Artbotics Presentations

The end of the year is here and our Artbotics students have done a great job with their portraits! Today we had our showcase of our portraits.

Presentation #1 

Presentation #2

Presentation #3

Presentation #4

Great job, Students! Ms. Roach and I are so proud!!

Artbotics: Starting to come together

Students have spent the past few weeks studying different forms of portrait styles. Now they get to start their final projects- turning a portrait into a 3-D piece of brilliance!

Here's the example they were shown:

From the portrait, Ms. Ashley cut out 3 pieces that she wanted to motorize. (This is where the robots come in!)
Here's a view from the back:

Using the robotics programming we learned in the fall, students will make pieces of their portraits move! 3 of our students were on the Robotics Team in the fall. The other 3 students will get a quick lesson on programming in the next session.

Here's what Ms. Ashley's product is able to do!

Cool, huh?! The kids certainly thought so.
Students were told to think about which parts of their portraits they wanted to motorize. Students were also told to think of why those pieces were significant. As part of their final presentation, students will have to write an Artist's Statement about their piece. We really want to encourage the kids to go deeper than "I just wanted my eyes to spin."

Here is what we managed to get done on their pieces so far. Pieces were redrawn, cut out, glued on extra board, and cut out from the board.

 Eyebrows 

 Eyes

 Eyebrows and mouth

Hair and eyes

Next week: PROGRAMMING!!

Artbotics Day 4: Chuck Close Portrait Style

For those of you who don't know, myself included, Chuck Close is a famous artist that draws portraits using grids.

For an inept artist like myself, this seems to be an easy way to introduce precise portrait drawing. Allow me to walk you through the process we followed.

Step 1: Take pictures. We took pics of the kids on day one since we knew this lesson would come around.

Step 2: Grid up your drawing paper. Our paper ended up being 8 X 6.

Step 3: Grid up your picture to match the drawing paper. Our students did a great job following directions on this! I used the picture of one of the kids that didn't show up today. I knew he wouldn't mind!

Step 4: Going quadrant by quadrant, draw the portrait to match. We had to stress to the kids that they could take their time on this. We are actually ahead of other Artbotics teams, so we can take another week on this project if needed.

Step 5: Fill in the background. Ms. Roach and I told the kids that once their portraits were complete, they could draw whatever background they wanted.

We didn't get to finish, but here is what they have so far. Some decided to be very detailed, while others  were more abstract in their approach.

Great job!

Artbotics Day 3: Cartoons with graphite

We are still working on creating self-portraits using different mediums. Today we introduced cartoons by reading the book I Like Myself.

Watch the video (HERE)

We discussed how the illustrator picked different aspects of the characters to make them look silly or interesting. Then we talked about making ourselves into cartoons by picking a facial feature and making it bigger/ smaller/ grosser/ etc.

In order to get ourselves acclimated to using graphite, we practiced drawing simple cartoons using this video from youtube.

Here are some of their creations:

Then we went into creating our cartoon portraits. Students were told they could create whatever they wanted as long as it showed themselves. Frankly, I'm a little worried. :)

Great job, ladies and gents!
Next week we will do portraits in the style of Chuck Close.

Artbotics Day 2: Emotional Portrait- oil pastels

We began this session by reading the book Looking Like Me.

Ms. Roach and I pointed out that the pictures of the characters weren't drawn with precision, but more of a focus on shape and emotional colors. We used the picture below from the Artbotics training that Roach and I attended to show how colors bring out emotions.

 In the story, the character Jeremy told all the things that he is: a son, a brother, an artist, a writer.... the list keep going. Students were asked to review their journal entry from last week and add more labels in their "I am" category.

From there, students were given oil pastels, paper, and a strict warning- These will stain your clothes. Be careful!

Here are students creating their first emotional, colorful self-portraits based on how they see themselves in their "I am" statements.

Well done, kids! Next week we master the art of.... cartoons!