Sketchbooks! Sketchbooks! Sketchbooks!

SPOILER ALERT; More amazing drawings like this (from 6th-8th graders!!!!)  if you scroll down!

I started having my middle school students do sketchbook assignments this year.  We've always used our sketchbooks in class for planning, free drawing, doodling, etc but I wanted my students to push their talents and figure out what their artistic interests were a little bit more.  So I started requiring them to do three sketchbook assignments each trimester--that's about one drawing every three-four weeks...nothing major, right?  I created a list of 25 options for each grade level 6th-8th (if you'd like a copy of my lists, let me know).  These are the requirements I gave them (this is just my 6th grade list, each grade level has their own):

Then the magic happened!  They gave me amazingly beautiful and brilliant drawings!  Enjoy!

This one didn't photograph well but I have to show it off--this 8th grader drew a tiger in the jungle using pointillism!!!

Worth noting: This was drawn based off of a photo of this student's grandfather that played college football-such an amazing tribute!!!

Saints Art Contest

Iowa Catholic Radio's 'Our Catholic Schools Rock!' Art Contest--2015 Theme: Saints

So I've been extremely behind on my blogging and I have zero (good) excuses for that.  But I figured I might as well pick up where I'm at in the classroom and share what the kiddos have been up to!  When school started back up, I found an invitation for my students to participate in a Catholic art contest, my kids LOVE art contests and this was no exception.  

The contest is for K-8 students and is divided into various age categories.  I shared all of this info with my students and let them know that the contest's theme was "Saints."  I collected as many books on saints as I could get my hands on--I teach in a Catholic school, so this wasn't too tricky.  I just had to hit up a religion teacher, the library and our religious education library. I let the kids choose their saints that they wanted to depict and I encouraged them to put their own spin on their saint's portrait.  Some of the kids opted for emulating what they saw in the picture books and others played around with adding their own borders and backgrounds (which I especially loved).   They got to choose what medium they wanted to finish their artwork in, so I got to see a nice variety in styles too! This trimester I only have 8th graders in the middle school, so I taught this lesson to 4th, 5th and 8th grade.  I couldn't have been more proud of all of their hard work and effort that went into these drawings!  Enough said, not check out their finished work for yourself (warning, I'm about to flood this blog post with photos):

8th Grade Examples:

And I couldn't resist posting a few closeups:

         

 

     

     

5th Grade Examples:

And...More closeups:

  

  

4th Grade Examples:

And, finally, the last of the closeups: