Art Lesson: Illustrated Letters

 Lesson for 7th - 10th, 3 weeks:

Inspired by <<Typefight>>, the 3-year-long graphic design tournament. Students design an illustrated letter in the style of one of the nine master artists below:

7th uses only gouache, and I subtract Klimt from their bank of artists to choose.  I give them 75% longer to finish the project (they need more class time). Below, they're practicing mixing colors:

IBVA Showcase

11th-grade IB Visual Arts cohort made these a long time back, but I wasn't allowed to publish these until now (IB rules). Students' only constraint was that they had to choose a limited palette.

Each canvas shown below is VERY LARGE:

Art Lesson: Interiors in Perspective

10th-grade Art Lesson: 

When I was in school, my art classes never taught perspective. Blessing in disguise, because I learned from a wonderful book linked at the bottom of this post. That book took me farther down the rabbit hole than any reasonable kid would go (ex: book got me sketching praying mantises and alligators in perspective). Nothing has increased my breadth as an artist more than leveling up my perspective drawing skills.

One cool thing about teaching perspective: students who do well here are often different from those who do well with the other art lessons I run. But be warned that this is a challenging lesson for all students, and you'll be working closely with each of them to get their paintings across the finish line.

Accommodation for weaker students: They may work in monochromatic watercolor.

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The students are charged with designing an interior for a themed resort hotel (themes = haunted forest theme, cats theme, pirate theme, and so on). 

They have to figure out lighting and how to render their interesting interior objects in perspective, with cast shadows, etc. Top examples:

Art Lesson: Fantasy Landscapes with Alien Trees (MS)

Lesson for 7th grade 

Students started by copying <trees> by Brayden Barrett. Next, they spent a couple days learning basic linear perspective with draw-alongs (they didn't have to use perspective in this project, but these exercises taught them about using a horizon and how to place items at varying distances on a ground plane). Third, they made thumbnails of their alien trees planted into alien landscapes (swamps, volcanic terrain, canyons, floating islands, etc). 

(Sample of Barrett's trees)

While making thumbnails, they took a day to play with dzine.ai, and to AI-generate some reference photos for their proposed scene.

Using their AI refs, their Brayden Barrett refs, and their thumbnails, each student began an A3 watercolor using a limited palette (their choice of one of the below color schemes):

Art Lesson: Skyscapes in 2 weeks

Lesson for 9th or 10th grade,  2 weeks, acrylics

I hadn't done this lesson in years, but I forgot how quickly it goes. It was perfect for year's end, when kids are good at painting and have a few weeks to fill. 

Guidance for students:

1. You're painting from a high-res reference of a side-lit cumulus cloud (side lit creates 3-dimensionality)
2. No black. Mix warm and cool greys from brown and ultramarine.
3. Warm up your sky by mixing yellow ochre into your blue
4. Experiment with ultramarine (purplish) and cobalt (blue-bluegreen); feel the difference in your mixes.
5. Sky gets darker and purpler at top, lighter and more cerulean at bottom.
6. You can invent or exaggerate the hues as long as the values match your reference.

Art Lesson: Aircraft/Spacecraft Themed Shoe Design

 

Lesson for 

9th grade, ceramics

Students study historic aircraft and spacecraft as they design these shoes. I told them to imagine they had baskets of airplane components like missiles, propellers, and motors, and they could reassemble them into footwear.

They learned slab construction, and they built these shoes out of paper before trying them in clay:

Students could opt to design shoes inspired by cathedrals instead of air- and spacecraft: