Welcome to the 2014-2015 School Year!

Dear Students and Parents,

I'm Nick VandenBerg, 6th grade art teacher, I am very excited for this school year!!!  This year in 6^th grade, every student takes art class.  I am very honored to have the opportunity to lead students though the 6^th grade art curriculum.  I have a few things I would like to share with you about what our year in art will look like.

 1.      Goals: (A few of my goals for the year).

a.      Create a fun and positive learning environment for each student.

b.      Challenge each student to think, problem-solve, be creative, and grow.

c.       Share my love and passion for art (hopefully it becomes contagious).

d.      Enhance each student’s artistic vocabulary/understanding of the art elements and principles.

e.      Clearly communicate weekly through family access and share pictures on the 6^th grade art blog.

2.      Expectations: (A few things I appreciate from students in the art room).

a.      Come to art class prepared with a pencil each session.

b.      Come with a positive attitude and willingness to work.

c.       Come ready to give your best and use art time to its fullest!  Stay on task!

3.      Pacing:

a.      Each class comes to art once a week, at most 35 times this year.  Once you factor in snow days, days off, assemblies, band/choir concerts etc… we will have less than that original 35.

b.      Please be patient (everyone).  Many of our projects take four or more sessions to complete, so as we only meet once a week, that translates to a month or longer for most of our projects.

c.       There may be long stretches of time where student artwork will be at school.  All artwork will be sent home by the end of the year.

d.      Overall, we move slowly but produce high quality work!

4.      Classroom Behavior: (With time at such a premium, I have high expectations for student behavior).

a.      Positive attitude, positive participation, and positive comments.

b.      Use work time in a productive manner, try your best, and do not give up!

c.       Respect each other and the classroom/materials.

5.      Grades: (I use the traditional 4.0 letter grade system).

a.      I grade based on two things: The artwork and participation/effort.

b.      Each time a student is in class, they earn or lose up to five points.  At the end of the marking period, points are tallied and count as a participation/effort grade (equivalent to a project).

c.       I grade the artwork based on several factors:

                                                              i.      The main learning objectives of the project.

                                                             ii.      Craftsmanship, this is how neat and orderly the artwork is.

                                                             iii.      Use of class time, I analyze if students are “on task” and how well they use work time.

                                                             iv.      Effort/attitude (listening, following directions, helping during clean up, etc…)

6.      Homework: (There is usually no homework).

a.      There may be a writing assignment or two sent home as homework, an information sheet will accompany any such assignments.

7.      Make-up Work: (If you are a slow artist or miss an art session, there are many ways to catch up).

a.      All assignments in each marking period must be completed before grades are due, that is usually one week before the end of the marking period.

                                                              i.      Connect time.  Just get a pass from Mr. VandenBerg and come work.

1.      East = Tuesdays

2.      North = Thursdays

                                                            ii.      Before or after school.  I make myself available before or after school on Monday thru Thursday.  Parents, please officially schedule ahead of time through e-mail or phone to ensure I do not have a scheduling conflict of some kind.

1.      East = Mondays and Tuesdays

2.      North = Wednesdays and Thursdays

                                                         iii.      Lunch time.  Students please schedule ahead of time so I know you are coming.

1.      East = Mondays and Tuesdays

2.      North = Wednesdays and Thursdays

 8.      Discipline:

a.      The art room should be a safe, quiet environment where students feel free to focus, be creative, and explore/experiment with the learning objectives.

b.      We will build a social contract early in the year which we will need to abide by. 

c.       I want the best for each student, I want each student to have fun and enjoy art time, but there are circumstances that require a discipline framework.

d.      I like to use the old baseball “Three Strikes & You’re Out”

                                                            i.      Strike 1 = “four questions” and a verbal reminder.

                                                            ii.      Strike 2 = “four questions”, verbal warning, and possible demerit or lunch detention.

                                                          iii.      Strike 3 = Behavior discussion, “four questions”, lunch or after school detention, parent phone call, possible trip to the office.

e.      Three demerits in a semester will equal a detention.

f.        Three times being tardy to class in a semester will equal a detention.

9.      Project Outlook: (A quick look at our units).

·                    One point perspective drawing

·                    Color: abstract color wheel and color scheme painting

·                    Pottery: Native American Indian pinch pots

·                    Printmaking: Designing a cover for an autobiography

·                    Cubism: Art history and an abstract self-portrait

·                    Realistic observational drawing (If we have time)

Thank you for taking the time to get to know the 6^th grade art program a little better.  I look forward to having a great year with the 6^th grade students. 

 

Sincerely,

Mr. VandenBerg

6^th Grade Art Teacher

3rd Annual ERMS Art Show 2014

 The 3rd annual ERMS art show was great!  Many parents and students were able to enjoy and appreciate all the hard work our 6th graders put in this year!  Thanks to all who came to support the arts!!!

Art in the community!

Several 6th grade students from NRMS were selected to have their work displayed at the 10 mile Family Fare in Rockford!  A big "thank you" goes out to The Rogue River Artists Association and Karla Gavin for organizing this awesome opportunity for our students in Rockford!

CUBISM

Cubist Self-Portrait

To begin, we "abstracted" ourselves in the style of Cubism.  Abstraction means we are changing something from reality.  There are many ways in art to "abstract" something.  We changed or abstracted ourselves according to the rules of Cubism: use straight lines and geometric shapes.  Students learned about different phases of Cubism, analytical and synthetic.  The examples here are more of the synthetic style. 

Next we added a background.  Any background was acceptable, anything from an outdoor scene to just patterns or design (wherever you wanted yourself to be).

Then we started adding color.  Students are were able to pick a color scheme if they wanted, or to use color in any way.  Adding collage is a very traditional Cubist technique.  We used newspaper, colored construction paper, and fabric.

We used collage in interesting ways by overlapping it and drawing back on top of it.  A color scheme was also an option, but not required (warm and cool used above).

Lastly, to make it more abstract and interesting, we completed it with many media, turning it into a mixed media piece.  We added pencil, colored pencil, crayon, oil pastel, and marker.

 

Throughout the project, students learned many techniques to add visual variety and interest.  With pencil and colored pencil students heard how to create a value or gradient fade with different pressures.  With crayon, students added texture rubbings to give visual texture.  With oil pastel, students were able to blend colors together.  Finally, with collage where were a number of ways students abstracted their piece like overlapping, using non-traditional items, and drawing back on top of collage.

Featured Artists: Native American Indian Inspired Pottery

 Alex B.

 

 

 Cord N.

 

 

 Chloe B.

 

 

 Lydia K.

 

 

 Lindsey H.

 

 

 Rian I.

 

 

 Callie P.

 

 

 Jocelyn S.

 

 

 Kati M.

 

 

Bailey B.

 

 

 



Personalized Book Covers: The making of an autobiography

Printmaking: Autobiography Cover

For this project, we began by creating some thumbnail sketches to help plan for our final idea.  Making an autobiography cover about yourself can take some time.  There are many parts of life one might want to include, so we brainstormed on paper.  We thought about what we would want people to know about us by looking at our book cover.

 

Once we had an idea, or combination of ideas, for the print, we drew the design into our foam surface creating relief.  Relief is the process of carving into the surface of anything.  The lines that are carved in the surface remain white in the printing process.  All the flat area remaining takes on the color.  The print is a mirror image of the plate.

 

Next, we learned the process to create a quality print (load brayer, ink plate surface, center it on printing paper, rub, peel it off carefully, write name on bottom right, and write proof on bottom left).  Students were given time to create multiple prints.  Being able to print the same picture multiple times is one of the attractive parts of printmaking compared to other medias.  All the prints are "proofs", or ways of testing that the relief lines printed well and testing different colors.

 

 

 

Pinch Pots: A Study of Native American Inidan Culture

Ancient Native American Indian Inspired Pinch Pots

 We began with raw white clay.  Then we wedged the clay, which is the process of getting all the air bubbles out of the clay.  Then we rolled it into a ball.  Next we started a hole with our thumb and began pinching.

We then "pinched" it into the pot shape we wanted.

Next we carved traditional imagery into the wet clay.  Carving into the surface creates RELIEF.  We had many options for the relief such as: animals, symbols, patterns and natural elements.

Then we glazed the pots using common earth tone colors from ancient tribes (red, brown, black white).  Glaze looks much different at first.  When we first put it on, it is nothing like how it will eventually look once it has been fired in the kiln.  At first glaze looks very dull, has a flat finish, and is very pastel.  In the kiln, is goes through a chemical change (science!) where it melts, releases gasses, activates certain chemicals (don't worry, totally non-toxic), and then cools.  When we take them out of the kiln it looks much different!!!

Here are a few examples of some of the finished glazes!