Throughout the first month of school, the 6th grade classes have been learning about the Element of Art LINE. Our big project using line, was creating animal zentangles in which we used many different types of lines to incorporate pattern into the drawing.  You can check them out on Artsonia here.
We've also discussed the difference between types of lines that you can draw with such as outline, contour, sketch and gesture lines.  Last Friday we spent the class period doing figure drawings.  Various students volunteered to pose throughout the period as the rest of the class drew.  Poses lasted from 30 seconds to 2 minutes.  We started to warm up by doing gesture scribble drawings and then proceeded to regular gestures. The kids always have a lot of fun doing this activity AND they get better at drawing people!

Imagine you were going to introduce yourself to someone that you had never met before, but could only give them five words that best describe you. What five words would communicate the essence of who you are?  This is the challenge that I gave to my students last week.

The idea came about when we started working on our first set of Artist Trading Cards for the ATC school exchange.  The theme for this month is, "All about ME: Introductions and Goals for the Year."  When I first told students about the exchange I wanted them to have a lot of independence.  I told them they could do anything they wanted on the card and use any medium that was interesting, as long as the card was about themselves.  However, as they began working we realized that the cards were very pretty, but they could do a better job of introducing themselves visually on the ATCs.  That's when I asked them to re-think how they were approaching these and start again by brainstorming a list of words about themselves. After they each had a big list of words, I asked them to narrow it down to their top five.  It was fun to hear what student's chose as their words.  Not only did I learn a lot about each student through this activity, but they also go to know each other as peers as we shared our words in class.  Hopefully the students that receive our cards will enjoy them too!

By the way, my five words are "art, teacher, family, love, learner," and my sample card for the project is the photo above.  Not only did students have to think of their five words, but they also needed to figure out how they could make a symbol that illustrated each word and how to put them all together in an interesting way. I think my students learned a lot from of these 2 1/2" X 3 1/2" miniature works of art!

So, what are your five words? I'd love for you to share them!