The Middle School art electives have gotten off to a great start. Having more choice in their art classes has allowed our middle school students to learn more through curiosity, exploration, and discovery.
(Dan and Joe painting with yardsticks, JJ’s painting, Jada’s painting)
In our first few painting elective classes, we began to think about painting a little differently. The students painted with paintbrushes taped to yardsticks to loosen up, they painted with non-dominant hands, and played. We are not worried about final products, but are immersed in process. In the next class, I gave students 3”x3” pieces of paper and asked them to experiment with tools and techniques. We talked about inventing new ways to paint, and they really took this seriously. A new technique emerged around pouring and pulling paint and then dragging the paper across the surface.
Photo Elective
The photo elective students are learning about the basics of photography. Our first task was to build a giant camera obscura (thus the plastic over the windows). The Camera Obscura is THE most magical and amazing thing in the world. The students get to see what happens inside a camera and understand how light works. We will be creating pinhole cameras and setting up some dark spaces to process black and white photo paper.
Academic Club: Open Studio (meets for 30 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday).
Ellie is working on a series of poems and quotes, incorporating text into paintings.
Carter is working on improving his drawing skills.
Elsa has been working on understanding sewing patterns.