Mechanical Animals inspired by the movie Hugo

Due to one teacher being out sick a few weeks ago, we ended up starting the movie Hugo. Turns out, it's an amazing movie packed full of themes and history. We used the movie as a spring board for these steampunk inspired projects. 

Graffiti name designs

Kids love graffiti! In this lesson I combined a YouTube brick drawing tutorial, graffiti lettering, and stenciling in one project. 

Supplies:

Paper

Colored pencil

Sharpie

Pencil

Watered down acrylic paint in a spray bottle

Stencils or die cuts 

YouTube "how to draw a brick wall"

Puppy shading

This is a simple shading exercise and the kids loved it!

Supplies:

A cute puppy picture in black and white :)

Glue

Scissors

Pencils

What you do:

Cut an image down the center and glue on half to a sheet of drawing paper. With the other half of the photo, turn it over and rub graphite on the back covering the image. Line the graphite backed image back up with the original and using a pencil, trace the outline of the puppy. This will give students a outline of the other half and allow them to focus more on the shading rather than the "drawing" aspect. It took the pressure off and allowed them to really perfect the shading. 

Black white grid portraits

These gorgeous portraits dreamed by Ms. Power are simple and effective. Students manipulated their photo in the PS Touch app for iPad by adjusting the threshhold which reduces it to the black and white image. Students then printed out the picture and using a grid, enlarged the portrait to a 16x22. Students then used black acrylic paint to paint the black values. 

Supplies:

16x22 watercolor paper

Black acrylic paint and brushes

Pencil

Ruler ( we cut poster board strips in 1 inch and 2 inch stripes)

Print out of manipulated picture

Student spotlight

Love this amazing work created by our very own Carissa (8th grade)

Tunnel books after famous works

Students loved turning a 2d master work into a 3d tunnel book in this hands on activity. 

Supplies needed per student:

Art books to look for master works

5 5x5 inch sheets of watercolor paper or card stock

Glue

Colored pencil

 These books can have as many layers as students want, but I focused on three layers, foreground, middle ground, background. This helped students understand how space is divided.

Chihuly installation with coffee filters

You will need:
500 coffee filter pack
Crayola markers
Couple dozen solo cups
Scissors
Water in a spay bottle
Masking tape to stick to a window

So simple and so effective. Students folded a coffee filter down to a 1/4 slice (fold it in half, crease, fold it in half one more time) and colored with markers a design on one side of the folded filter. Students cut the edge in a organic way. Spray filter generously with water so that the ink from the top layer soaks down to the rest of the filter. Unfold, and drape over a cup. When dry, tape them up on a wall for your own Chihuly installation