September

Designing Bugs

Our first project of the year was the Bug Project. Students had to design a relatively simple bug, spider or insect using only black and white. We looked at reference pictures of different bugs and insects and did a lesson on simplifying shapes and designing a unique insects. Once students had a well designed bug, they used that bug to trace from randomly on their paper. We called this their "Master Bug." The student added a simple geometric shape to their project that was also randomly placed throughout the the paper. The shape works best when some of it overlaps parts of the bugs and parts of the background. The last step involved shading, outlining and coloring the bugs with a black sharpie. Any parts of the bug that are contained in the shape change from black to white or from white to black. This creates an interesting visual element and a sense of movement.

Francisco Pachecho 7

Sarah Moreno 7

Ayleen Romero 7

Ysabella Enriquez 7

Selena Molina 7

Maria Romero 7

Alex Romero 8

Ayden

Alex Perez 6

Malani Booker 8

Diego Rostro 7

Kate Cruz 7

Samuel Valeriano 8

Value Scales

Value is the lightness or darkness of a color. Students practiced this concept by creating value scales in pencil. As you can see, each rectangle gets slightly darker as we move up the value scale. Our eyes can detect about 10 values of any given color, however a successful drawing or painting really only needs 3-5 values to work well. This exercise also promotes even and smooth shading, which takes practice and patience.

Sarah Moreno 7

Color Mixing Project

Students created an abstract design with simple shapes and lines. We incorporated some of the elements of art into this project such as shape, line, value, space and of course color. The main point of the project was for students to get practice mixing and painting a variety of colors in a more interesting format than a traditional color wheel. They could choose the colors they wanted, but they had to mix a variety of primary, secondary, tertiary colors as well as compliments, and shades and tints. This project also promotes paint handling and learning to control the paint and stay within the lines.

Left Image: Ysabella Enriquez 7