Assemblage boxes telling a story, anthropomorphic representations, and portraiture in photography were some of the themes and projects students worked on since the beginning of the year in Art.
Grade 6 created assemblage art tiled “Amazing World”. Inspired by the assemblage boxes of artist Joseph Cornell, the students made their own boxes and used found objects, images, pattern papers, painting and clay creations to tell a story. The skill set included symbolic thinking, 3D composition, craftsmanship and engineering elements such as lights and operable doors.The project was coordinated the current theme for TEDxYouth at EB, and exhibited at the event. See a full gallery of 6th grade student work.
Egyptian gods and bandes dessinées
Grade 7 worked on illuminated pages, an Anthropomorphic Animal Self-Portrait with a poem. This was a joint project with English. A self-portrait was drawn during art class and a poem was composed during English class. The finished page serves as a cover for a portfolio of autobiographical writing that students wrote in English class. The students practiced expressive figure drawings, creative thinking (combining a person with an animal), color design, full page composition, calligraphy and typography. The beautiful stitching of the books was done in English class. The visual inspirations range from anthropomorphic representations of Egyptian and Indian gods, medieval illuminated pages (Le Roman de Renart), to contemporary comics and bandes dessinées. See more student work.
Interdisciplinary approach with French
Grade 8 studied photographers Robert Frank, Cindy Sherman and Henri Cartier Bresson and explored the use of particular subjects and themes used by these photographers: stark or ironic critiques of popular culture and media, self portraiture, and surrealism. Students also studied how these photographers use light, composition, and focus or lack of focus to create a photo. The final project, 6-8 digital photos on a theme of choice, is exhibited in the stairwell at the middle school. For the last several weeks students studied figure drawing: proportion and tone, and are using their knowledge of the figure as well as the lessons on composition and interior and exterior perspective to draw illustrations for their Nouvelle Fantastique, fantastical stories they each wrote in French class. See some student work.