Blessings Banda
Grade 8 Visual Arts
Interdiciplinary Unit |Printmaking | Sculpture
"Indigenous Prints"
Intro to Printmaking
Statement of Inquiry: Cultural Beliefs can be communicated through Art.
In this unit, students will explore print making through an inquiry into indigenous art( art specific to a region) including Australia, South Africa, Ghana, and Mali ). Students will look at how different cultures communicate their beliefs and values through symbols, colours and patterns. Students explore the world of printmaking in order to develop their own Reduction Relief prints to be able to communicate their own beliefs.
Skills/Content
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Introduction to Relief Printmaking: Exploring the history, techniques, and materials used in relief printmaking, including linocut relief printing.
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Cultural and Belief Systems: Investigating the cultural and belief systems of indigenous communities, including their spiritual beliefs, mythologies, and cultural practices.
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Symbolism and Iconography: Analyzing the symbolism and iconography present in indigenous art, including motifs, colors, and patterns that represent cultural values, stories, and beliefs.
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Artistic Process and Production: Understanding the process of creating relief prints, from initial design and carving to printing and editioning, with an emphasis on craftsmanship and attention to detail.
Unit Designed by Blessings Banda
"Pieces of Me"
Intro to Portraiture and Collage
Unit Designed by Blessings Banda
Statement of Inquiry: Art allows us to express ourselves and communicate our identities to an audience in an aesthetic way.
In this unit, students explore how artists use self-portraiture, photography, collage and mixed media to communicate identity. Students investigate the different experiences, interests, relationships and cultural influences that shape who they are. They experiment with combining portraiture and meaningful visual fragments before developing a mixed-media self-portrait that communicates different “pieces” of their identity.
Skills/Content
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Self-Portraiture and Identity: Investigating how artists communicate personal, social and cultural identity through self-portraiture.
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Photography and Composition: Creating expressive photographs and exploring composition, viewpoint, lighting and facial expression.
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Collage and Mixed Media: Experimenting with layering, fragmentation, juxtaposition, texture and the combination of different materials and images.
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Observational Drawing: Developing accuracy through facial-feature studies, proportion, tonal value and the grid-drawing technique.
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Symbolism and Visual Communication: Selecting meaningful imagery, colours, objects, patterns and text to represent different aspects of identity.
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Artistic Process and Production: Generating ideas, experimenting with materials, refining compositions and producing a resolved mixed-media self-portrait with attention to craftsmanship and visual impact.
"Circus Olay!"
Interdisciplinary Unit: PHE| Vis Art| Music |Theater
Statement of Inquiry: Creation of an aesthetically pleasing performance requires synthesizing interaction and composition to express culture.
In this unit, students engage in the Interdisciplinary Unit, Circus Olay. The students use skills from PHE, Drama, Visual Arts and Music to create a Cirque du Soleil-inspired production, which was performed over two nights for the school community.
In Visual Arts, students explore how effective stage makeup, costumes, props, and set design can further communicate a story to an audience. The students develop their ideas based their ideas on the celebration and country chosen for the Circus Olay and the characters they developed in Drama. The students present these ideas in their Arts Process Journals using photographs, sketches and annotations to record their process. Throughout the unit students develop research and media literacy skills in their research presentation, showing their understanding of how these different disciplines can be combined to produce a show like Cirque du Soleil. Finally, students develop their critical thinking skills, identifying strengths and weaknesses in their work, and their deeper understanding of links between Music, Visual Art, Drama, and PHE.
Skills: Effective stage makeup, developing practical costumes to fit their characters, and props, and creating sets that fit their scene.