September Charter Chat

September Expressions Charter Chat from Jenell Novello

8th Grade Collaborative Ceiling Tile Murals

8th Grade Op Art Unit culminates with a Collaborative Ceiling Time Mural Project. In years past 12 ceiling tiles have been produced during this mastery project. I don't know what happened, but this year 16 AMAZING ceiling tile murals were completed and they look awesome installed in the classroom. Way To Go 8th Grade! #SOPROUD

7th Grade Pen and Ink Manga Figure Drawing

After reflecting on lasts years Paper Children Challenge it occurred to me that students needed explicit instruction on figure drawing. That's when I decided to add it to the Manga Unit and created a lesson inspired by these Pinterest images.

I purchased Dollar Tree Calendars containing landscape scenes for the backgrounds. I created by example and from there, developed a figure drawing skill building lesson plan based upon:

• 8 head stick figure drawing
• 8 head stick figure drawing using perspective
• manikin drawing step- by step
• manikin drawing pose by observation
• Next year I will add still life gestural drawing from observation with some guest models.

Once students gained figure drawing skills I introduced them to Pen and Ink Techniques. After some practice students began their rough/final drafts and applied them to their chosen scenery. Here are some stand outs! This is definitely a keeper lesson!

LE Chalks It Up!

Dream Come True! Every year I attend Chalk It Up and think to myself, "my kids could totally do that". So this year I wrote a grant that NAEF funded allowing myself and a crew of students to create a chalk mural at the festival.

Since the Leading Edge Mascot is a KNIGHT it seemed fitting that we create a design that incorporated a knight. Coincidentally, last spring two alumni students painted a mural of a knight for our school as their community service project. With their permission, we recreated that design onto the chalk sqaure. Mika and Maeya, the two former students, even made a guest appearance at the Chalk It Up event and helped add the final touches!

Students that helped out at the event included 3- 7th graders, 4- 8th graders, 4 -former students who are now in high school, parents and the original student artists. We knocked out this design in 4 hours- thankfully, because it was 102 degrees by noon when we finished up!

I love having my students involved in creating community art and this was our first successful event outside of school. I can't wait to organize more opportunities for my students to show off their stuff outside of class! GO KNIGHTS!

8th Grade Eyes Three Ways

This summer I attended a class called Choice-Based Art Education.  I decided to get my toes wet with my 8th grade students trying out a new project I developed called Eyes Three Ways. In this project students were to create three eyes with each eye design answering the following questions:

• How do I see the world?
• How do others see me?
• How do I see myself?

Example:

Students were to explore different mediums for each eye. I had 8 different medium stations set up around the classroom that students could travel to gather supplies. Students practiced on an "Eye Passport" then whittled down their choice of three mediums using a practice eye worksheet. Then, once skills were mastered students created their final draft eyes.

After a gallery walk, we then began the process of creating an armature for an Agamograph. Once the armature was created, students prepped their eyes and assembled them onto the graph. Students then created a video of their illusion explaining their three eyes!

Students loved this project for many reasons and I loved it too! Next year I will focus on developing more understanding of eye anatomy, lash and brow techniques, and shading techniques. Aside from that this project gave me the inspiration to create an Identity Unit that will replace the Op Art unit for next year! LOVE!