Annual Middle School Art Show at the PDC

February marks the biggest event for middle school art in the district. Artwork from each middle school is on display at Mesquite's Professional Development Center. The work will be on display for February's School Board meeting and afterwards each middle school principal will choose one artwork from his or her school to receive the prestigious Principal's Award. Check back in early March to see which work was selected. 22 of our 28 Advanced Art students have work on display.

Our 2012 Principals Award winner with her self portrait

Non-Objective/Monochromatic Oil Pastels: 6th Grade

To begin our focus on the element of Color, 6th grade classes explored the use of a monochromatic color scheme. Ask any 6th grader and they can tell you that Mono = One, Chroma = Color, and Tic = exhibiting the characteristics of something. When you put that all together you get the definition of the word monochromatic - having the characteristics of only one color. 

Students created non-objective (not of anything other than lines and shapes) designs and used their chosen color of oil pastel plus black, white, gray, and/or small amounts of other colors to create a monochromatic color scheme.

Art II - Self Portraits

One of my favorite projects each year is self-portraits. Maybe it's because students try so hard because they know it's supposed to look like them, I'm not sure, but they always turn out great. In order to draw their portrait, students first took a picture of themselves and then used a grid technique to proportionally enlarge the portrait. In order to show value, students could choose pencil, colored pencil, or a combination of the two. 

Value Study: Pasta - Art II

In order to focus on the element of Value, the Art II students created mini-still life pieces out of pasta and used a view finder to create an interesting composition. Student projects had to include both value with pencil as well as with colored pencil.

Art II - Cross-Contour Line Drawings

After work on contour lines, it was time to move on to CROSS-CONTOUR LINE drawings. While contour lines focus on the outside edges and surfaces, cross-contour lines focus on showing volume and form. Often a student will have to imagine where and how the cross-contours of an object should be depicted. For this drawing, a still-life of chairs covered in fabric served as a starting point for the project plan. Backgrounds were to include lines/designs that helped show the vertical and horizontal planes and help create a feeling of depth. Check out some of the best project examples below:

Art II: Contour Line

Contour Lines focus on the outside edges and inside surface ridges of an object. Most contour line drawings are done using continual lines, or not picking up your pen while drawing. Because contour line drawings are often continual, the can sometimes be best described as "drawing in cursive". The main purposes of contour line drawings are to keenly observe an object and to  help students focus on the details of an object specifically.

After a few days of practice, the Art II students created contour line drawings of a still like of their choosing. In order to create a more interesting final project, prior to drawing, students used tissue paper color transfer to add vibrant color to their page and create an almost paint-like effect. Below are some of the best examples of the project - please forgive the poor photo quality... my bad.