the one above and below it when printed as the entire totem. Students will study the origins and purposes of totem poles, as well as four main styles, the Haida, the Tsimshian, the Kwakiutl, and the Tlingit. Check out the Northwest Coast Native American totem poles from the University of British Columbia Anthropology Museum and the links to video clips and totem pole legends. Also, each table group will be required to write a legend that depicts the story of their visually represented totem pole. Students will listen to many Native American legends in preparation for writing their legends and they will learn the proper story telling technique of totem poles, i.e. told from top to bottom, with the bottom symbol being the most important. See Eldrbarry's Raven Tale links for more information on legends: http://www.eldrbarry.net/rabb/rvn/rvn.htm. See Sample: Totem Block Print

Retablos

Retablos (re-thab-los) are small religious icons that have used for worship in Latin American countries before the 1880's. They have now increased in popularity and are still used on altars for worship but also are used for adornment, good luck, protection, good health and prosperity. Students will work in groups to design and create a retablo of their choice. They will work in miniature with plasticene clay figures installed in cigar boxes to replicate true retablos.

 


 

Past Projects

Portraiture

Students will study portraiture through a series of projects, Chuck Close finger print self portraits, pastel portraits of Renaissanceor Baroque masters, and an acrylic painting depicting themselves. Students will learn about the position of features on the face and then study and view portraits by Chuck Close. Students will then do some online research at theWeb Museum: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/ and select a famous portrait by Renaissance or Baroque master for their pastel drawing. Included in this project will be a study of the chosen artist and a one minute podcast describing their master painter.See the Podcast project description at http://www.jordan.pausd.org/department/public/art%7Epodcast/podcast.html

Photo Surrealism: How to illustrate healthy eating, using visual language and humor - Project Website

The goal of this third surrealistic project is to create a photograph that inpsires others to consider the importance of healthy eating. Students will take original photographs of fruits, vegetables, and grains: and then assemble them into a single picture using Photoshop Elements 4.0 and Corel Painter Essentials 3. They will need to consider the element of humor like the posters of Greg Brown, the photography of Dr. Steve Shpall, and the paintings of Rene Magritte. Software for the project, including Wacom sketchpads have been funded by a $2,800 teacher grant awarded to Mrs. Goldman from PiE (Palo Alto Partners in Education).

 

 

Engage the Page! Portfolio Drawing

Students will begin drawing on the first day of the semester with a series of quick figure sketches on their portfolio cover. Using two drawings from Mrs. Goldman's summer drawing portfolio for inspiration, students will decide on a theme and "fill in" their figurative outlines with realistic renderings of personally chosen objects. This style of drawing can be compared to Mannerist painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo. See Effetto and Season Images and More

Clay Kleenex Boxes

Students are creating sculptures that have the dual purpose of serving as a Kleenex box holder. A carefully measured clay slab box must be able to hold a box of facial tissue. The box serves as a pedestal for a sculpture of one or two hands showing some kind of movement or action. Students are required to complete a series or sequence of related art projects in Art 1B. After drawing a hand in the previous project listed above, students now create a hand in the modeling medium of soft clay. They are discovering that the subtractive and modeling process of sculpting can be even more daunting and challenging than the challenge to draw a three dimensional and realistic representation of a hand on paper.

Student Samples

 

Figurative Study and Collage in the Style of Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden


Samples of Projects from Spring 2003:

Students will study the paintings of Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden and learn about their backgrounds and artwork founded in Harlem during the 1920's and 1930's, a time of artistic explosion within the African-American community known as the Harlem Renaissance.Students discover that there are a lot of visual clues in these paintings and collages that help reinforce a theme and tell a story. Students are learning about the viewpoints, limited color choice, movement, emphasis, and story behind the visual elements. Students will learn to draw a figure in motion using the Vitruvian proportions. There is an online Bearden slide show from SFMOMA that includes the posters we have been studying for the collage project. Students are creating collages with a theme of family friends, or some group that they would like to illustrate similar to the style of Romare Bearden. The unit will conclude with a self evaluation in poetry after reading about the Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes. The students will write a poem using the same style as Hughes, then put their collages up on the wall. Mrs. Goldman will read the poems and students will try and guess which poem belongs to which painting.
While they paint, students will be listening to music of the time period such as the jazz of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong.They will also listen to the Jazz of Branford Marsalis, whose latest album, Romare Beardon Revealed is a series of new versions of the jazz classics that inspired Bearden, as well as original compositions in his honor.
More Jacob Lawrence links:
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/L/lawrence.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/lawrence_jacob.html
More Romare Bearden links:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/art/bearden_10-23.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/arts/bearden.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/bearden_romare.html
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/beardeninfo.htm
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/01-1/lp221-10.shtml

Representing the Human Head

This is a three part lesson which starts by doing quick one and two day drawings of table-mate's faces, followed by a fingerprint self portrait in ink as seen above. the unit culminates in a still life expressionistic self-portrait in clay, based on the California ceramic artist, Robert Arneson.

Still Life Painting

Students will learn the purpose of still life painting and be introduced to this genre by looking at the still lifes of many diverse artists, such as: Frida Kahlo, Wayne Thiebaud, Pablo Picasso, William Harnett, and Ralph Goings. Three still lifes will be set up in the classroom and students will make preliminary sketches and lighting studies of each still life before deciding which one they prefer to study and paint. Students will then review color theory and brush stroke techniques before painting a small still life using acrylic paint on canvas.

Frida Kahlo Links:
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/kahlo_frida.html
Ralph Goings Still lifes:
http://artregister.com/SeavestIntroductiontoCollection/Catalogue/GoingsRelish.html
Wayne Thiebaud Still lifes:
http://www.realart.com/hfg/images/archive-img/cont-08-04-img/THI-008-400.jpg
http://residentassociates.org/ACP/TheCollection/Archives/AImage/Theibaud_Renwck10th.jpg

Double Self Portraits

Students are studying the portraits of contemporary American Painter, Chuck Close. It is interesting that his portraits have a pixelated look as if they had been created and digitized on a computer. However Close uses conte crayon, stamp pads, or oil paint and his canvases are quite large-five or six feet in height. A student is taking digital pictures of each student which are then printed on the computer. They will use these as the basis for two assignments. One will be an 18" x 24" portrait made using a stamp pad and finger prints. The second assignment will be much more complex. Students will need to draw a graph on their computer picture and enlarge the graph on 18" x 24" paper coated with gesso. They will study value and color realationships and then paint each square of their portrait individually to show the values in their skin and facial features. Each square becomes a miniature painting in the style of Chuck Close. When the paintings are completed they should look abstract up close and from a distance become an accurate portrayal of the student.

 

 

Wire Sculpture and Mobiles

Students are reviewing the elements of sculpture that they learned in Art 1A by playing a game similar to Jeopardy. They studied posters of sculptures by Michelangelo, Rodin, Moore, Nevelson, and Calder.. Each sculptor teaches a different style and method of three dimensional construction. More time will be spent looking at Calder's style since his art is what they will be emulating. Students will conclude their study of sculpture in two ways: 1) they will form an animal with wire and pliers using Calder's circus as an example, and (2) they will create a mobile.

 

Ceramic Boxes

We are finally starting to work in clay and sculpture. Students are planning, drawing, and making paper templates for clay boxes that they will actually be able to use. Some students are designing in the traditional rectangular format of a shoe box while others are using their creative thought and planning more difficult shapes such as clam shells, cats, or stars. All students must draw their ideas as realistically as possible and then create the box out of paper before they work with clay. Mrs. Goldman's motto is "If you cannot create the box out of paper how will you ever be able to make it out of clay?" After students make the clay box they will slice through it to separate the bottom of the box from the top.

Student Samples

       

 

 

Chinatown Sketchbook, Creating a Mood in the Style of Edward Hopper

Students will be studying perspective and the architecture of San Francisco's Chinatown from photographs that Mrs. Goldman took. They will then make drawings of the buildings and streets of San Francsco's Chinatown in two point perspective. They will be trying to set a mood of early morning, twilight, or night time in the same way that Edward Hopper did in his paintings, Early Sunday Morning and Nighthawks. In addition to learning how to draw in one point and two point perspective, students will need to study the importance of light, depth, foreground and background.

Student Samples

   

 

Email Leslie Goldman Visual Art page Jordan Home

updated 1-28-2008