As the year began, students walked into the classroom doors showing an eagerness to begin exploring their artistic selves. Many, already familiar with our Choice-Based studio, came in with pre-planned projects, fervently asking for materials to start their investigation. Conversations about their goals for the year or what materials they will use and how flooded the classroom.
During the first few weeks of school, our middle school artists focused on art tools from the drawing and painting station. Having available many materials to consider, we looked at various techniques in using these supplies and thought of ways to incorporate them in our work. Some artists explored wet-on-wet watercolor painting, while others tried stenciling with chalk pastels using tape. With these new techniques, many continued to practice those from the past year.
Once classes demonstrated a need to think about ideas for work, artist collaboratively developed anchor charts to answer the question, "What do artist draw?". We broke down the question into five categories.
Artist Draw:
- What They Feel
- What They See
- What They Imagine
- What They Remember
- Various Marks, Patterns, and Lines
