My 8th graders will be doing Artistic Habit units this year. After a round of Artistic Habits around the room, we are starting with “Artists Develop” This is fashioned off of one of Ian Sands’ Artistic Habits units. (see the Open Art Room)
Students have selected a specific skill they want to improve on artistically. They did a “before” drawing or task to show their current skills. You can see the start of their progress on our Artsonia. https://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?project=1605545
Like most middle schoolers there are “friend trends” as I like to call them. A group of girls that like to sit together will all be working on drawing realistic eyes or faces. A pod of sports playing boys will be drawing sports figures in action. A pair of painters will be working on sunsets in a variety of paints. There are a few outliers. One stencil graffiti artist. I am sure one of my students, when he returns from his first fall cold, will pick video game programming.
My 8th grade classes are really small this year, so I will be able to give a lot of one-on-one attention to these projects. Looking forward to seeing how this works. My next two unit ideas are Artists Solve Problems and Artists Communicate. The Open Art Room and the Summer TAB Institute were both so inspiring to take my students beyond my past themes and into these higher level units.
Wish us luck!
