Still Life

4/5 Created a still life Glue. Pastel drawing using direct observation.  They looked at the still life of bottles and apples and drew what they saw.  They first started by watching me draw it, talking about how to draw a bottle and apple correctly.  Next they practiced small sketches 4 times on paper then one time large on the back of the paper.

They then drew their final one on black paper finishing by outlining over the pencil lines with glue.   They next week they chose the colors they wanted to use and filled in the bottles, apples and table with chalk pastels and rubbed them all over with a piece of a paper towel.   In the end we finished by spraying they paper with hair spray to fix the chalk to the paper.   They were a fun project for the kids to learn about direct observation with as well as still life's and Paul Cezanne.

Samples of what i put on the board and they steps the 4/5 students took to complete their projects, then student samples:

Luck of the Irish!

For a quick one day project I decided to pull from a project my cop. teacher did last year on Matisse.  We traced Shamrocks and cut them out the created a collage utilizing EVERY piece of paper.... we could have done this for 2- 40 min classes but i wanted to the kids to have it done and with them for St. Patrick's day and before Spring Break.  Fun project to let them think outside the box, work independently and also worked well for k-5 allowing each to be as detailed as their age allowed.  Very fun!

YEAH FOR CLAY!!

This year for clay projects we created different creatures out of pinch pot forms.   The 2nd and 3rd graders created a Clay Turtle while the 4th and 5th grade kiddos made up their own Clay Dragon.  Both of these projects we painted with Tempera Cakes and then coated in Mod Podge to give them a smooth shiny finish.  The paint simply allowed for more details to be put into the projects.

CLAY DRAGONS 4/5

CLAY TURTLES 2/3

For the lil ones we did a simple clay slab Owl by rolling folding and stamping the clay.  For these we used Glazes to finish them off with a shine.

CLAY OWLS K/1

Paul Klee Meets MJ

For this 2/3rd grade Project we were inspired by the work of Artist Paul Klee, and in a way the music of Michael Jackson.

The students first learned all about Artist Paul Klee, Abstract art and Symbolism.  Then the listened to the first 30 seconds of Smooth Criminal by MJ.  The students were asked to draw what they heard.  The music had a lot of hard and soft beats allowing them to create different lines and symbols to express what they heard.  Then they bolded the lines with black paint.   To finished and perfect their coloring skills they were to use markers to fill in all of the white space around the painting using different blocks of color and only coloring going in ONE direction a task difficult for most 2nd and 3rd graders to grasp.

Below are examples of they samples of symbols i had on  the board, students in progress work, and finished student work... over all a fun colorful project the students seemed to really enjoy!

K/1 3D Lines

All year we have talked about LINES!!! you can draw them a million times but some kids (like me) need to  do something more hands on to truly understand them, so we decided to make the POP off the page!!  The students each got a 9x12 piece of paper and picked 5 different color 2x12 strips to fold in half, cut tabs to fold and glue onto the black paper to create a spiraling, curving world of lines.

This lesson too 2 40min classes and taught the students a great deal from following directions to patience with glue, they also learned how to help each other if they finished early.

Over all a VERY Fun lesson to fill in the time between making their Clay project getting it fired and Glazing it.

Picasso took over the Art room!!

All of my students created a Picasso inspired project this semester. 

K-1 students created Picasso's Flowers,  by tracing their hands and adding green stems with markers then testing their cutting skills by creating the flowers. 

2-3 students created a collage in the crazy abstract style of Picasso using cut paper and then finishing with a black paint outline.

4-5- This was the project of the year! We started by studying Picasso's Old Guitarist and then broke down the parts and drew the man together as a class.  We then discussed Monochromatic color schemes and how you make tints and shades of the same color.   The students had a lot of trouble with proportions when we first started this project so it took some time but i created scaled boxes which i had the students trace on their papers to then draw each body part in.  The results aren't perfect but then again, what Picasso art work is?