Week 2

Week 2 saw the addition of painting as one of our choices for art materials to use.  The transition into Choice Based art making has been going rather smoothly.  The students seem really excited by all the items in the Idea Station which they can select to draw or use as inspiration.

This student finished his house this week.

I have a group of boys who are insisting on making their pictures look "old-fashioned" by only doing black and white pictures so we talked about how there are black and white, but lots of grays in the pictures too.

A kindergartener's light bug.

This 1st grade picture was inspired by a lot of different things.  I was really impressed he took so many ideas we talked about first semester and put them together in this picture.

This week the art room saw a lot of standard landscapes; grass, sky, sun, trees and with some animals.  Rather than see this as phase or a down side to the week I instead see this as an opportunity to discuss with students the other points of view they can use to create a picture.  Does we have to show the whole deer or can it be just a close up?  How do you as the artist want to depict this deer?  Instead of having them just do something, because that is what the assignment requires or the technique demands we can discuss the possibilities and choices that each student has to make the best possible decision for that particular student on their artwork.  Since the student is highly invested in their art and ideas I feel these discussions will be more meaningful for them and have a greater effect on their artwork.