projects from the classroom

Monsters on Adobe illustrator

Posted on February 18, 2013 by laurendahl88

Assignment: Creating Monsters on Adobe Illustrator to teach students about the basic tools on Adobe Illustrator and about the elements of art.

Rubric:

1. Good work habits- 20 points

2. Uses ALL the elements of art (line, shape, texture, space, color, and value)- 20 points

3. Creative Thinking when creating the monster – 20 points

4. Uses at least one new tool in Adobe Illustrator (aside from what was taught on the Panda Bear Tutorial)- 20 points

5. Care and Effort- 20 points

Henry R. “Blob Man”, 7th grade (6th period)

Riya S. “The Kooky Monster”, 6th grade (2nd period)

Geetika, “The Nightmare Blues”, 6th grade (2nd period)

Marco, “Marco Monster”, 7th grade (3rd period)

Tiara, “Rawr”, 7th grade (6th period)

Caroline, “Monster-Monster”, 7th grade (6th period)

Mitchell B. “?”, 7th grade (3rd period)

Typography – Word Design (Spring 2013)

Posted on January 23, 2013 by laurendahl88

“Hair”, Isabella S, 7th grade (6th period)

(see more student work below)

Typography: Designing letters and words to enhance the meaning

To view project rubric, and past student examples, click here.

[ Rubric ](100 points total)

1. Good work habits/effective use of time – 20 points

2. Chooses a word and designs each letter to enhance the meaning of the word- 20 points

3. Uses colored pencil techniques (layering and shading)- 20 points

4. Creative thinking when coming up with a word and design – 20 points

5. Neat and Tidy- 20 points

“Nail”, Caroline J. 7th grade(6th period)

“Tree”, Kalena G, 7th grader (6th period)

“Chain”, James D. 7th grader (3rd period)

“Books”, JP G. 7th grader (3rd period)

“Art”, Ronnie P. 8th grader

“Tiger”, Griffin F. 8th grader, (1st period)

“Sport”, Amy E. 8th grader (1st period)

“Sport”, Jerry M, 8th grader (1st period)

“Music Rock”, Jeff H, 8th grader (1st period)

“Dance”, Danielle Z. 7th grader (6th period)

“Sail”, Henry R. 7th grader (6th period)

“Purple”, Tiara R. 7th grader (6th period)

“Paint”, Morgan M, 7th grader (6th period)

Game Design

Posted on January 22, 2013 by laurendahl88

Emina’s Group, 6th grade

(scroll down to see more games)

[Assignment]

Students must work in a group of four to design and implement a board game.

[Materials]

Anything they want. Really. I only two rules. One rule was that students could not use my classroom art supplies except for construction paper, tape and glue. I know that sounds silly, but you can only imagine if 30 students were running around the room getting any supplies they needed. No way. Also, if all students used the same art supplies, then they wouldn’t be pushing themselves to come up with creative new uses for objects from home. The second rule was that I did not want them to spend money on supplies. Of course, they could it’s their money, but definitely not required. They could use found objects from home, rocks from the street, um gum wrappers. It really didn’t matter to me.

[Key Words]

Product Design, Cohesive, Design Planning, Board Game

[Rubric]

1. Good work habits/effective use of time

2. Cohesive design plan which means everything must make sense. (The box, the pieces, and the board all need to be cohesive in their design.)

3. The game must have a clear objective that others can understand

4. All parts must be completed (a set of rules, game pieces, a box to put the game in, a board to play on, etc)

5. Neat and Tidy. It needs to look like you put extreme care and attention into all details.

[More student artwork]

Bryson’s Group, 6th grade (4th period), “

[Worksheets to help students when design planning]

Up-close and Personal (A 7th grade drawing project)

Posted on November 28, 2012 by laurendahl88

David Q- 7th grader

(More student work below..)

[Assignment]

Create four separate up-close value drawings of four items that are personal to you.

[Learning Objectives]

1. I can crop an object (by drawing an up-close section of it) so that it remains interesting to the viewer.

2. I can add value to my drawing by using a variety of drawing techniques. (smudging, using the eraser for highlights, applying different amounts of pressure to the paper)

3. I can use newspaper as a means to add interest and variety to my drawing.

[Materials]

Four squares of drawing paper, newspaper, drawing pencils, rubber cement or glue sticks, larger piece of construction paper to fit the four square drawings on

[Things that must be included/How you will be graded]

1. Good work habbits

2. Accurate application of value (must have highlights, midtones, and dark areas)

3. Four personal objects that reflect you.

4. Cropped drawings of those four objects.

5. Attention to detail within the drawing, and the gluing of the newspaper.

[How this project relates to Graphic Arts]

one:

Cropping a product in an advertisement enlightens the viewer to the different highlighted aspects of that particular product.

[More student work]

Taylor B-7th grader

Anthony M. -7th grader

Candy Bar Package Design Project

Posted on November 12, 2012 by laurendahl88

Mark G. 8th grader

(more student work below)

[Assignment]

Create a realistic drawing of a still life(which happens to be candy glued to a plate) using colored pencils.

[How you will be graded/Must be included]

1. Good work habbits

2. Interesting composition (objects coming off the page, variety, viewers eye should be carried around the art piece)

3. Must look like the actual objects in front of you

4. Layering of colors, shadows, midtones and highlights

5. Attention to details

[How this project relates to Graphic Art]

1. Package Design.

Instead of drawing a still life with the traditional fruit, basket, or random objects, I chose to use candy so that students would also learn about package design.

Kohana R. 8th grader

Andrew C. 8th grader.

Positive/ Negative Space Continued

Posted on September 17, 2012 by laurendahl88

Sophia M. “Through the Branches”. 8th grade

Here is the link to the post about the Positive / Negative Space project that I made this summer:

http://mrsdahl.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/positive-negative-space/

You can click on it to see the specifics, like learning objectives, artist connections and my examples. But, if you don’t care about any of that, and only want to see some student examples, just stay here and scroll down.

Step 1:

Glue strips of magazine (in your chosen color scheme) onto a piece of construction paper. This alone took 2-3 days and students were really into finding specific colors and textures that matched their theme or idea.

Step 2:

On a separate piece of construction paper, draw a super awesome design. Color in the parts you want to cut out.

Step 3:

exacto knives…..

the idea of using knives in the art room is scary, but everything turned out perfectly fine. Actually, it was one of my favorite days in the classroom because so much love, care and focus was being put into the artwork.

super scary

all finished cutting

Step 4:

Gluing and pasting

All finished:

Panda Bear on Adobe Illustrator

Posted on September 14, 2012 by laurendahl88

Last year I found this awesome tutorial on how to create a Panda Bear on Adobe Illustrator. It was actually the tutorial I used to teach my self how to use the program. Here is the link:

http://vectips.com/tutorials/create-a-cute-panda-bear-face-icon/

Originally I used this exact same tutorial with my students, but quickly discovered that it was too difficlt. It was very wordy. I recreated that tutorial in my own words to simplify the steps so that even my youngest students (age 10) could use it to learn about the basic tools on Adobe Illustrator.

Word Disguises- Typography

Posted on August 29, 2012 by laurendahl88

[Assignment]

Student will learn about typography by designing and disguising a word of their choice. Each letter in their word will become an image that enhances the meaning.

(For example, if your word is Music, you would change each letter into music notes, piano keys, drums, etc. )

[Learning Objectives]

1. I can design a chosen word to enhance it’s meaning

2. I can apply colored pencil techniques to make my art piece more interesting- Layering of color, shading, applying different amounts of pressure.

[Things that must be included/how you will be graded]

1. Good work habits

2. Neat and tidy/ appropriate application of colored pencils (layering of colors)

3. A chosen word that reflects your personality

4. Designs each letter in the word to enhance the meaning (typography)

[How this project relates to Graphic Art]

one:

Graphic artists use typography in advertisements, packaging and many other designs. The font or design of letters can not only influence the buyer or viewer, but it also helps tie in the rest of the packaging choices (colors, images, space, etc).