Classroom Gardens
For this project 7th grade students created an observational ink drawing of classroom plants. They looked at the work of contemporary ink artists Liu Dan, and Wu Guanzhong, and used bamboo pens and watercolor to compose their drawings. The arts-making criteria for this assignment was to illustrate organic lines with a variety of textures. They also learned how to make a monochromatic artwork by mixing multiple shades of green and looked at Henri Rousseau, Jordan Casteel and David Thorpe’s colorful paintings for guidance. To create emphasis in their drawings they independently choose among the following color combinations: warm and cool, chromatic and neutral, or tints and tones.
While completing this project students also met language objectives and developed social emotional learning skills. Students used words and phrases specific to the discipline of art and were essential to how students completed formative assessments of their drawing. They learned to differentiate content-specific words such as value, neutral, and tone from the meanings these words have in other subjects. The students also deepened their social and emotional learning by journal-writing about how emotions impact their creative process. Creating art is a challenging endeavor and the journaling helped them raise awareness and manage the challenging act of learning.
7th Grade, Bamboo Pen & Ink and Watercolor on Watercolor Paper, 9” x 12”
