classic color wheels

Nothing ground breaking here, just some classic color wheels, but one of those skills I feel all middle school students need to master. 6th graders went through a series of practice exercises before making their final color wheel. First we use crayons and as a group color a color wheel while talking about the primary, secondary and intermediate colors. (Keep in mind some of my 6th graders have never had art). The next class I have table groups work together to paint a rather large group color wheel. They are given the primary colors and have to mix their secondaries and intermediate colors and get them in the correct place on the color wheel.

 After this group challenge I provided some troubleshooting instruction on how to correctly mix colors (what colors are the strongest...moving light to dark and so on) Next class each student has to paint a practice color wheel (takes about 20 min) and then starts creating their final color wheel.

 I pre-print wedges that equal 1/12 of a circle. I ask the kids to manipulate the top arch of the wedge to create a simple shape that will radiate around the circle. Some kids went a little fancier and others stayed pretty plain.

After cutting out the wedge each student traces it 12 times on a large sheet of white paper and then paint their color wheel. When the kids are done painting they need to use sharpie to go over their pencil lines, cut out their color wheel and then glue it to black paper.

 Students are graded on clean brushwork, solid colors and that each student has correctly created their 12 colors.

I don't know if it my camera or editing or computer screen but I feel like the colors the kids made are showing up distorted on the computer screen... particularly in the orange family.

One helpful hint we have learned is to use more of teal blue than a standard blue to get better color mixing. We also add a tinny dot of white to our purple colors to make them easier to see.

Radial name tutorial

I first did this lesson as a 6th grader myself close to 20 years ago. I believe we did it in math class while talking about different types of symmetry.  While there are several art blogs out there that have lovely photos of student work using the same process I'm not finding a tutorial with photos of how to lead your student's through the process so here is one. Be warned this is photo heavy.

First off you want plain old copy paper...nothing fancy you want to be able to see through the paper easily. Cut that copy paper into whatever size square you want. We go for 8 1/2 inches by 8 1/2.

Guide the student's (ideally under a document camera) into folding the paper into fourths and then opening it back flat again. Then have them fold the paper diagonally. Open the paper. Fold it diagonal the other direction.

Have the kids keep the paper folded into this right triangle.

 Have them fold it down into a smaller triangle....another right triangle.

And fold it down one more time. It needs to be folded in this order for it to look right when you open it up.

With the paper folded into the smallest right triangle have them set the paper on the table in front of them with  the 90 degree angle up.

Then moving left to right have the kids write their name in block or bubble letters.

 Make sure they have each letter touch the top and bottom of the triangle. Kids who want a challenge can use fancier lettering or overlapping or add in a random shape or two...but really your standard block letters will do just fine. What is important is that those letters touch the TOP and BOTTOM

Have the kids ink over their pencil lines with sharpie.

Now open up the paper. Have the kids line up in front of you.

YOU fold the paper so that they get the first tracing location correct. This will only take you a few seconds per kid and will save a ton of time in the long run. See the photo for how to make the first fold.

Send the kids to a window to trace in the first space. (two triangles have lettering now)

You can have them go right to sharpie or work in pencil and then later go over the pencil with sharpie. Warn the kids that at this step their project will probably look like a deranged 1st grader made it and they will come tell you they are doing it wrong and need to start over. Tell them they need to push on. Their tracing is going to be backwards, or upside down or both.  If after they fill in all 8 spaces it still looks messed up then they can start over again. Very quickly these go from "What the heck," to "that is so cool!".

Have the kids come back and check in with you after the trace the first section. Fold the paper for them as shown in the photo below.

Yes I know you think a 6th, 7th, 8th (whatever) grader should be able to figure out the paper folding on their own but after doing this lesson 9 times I promise folding it for them the first 2 times really helps.

Have them go trace in the 2 triangles on the flip side. (Four triangles have lettering now)

At this point most can figure out how to open the paper and fold it so that they are now ready to trace four of the triangles into the last four empty spaces.

If there is a big space in the middle of the paper have the kids add an interesting radial shape.

Now the kids can choose up to 5 colors. Sometimes I ask them to go with a color family...other times I let them free range. I like to get as many colors for them to choose from as possible. Do a quick review of how to use markers correctly (coloring in the same directions!)

Have them work not one triangle at a time, but one letter at a time. If the letter B is blue on mine then ALL 8 letter B's have to be blue. Work radially around the paper and you will have very few coloring issues.

Round and round they go. If you want these done will give them one to one half days (40-45 min) to receive instruction, plan, fold, trance and sharpie the design. Then I offer about 2 days to color. If they are really taking their time and coloring nicely then it will take a while. I don't allow white space to show unless it is part of a pattern they are creating.
If they are dragging on the coloring past 2 days then I find it helpful to split class into the first half of class for coloring and the second half for working on another concept or lesson. I match this will my color theory unit and I'll post what the aspects of that are in the coming weeks.

When done the student's are responsible for mounting them on construction paper and attaching a project completion card to the back.

first lessons 6th grade: radial names

Hey all, we are three weeks into our school year here in Portland. Already we have had a stomach flu and a head cold sweep through the school (and my house) but we still have been plugging away.
This year I teach four sections of middle school. A 7-8th grade class, a 6th grade class and two 6-7th classes.
Let's start with our 6th graders who come in with a WIDE range of art experience from no art to parents who are professional artists.
We started with the favorite radial hidden names...always a big hit. There are so many tutorials on how to do these that I'm not going to bother.(UPDATE: there really are not that many or any good tutorials on how to do this with photos that I can easily find so I will make and post one in the next day or two) I will say we radiate our names 8 times and I have the student's really focus on correctly using the markers to add color.

 As these were hanging in the hall something seemed a little different about them this year. I finally realized that following the whole florescent colors trend going on right now that the packs of markers I had bought had five "florescent" colors that are as blinding as highlighters. The kids loved them...I would have pulled them out of the mix if I had realized they were there.
I also think I liked it better last year when I had all the kids mount their names on black paper. Oh well live and learn. Overall I think they did a great job with this first lesson and they were very happy with the results.

I like how she used brown along with the magenta and orange

Hard to see...but this young man cut out the open spaces in his letters so it is almost like a paper snowflake...anywhere you see black is where it is cut away...very creative

hanging in the main office are the best examples...too bad the glare off the glass makes it hard to see them...

my absolute favorite this year is the one in the bottom right corner... the photo is not doing it justice

and our group display boards.

Coming up next....6th grade color wheels 

every cap counts-our bottle cap mural

This spring I got on the bandwagon and had my student's make a bottle cap mural. It was a simultaneously awesome and awful experience.  To say I underestimated how much work it would be to make the mural is to put it mildly. However, I am in love with the end results and so are the kids. However, my principal sadly is not...you can skip to the last paragraph to read about that part if you don't want to read the rest :(
This is how we made our mural and some things I wished I had known/thought of beforehand. I put my "take away" points for each step of the mural process in astricks so you can skim the post if you want.

Creating the base for the mural:
** 1/2 plywood is very affordable and home depot will make two cuts for free for you**
***Block in the colors you are going to use in each section with paint***
The base of the mural is a 4x6 foot sheet of plywood cut in half. I projected a simple coloring sheet of Starry Night onto the plywood and had some kids trace it and then go over the lines in sharpie. Then we blocked in the colors we planed to use with some craft paint ( I put dots of paint in each section and then student's who were done early could go work on blocking in the areas) later this made it so much easier for lots of kids to work on the mural and know what went where.

Collecting the caps:
**Start collecting caps early!**
**Go to local coffee shops and ask them to save milk jug lids for you**
By far the hardest part of this project for us was getting the caps into the classroom. Maybe it is because I work with middle school kids, maybe I didn't advertise the project well enough...all I know is the caps did not come pouring in as I had hopped. Eventually I put a collection bucket in the main office, in the lunch room  and in my classroom. I also put announcements in the student morning bulletin and in the parent newsletter. Putting a note in the parent newsletter helped some but not as much as I was expecting. Eventually I got caps 3 ways. 1 for every 5 caps a kid brought to me they got a Swedish gummy fish or sour patch kid. Yes this is food bribery but it worked. 2 several teachers offered extra credit points for caps...every 3 caps equaled 1 point. After midterm grades went home the caps came pouring in.
3. I went to the 3 Starbucks in the neighborhood with large empty cans from the cafeteria and talked the managers into collecting caps from the milk jugs for a week each. I'm hoping one of the Starbucks will let me put up he mural for a few weeks come fall.
AFTER this project was done a student brought me two paper grocery sacks full of caps and the caps just kept coming once families got used to collecting them. So I think a major lesson here is to start collecting the caps a few months before you plan on doing the mural.

Sorting the caps:
** Soak batches of the caps you receive in dish-washing soap or a little bleach water or something so your mural doesn't start to smell of sour milk and other food**
**Have the kids sort out the colors into sub categories...not just "blue" but the different shades of blue**
***look at both sides of the caps for various color options and to create tints and shades***

Attaching the caps:
**pre-lay out the caps where you want them before letting the kids have at it with the glue gun OR have a few student supervisors**
**You are going to use a LOT of glue sticks***
We went the hot glue gun route and I am waiting to see how many caps have fallen off when we get back to school in a few weeks to decided if they need to  be screwed into the board or not. It is possible that I will write a post in three weeks about how I walked into the classroom and the entire thing fell apart and how upset I am. 
Anyway placement of the caps was a big challenge for us. Putting everything together was a lot like putting a puzzle together. I strongly suggest doing any curved or circle or small detail areas first and then systematically filling in from either top down or left to right or something that helps you get a nice fit for all the caps. Having the base color in paint really helped hid areas where we had gaps in the caps.
I really had to keep an eye on where the kids would glue the caps. They would get excited and start gluing in areas that I had not laid out the caps for first. Eventually I trained a few kids to be "supervisors" and one of them had to be present to oversee the gluing of the caps if I was not available. This was a great job for those chronic early finishers. A few kids started layering smaller caps inside of larger caps and I think it added a really neat look to the mural.

Hanging the mural:
**make sure you have a dedicated place to hang the mural**
I have yet to hang the mural. When it was all done I was thrilled with the results, so where all the staff members who saw it and so were the kids AND the 30 families that stopped by to see it at spring portfolio night, that is the most parents to ever take interest in my program. Want to know the ONE person not excited about the end results? My principal! Yes my principal who was on board for the entire project till the very when when she looked at it and decided she didn't know what "message" it would send to hang it in the hall because it looks a little (and I'm quoting her) "junky."  I am dumbfounded. I think it looks great and sends a message that the school supports art and recycling and creativity and collaborative activities.
Let's look a the mural again....

Ok junkie is not what comes to mind when I see that. I really hope she changes her mind come fall and let's me put it up in the halls. I was really hoping to put it in the library or near the office where lots of student's can see the mural. But for now I only have permission to have it hung up in my room. Even the custodian thinks it's a shame that it has to live in my room. My hope is to find  a store or coffee shop in our neighborhood that wants to display it for a few weeks and help show the principal that people will think it is awesome...not junkie.

So will we do it again? Yes we will. We still have a lot of caps left over from this one and I'm feeling more confident about the process. I think I want to make 2 a school year till we have a whole Gallery! For the next one I am thinking something by Matisse. Even if I have to store them all in my room till this principal retires I think the community art experience is worth it.

Hidden names painting

The sample for this lesson was left behind in my current classroom by a past teacher...I remember doing something similar in middle school so we can call it a classic and we know classics tend to produce constantly good results.  These are done by 6th grade students. I think 3, 4, 5th could also do it.

So pretty straightforward...would make a good back to school lesson. I work with middle school students so they had "choices" along the way. First they needed to choose if they were doing their first name only or first and last. If their name had less than 5 letters they were required to use their name twice. Next they were asked to choose one shape.  The shape will be repeated 5, 7 or 9 times.

I had the kids start by turning their paper at an angle and writing their name in block or bubble letters as large as they could. At least one letter needed to go off the page. All the letters were to overlap in some place. After the kids had a good rough draft ( and at least half had to start again making their letters even bigger) then they added in their shapes and last name if they were doing that. The last names were done small as seen in the example above. Everything was transferred to white card stock paper.

Shapes could overlap, touch or "float" or go off the page. Next students could choose 3-5 colors for their letters. Everyone had to have a black background. I have tried other background colors and they just don't look as good. Sorry. So then you know the deal...each time you hit a line you need to switch colors. Shapes that touch on a diagonal can be the same color but neighbor shapes can not. I have had as young as 2nd grade successfully grasp that concept.

Sometimes less is more, this three color combo is really striking. She is a repeat student and choose to do analogous colors. Once the letters are painted in then let everything dry really well and then go back and do the black background. There can be some small shapes and spaces with these so I suggest some brush practice first. Great for working brush control. Last I made the kids outline everything in black sharpie, choose a background paper that matched one of the colors we used and had them go staple them up in the hall.

I should have made this student make some of her letters bigger....oh well. The past art teacher had the kids do these on canvas board with acrylic (oh the days when we were not in a recession). We had a 100% success rate on this lesson with students who ranged from no art at all to having taken art all year long.
The make a great looking display for back to school night or spring conferences.

Ok I hate to have to bring this up...but please do not use my photos on your blog... it nice if you link back if you use a lesson idea...I'm not too picky about that, but don't take my photos ok?

Enjoy!