Fourth grade art students have recently been working with Sketch Up for Schools Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software on their Chromebooks to create sailboats in an environment.  Many of the fourth graders' finished works are shown in this presentation.  Several of the fourth graders will continue working on their boat scenes next week.  

Sketch Up for Schools is a free cloud-based software that students access through their school Google accounts.  Sketch Up Pro is widely used by architects and structural designers.  The student and professional versions of Sketch Up are very similar. As Sketch Up for Schools is geometry-based, students are provided with an educational opportunity in math, as well as a stepping stone toward various professions which employ engineering and architectural 3D modeling software.

Our students make all of their forms with the tools of the program, and are never allowed to use downloaded or pre-constructed forms in their Sketch Up work. The tools the fourth graders have been using include line, rectangle, push-pull, select, flip, offset, rotate, move, scale, and bucket fill (for colors).

One of the photos below shows the steps that Muna Akubue of 4P used to create her boats.

This week's student art is from the 7th grade mini-golf lane design project. The basic shape tools of Tinkercad computer-aided design software were used to make the complex forms in these virtual 3D models. This math-art assignment, which involves creative engineering and math calculations, was developed and is taught by Mr. Bell and Mrs. Cvetan.

The beautifully creative and innovative images produced by students for this project have been made entirely with Tinkercad software, except for the work of Austin Ju. He created a laptop computer model with the basic shape and text tools of Tinkercad. However, the images on his virtual computer's monitor are screenshots of his Tinkercad work for the mini-golf project, which he made on his iPad. He arranged photos of his mini-golf lane on a photo of his laptop model in the Sketchbook app on his iPad.  

In the world of Austin's image, the mini-golf design was created by the laptop computer. The laptop computer was created by Austin on his iPad. If we consider this image in the context of recent advances in computer technologies and artificial intelligence, we might ask ourselves who created the mini-golf design in Austin's picture. Was it made by Austin or by the virtual model of the laptop computer?     

This week's student art features watercolor paintings by 2nd graders.  Students drew, cut, and assembled relatively simple paper shapes to make the more complex structures of the birds.  The watercolor shapes and crayon line patterns in the sky echo the shapes of the birds, thus helping to create compositional unity in the paintings. ​

Seventh graders have recently been creating mini-golf lanes (or holes) with Tinkercad computer-aided design software on their iPads.   Mr. Bell and Mrs. Cvetan developed this  math-art integrated STREAM assignment.  In the first stage of the project, students create and label the segments of their putting lanes, as well as obstacles that contact the putting surface.  In Mrs. Cvetan's math class, students use measurements of components of their models to calculate surface area, volume, perimeter, and cost of materials.  Their math calculations relate to the putting surface and walls.  Students express themselves creatively by making elaborate sculptural forms above or around the putting area.  In addition to their time in art class, students of 7W and 7C have been team-taught by Mrs. Cvetan and Mr. Bell for about 45 minutes per week.  All of the forms in these virtual 3D models were created by our student artists with only the simple shape tools of the Tinkercad engineering software.

Many 8th graders in art tech class are now applying color to their pencil drawings of the Stations of the Cross.  They are using the tools of the Sketchbook app on their iPads. Although our students employ modern digital technology to develop their images, the basis of their work on this project is free-hand drawing with pencils and pens.
 
To begin this project, students drew grids with 1/2-inch squares on small prints of illustrations by contemporary artist Shari Van Vranken.  They drew proportionate grids with 1-inch squares on their drawing papers in order to scale up the images they were viewing.

The works shown here are among the first to be finished.  Many more very strong images are nearing completion.  Students have been highly motivated on this project because it allows them to express their faith in a creative and challenging way.

Sixth grade art tech students are currently working on the sewing stage of their cell pillow sculptures. This STEM-oriented project began last semester with drawings of animal and plant cells.  Students photographed their drawings and labelled them with the Sketchbook app on their iPads.

Recently, students traced the outer edges of photocopies of their cell drawings onto sheets of felt cloth. The "running stitch" is used for sewing along the traced edges to join the two halves of each cell.  A "pull-through hole" is left open so the joined sheets can be turned inside-out after excess cloth around the cell is cut away. Poly-fill stuffing packs the interior of each cell. Students use the "whip stitch" to seal the pull-through hole.

After completing the basic pillow form, students will refer to their drawings as they carefully design organelles for their cells.  The organelles will primarily be made from cloth scraps that are left over from the construction of the basic pillow forms.  The organelles will be attached to the surface with fabric glue.

​8th graders in art tech class continue to advance on their Stations of the Cross pencil and pen drawings, which they will soon develop into colorful digital images.  Grids and pencil marks are visible in some of the drawings shown here, while some have black marker pen lines and white spaces that have been electronically "cleaned up" in the Sketchbook app on students' iPads. Although our students employ modern electronic technology to develop their images, the basis of their work on this project is the ancient drawing method of carefully observing and analyzing a subject, and using tools (pencil and pen) to transfer visual information to a physical surface (cardstock).

For this project, students have drawn grids with 1/2-inch squares on small prints of illustrations by contemporary artist Shari Van Vranken.  They have made proportionate grids with 1-inch squares on their drawing papers in order to scale up the images which they are observing.  This method was widely used by artists during the Renaissance to scale up drawings to larger formats.