Welcome to Watertown Middle School's Art Site!

Art Classes at WMS:

6th Grade General Art: 

An every other day art course that meets for one term. This course introduces students to a middle school mindset in art. It teaches students how to think and draw through the artistic process of brainstorming ideas, sketching, refining those ideas, reflecting on the work that’s being created in progress, assessing the direction to continue forward with, and ultimately creating a unique and polished piece of final work.

Projects:

Musical Instruments: Students will work on their observational drawing skills, learn how to break objects into simple shapes, and integrating their own color schemes and ideas into their artwork.

Animals: Students will continue to work on their observational drawing and refining skills. This project comes with an option to choose between watercolor or collage as the final material.

Textured Landscapes: Students will continue to work within the brainstorming and drafting process that shaped their earlier projects in this course. Now the focus shifts towards texture and pattern making as well.

     

7th Grade General Art: 

An every other day art course that meets for one term. This course builds on using the artistic process and also emphasizes color theory and design elements. We will explore limited color palettes and strategic color choices. Students will also examine pattern, design texture, and how to lead a viewer through their work by making intentional choices about composition and emphasis.

Projects:

Zentangles: Students will work on their patterning and designing skills, learning how to create complex patterns out of simple shapes repeated over and over again, to form complex and intriguing drawings. In this project students learn the specific steps of drawing a Zentangle from starting with a "string" to building it into a complex "tangle" and will learn how to "hide" their mistakes within these complex patterns, really analyzing what they have already drawn and learning to decide what to add next. This project really emphasizes composition and design.

Mandalas: Students will continue to build on their complex patterning and composition skills, while also applying what they've learned about color theory and strategic color choices in these colorful and inviting Mandalas. 

Colorfield Inspired Postcards: Students continue to build on their color theory and strategic color choices in these Colorfield Inspired Postcards.

8th Grade General Art: 

An every other day art course that meets for one term. This course focuses on realistic drawing. We will explore how to break objects into shapes, perspective drawing and shading. We will use a variety of media, both black and white and color based to explore these drawing techniques.

Projects:

Portraits: Students will work on their gridding and analyzing skills, learning how to draw from photographs in this portrait project. Students choose the photograph they would like to draw from and then apply what they've learned about gridding, proportions and facial structure to these portrait drawings. Some students aim for "total realism" while others take some "creative license" in their drawings.

Perspectives: Students will learn about 1-Point and 2-Point Perspective and learn how to apply this to outside and inside spaces. Students then choose a space they would like to represent and apply their Perspective skills, to capturing that space. 

Advanced Art (7th & 8th Grade Elective):

An every other day art course that meets for one semester. This course is open to 7th and 8th Graders with a rotating curriculum; so students can take it both years if they would like. We will focus on independent projects based on student interest; examples being realistic drawing, color rendering, painting, printmaking and sculpture. We will work through the artistic process and examine and critique our work as we develop complex and refined final projects.

Digital Imaging (7th & 8th Grade Elective):

An every other day art course that meets for one semester. This course is open to 7th and 8th Graders and serves as an introduction to Digital Arts Software and how to create and edit digital artwork. We will learn how to manipulate and integrate images together to create new and unique compositions. This is a class that focuses on building specific digital art editing skills and utilizing those skills to build more complex projects as the semester builds. Students may only take this class once.

Printmaking (7th & 8th Grade Elective):

An every other day art course that meets for one semester. This course is open to 7th and 8th Graders and serves as an in depth introduction to Printmaking, a diverse and flexible art genre in which students can reproduce and modify images in different colors, configurations and patterns. We will explore techniques of monoprinting, stamping, stenciling, and bookmaking, to create new and unique compositions.We also will learn how to manipulate and change images through color shifts, transfers, and over-printing. This is a class that focuses on process, experimentation, and utilizing learned skills to build complex projects as the semester builds. Students may only take this class once.

Murals:

Created for display around our school and for special events. Murals are a collaborative group effort with one head designer (or a small group of co-designers) and then a painting crew that includes the designer as well.