Elements of Art First Project 7th Grade

So all of the middle school art teachers in our county get together once a month to discuss issues related to our professions and things that are relevant to our classes and students. We met this past Wednesday and one of the things we worked on were curriculum cards which are uniform for each grade level regardless of school. We all try to align the skills and curriculum that we cover for each grade level.. but as you know all teachers are different, as are all students/classes so attempting to align curriculum is tough sometimes.

One thing we could all agree on is that we cover the Elements of Art and the Principles of Design with all of our grade levels. We agreed that we all have students in 6th grade and never have them again, some students we have only in 7th or 8th grade and some we have all three years. That makes it tough to build on knowledge each year because we teach so many different levels in one class. 

This brings me to my first 7th grade project. We are just ending our third week of school and having my 7th graders every other day for 85 minutes, it sometimes takes a while to complete projects. Project #1 consists of the Elements of Art but also Color Theory- in review of the complementary colors. 

• Students begin by finding the middle of their 12x12 page. They then decide which type of line to use (straight, curvy, wavy, etc) and draw two of that type of line to each corner. 

• We review block lettering and various ways to create them and students are required to include their name in one space and the other 3 are up to them as to what word or name they want to draw. The remaining 4 spaces are reserved for designs and patterns utilizing the elements of art (line, shape, color etc.) The spaces with their name and other words/names must include the complementary color sets (red/green, orange/blue, yellow/violet) and the design spaces can be whatever colors they want. 

Here are some of the ones that have been completed.