6th grade octopus

I love a good upside down drawing. 6th graders drew their octopi upside down. We then did shading practice and students shaded their octopus. Collage onto a new sheet of paper and add bubbles! 

6th grade pop art portraits

See post on 8th grade Shepard Fairey portraits. 

8th grade tunnel books

This lesson was given to me by my wonderful co teacher Ms. Phillips. The sides of the tunnel book are accordion folds. Students draw a foreground middle ground and background then assemble. They must work from a source image. 

6th grade cubist guitars

This is a fun short project. Students fracture a guitar with lines. We discuss color blending and shading with colored pencil. They zen tangle the background. 

8th grade Shepard Fairey portraits

An 

these portraits were inspired by Shepard Fairey's Obey giant and have quickly become a student favorite. Students are photographed and turned into a black and white image using the threshold feature on Photoshop touch. They were the. Gridded on a 16 x 22 inch sheet of watercolor paper. 

An alternate project could use animals

7th grade watercolor pencil collage birds

At this point in the semester students knew the grinding technique. Students were given the option to grid or free hand their birds. Students were to collage the wing. They could use music notes or a local map or pages from a poetry book. We discussed a variety of water colored pencil techniques and closely inspected the coloration of the birds. These are done with student quality Faber castell watercolor pencils. 

Multi view fish

8th grade's introduction to colored pencil last semester were these beautiful fish from multiple viewpoints. We created the border, the three boxes and the shadows together as a class. Students were given images of fish but they were also allowed to find images on their smart phones. The back of the paper was instructed to be the full view of the fish. The smaller boxes were to include the fishe head, the fish texture and the fish fin. Then students were instructed with colored pencil. 

7th grade portraits emphasizing value mixing

Students looked at the hope poster by Shepard Fairey. Students were photographed and the photos were posterized using photoshop touch for the iPad. Students gridded their photo and their watercolor paper. They gridded their photo by using post it notes to block off one square at a time and shading in the values as they go. They then paint their portrait by mixing their greys and painting them on their already shaded drawings.

Upside down fairy tales

8th grade students first practiced upside down drawing with the horse from Betty Edwards right side of the brain. Students then we're asked to select their favorite fairytale. We did a google search for "fairy tale coloring sheets" these cannot be used in competition. They drew their fairytale upside down. We then reviewed colored pencil technique.