An All Time Favorite: Pizza Box Biographies

Our used pizza boxes have been brushed clean of crumbs, white washed with tempera and lightly marked with grid lines. The art room was buzzing with excitement today as students began sketching in the paintings of their selected artists.  I am always amazed at the paintings selected. Everything from Michelangelo to Banksy, from the Sistine Chapel to the streets of London!

I've improved (I hope) my methods of teaching the students about art movements and artist's style. I added a slide show, a game with Happy Bob, the bouncing ball, and an interactive "quiz." I will further assess the success of these methods as I work one on one with students during the coming week and can observe how well they apply what they learned about their artists. 

It's always fun to help the students figure out how to imitate the style of their artist, mixing colors to match, trying to copy brush stroke and so on. And it's especially fun to see their amazement at what they can accomplish. Once students finish their copy painting, then they get really creative as they design a mixed-media pizza inspired by the artist and art movement they have studied. The puffy color wheel for Matisse is still an all time favorite from the Pizza Box Biographies art unit.

A Match Made in Heaven

"Oh, ick...." was the general comment from my 7th and 8th grade students upon learning that the subject of this painting by Leonardo DaVinci, Ginevra De Benci, was, at age 16, betrothed to a middle aged man. They had a similar response to viewing Michelangelo's David in its... entirety. 

Some aspects of our study of the high Italian Renaissance had my young teens squirming in their seats. However, the assignment to create a "match made in heaven" - or more accurately, on earth, by pairing the 17 year old David with 16 year old Ginevra, resulted in some fun art!

The drawing lessons included instruction on standard proportion as measured in head lengths, The Vetruvian Man, of course, as well as some gradual tone shading exercises. We also watched a few video clips from the fabulous BBC production, "Michelangelo the Divine." The students loved it - full of violence, blood and naked Renaissance cupids!

For the images pictured here I gave the students a photocopy of Ginevra and David's heads. They glued them on grey, buff or pink construction paper and proceeded to give them hair extensions, make up, glasses and so on. Then they decided on a contemporary activity and setting. The rest is history - love at first sight!