Directed Drawing Turkeys!

I really never do directed drawing lessons, but we were done with our unit and I didn't want to start anything new before the thanksgiving holiday week, so I looked up some turkey drawing lessons and found this one to do with my first graders. They drew directly with Sharpies so that they couldn't erase or have to retrace their lines then used oil pastels to color them in. They loved it and their drawings came out so great! Thanks to Art Projects for Kids for posting!

Andy Warhol Inspired Contour and Color Studies Project

My middle school artists learned about Andy Warhol's life and artwork. They found him to be fascinating, especially how he was so shy but became so famous. They were interested in his strange illness, how he stayed in bed for a long time as a child, and how he at one time owned 26 cats all named "Sam". They did have a hard time understanding how drawing a picture of a soup can constitutes "art", but then they did their own drawing of packaged and manmade objects, and I think related a little better to his work.

For their projects they had to choose 4 objects that they owned or used, divide their drawing paper into 4 rectangles, and then draw one object in each rectangle using the contour drawing skills they had just learned. Once they finished drawing they outlined with Sharpie.

I talked to them about color schemes, and they were to apply the following 4 schemes to their drawing, one in each of the rectangles, but in any order they desired: 1) primary colors, 2) secondary colors, 3) complementary colors, and 4) analogous colors. They used colored pencils to complete them. I think they turned out fantastic!

Mason

Beginning Drawing Still Lifes Are Awesome!

This year my drawing students are not allowed to rub and blend their pencil to do shading. They must use cross-hatching and other line work to show the different values in their drawings. After only a few weeks of learning drawing these total beginners belted out these beauties! I love how each one really shows the hand of the individual artist. Take a look:

Water Safety Poster Contest

All my elementary and middle school students are participating this year in California's annual Water Safety Poster contest (see details here). After a lesson on some important things to know about water safety, here are the results! I hope at least one of my students gets their artwork in the annual calendar.

Middle School:

Drawing With Scissors - Matisse Name Collages

For our first project this year I taught my middle school art class about Henri Matisse and his collages. Matisse was a prolific painter whose work is well known. Later in his life he was confined to a wheelchair and was unable to stand and paint. He started to "draw with scissors", making beautiful collages with the help of assistants.

My students made their own collages combining their names with three or more objects that describe them using construction paper. When they were finished we mounted them on a colored background frame and then on black foam core. Thanks to incredibleart.org for the inspiring lesson plan - They turned out great!

Rayographs - A Great Way to Enjoy the Outdoors While Making Art

For our final elementary school art project this year I chose the artist Man Ray. We learned about his life and work and particularly about his Rayographs. He made these by placing objects directly on photo paper and exposing it to light. Then he developed the paper using darkroom chemicals.

I wanted the students to have a similar experience, but without all the toxins, so I bought Nature Print paper. Its a little pricey so I was only able to get them 5 x 7 inch paper, but I do believe it comes in larger sizes if you have the budget. I asked them to bring in small object that they could arrange on their paper to create an interesting composition. They put the objects on the paper and exposed it to the sun for about two minutes, then submerged the paper in water (in the shade) as a "stop" step. Once they dried they were fully developed.

Here are some of the most interesting ones:

One-Point Perspective in the Hallways

One of the concepts we want our middle and high school art students to learn in the beginning classes is perspective. This can be a tough one for even the best artist to master. For this concept I had them take their art pads into the hallways and draw what they saw in one-point perspective. To prepare them I talked about the horizon line (always at eye-level), the vanishing point (where you are on the horizon line), and how all lines moving away from you in space converge on the vanishing point. They also had to keep in mind that any line that is perpendicular to the viewer will not be effected by perspective.

I had them start by drawing the far wall in the hallway (usually with the doorway to the staircase), then find their vanishing point. After that they could draw in the information on the ceiling, floor and side walls. I did end up helping with some of the drawing until they got the idea, but many of them came out pretty well!

Here are some great examples:

Rousseau Collages are Fierce!

The latest project I did with my elementary school students was based on Henri Rousseau's jungle paintings. They learned all about how Rousseau was self-taught and made his paintings of jungles without ever having visited one, but through visiting zoos, botanical gardens, and using his imagination. They saw how he filled up his canvases with a lot of imagery:

Congratulations!

The 3rd, 4th and 5th graders have been learning how to type this year - I guess they call it "keyboarding". Well, congratulations to the first two students who completed their certificates AND captured all the jewels in Typer Island: Matthew and Arthur - both 4th graders!! Here they are posing with their screens -

Matthew

Arthur

The Joys of Painting Fruit

In a color scale exercise, my middle and high school students learned the value of using a color's complement (red/green, blue/orange, yellow/purple) instead of black to create different values and neutralize a color. To practice this, I gave each one of them a handout with photos of 3 fruits, each with a good light source and shadow:

Color Theory for Everyone!

So I've started teaching my middle and high school students about color and paint. Their first task was to paint in a color wheel with tints and shades. They have a full range of colors in their art packets but I only allowed them to use red, yellow, blue, black, and white for their color wheels.

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First Grader Draws Video Game Scenes... I Am Impressed

One of my first graders, Quinn, was finished with his artist worksheet early this week and was drawing in a sketchbook. I just happened to notice this amongst all of the hubbub of trying to get the rest of them finished. I couldn't believe how intricate and detailed his pages are and I wanted to share them! Take a look:

Kandinsky One-offs...

So we had a little extra time in several of my elementary school classes. I wanted them to do something still related to Kandinsky, since that's who we had been studying, so I showed them his Color Study Squares: Concentric Circles:

Middle and High School Students Work with Line

A while back, at the beginning of the semester, I wanted to focus on the element of Line with my HS and MS students. The assignment was to make a collage out of two colors using only lines. They were allowed to use any two colors they chose. Here are some of the best ones.

High School Student Ashley - she used 3 colors and I think it was a good choice!

Kandinsky Watercolors Sing!

After studying Kandinsky's life and artistic process the elementary students got to work! I played Vivaldi's Four Seasons while they closed their eyes and tried to see colors and shapes in the music. They started by drawing what they saw. I gave them shapes to trace or they could draw freehand and then went over their pencil lines with Sharpies. In the next session I played the same music and they painted in their pictures with watercolors. The results are beautiful!

Kandinsky: 5th Grade Preliminary Drawing Exercise

Wow...What a great class this morning! The students saw my iPod and speakers and immediately were asking me if they could listen to this that or the other rap artist, dance hall, etc. Unfortunately the answer was no - I wanted them to listen to classical music just as Kandinsky had. I brought in Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and had the 5th graders listen while they closed their eyes. I asked them to pretend they were Kandinsky and imagine what kinds of shapes and colors they would see. After the first song (Spring) they were all pretty enthusiastic about what they had seen while they were listening.

For the rest of the class period I played all the songs on a loop while the students drew shapes and colors on white paper. They came out great... and these are only the prep drawings for their paintings. Even better, many of the students kept saying how much they loved listening to the music!

Here are some great drawings they did:

Victor

Middle School Computers Students Work With Scratch

For this second semester of middle school computers my goal is to get the kids both comfortable and excited about the process of programming. They each did a web page last semester so learned HTML and CSS coding. That process was fun for them (albeit a little frustrating) in that they got to see how coding can give immediate results. I think they also enjoyed getting creative with images and gifs.

Van Gogh's Starry Night

Our first elementary art project of the year was inspired by Van Gogh's Starry Night painting:

This is one of my all time favorite works of art, even if it is "overplayed".

Upping the Ante with a Little More Art History

After teaching the elementary classes about Van Gogh, mosaics, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Winslow Homer, I realized they were doing great on the art part, but not really retaining much in the art history department. I decided to do a little research and came across this great site with a worksheet format that I used and changed a bit to suit what I wanted to do with it. Here are the printables I created, one for 1st and 2nd grade, and one for 3rd, 4th and 5th:

1st and 2nd grade

Winslow Homer Inspired Seascapes

After O'Keeffe I chose to look at Winslow Homer with the elementary school classes and we looked at many of his seascape paintings. I made sure they understood that a seascape always has at least two elements, the sea and the sky, and they always meet at the horizon line. I let them know its better to have your horizon line either above or below the center of the paper to make the composition more interesting. We looked at how the colors of the sky always reflected in the sea water and asked the students to pay particular attention to the time of day and/or weather they wanted to draw when they were selecting their colors. I offered either blue or white paper for them to work on. Many of them came out so beautifully!

Here are some of the Homer seascapes we saw first:

Creative Computers First Semester Projects

So this was is my first year teaching middle school classes and a high school "Creative Computers" class. I decided to teach them Photoshop and Illustrator. We did several long term projects in both programs.

The first Photoshop project was to create a postcard. I think these turned out great!

Lorenzo's NBA Postcard

O'Keeffe Inspired Watercolors

I can't tell you how impressed I was with the way the elementary students put their hearts into painting their watercolors in the style of Georgia O'Keeffe's flowers. First I read to them from two children's books that are wonderful biographies of her life and work:

Middle School Crazy Portraits a Big Success

For the final project Fall Semester I wanted the kids to do something fun while also demonstrating their acquired drawing skills. I let them use Photo Booth on my MacBook and choose a filter that distorted their face. I printed these out in black and white and then they drew them on large drawing paper. Many of them came out really well, and I think it's because the faces were distorted already so it wasn't so important that their drawing looked exactly like them. Its interesting to see the different styles inherent in these students even after only one semester of drawing. Here are some of my favorites:

First Semester Middle School Computers Sum-Up

Last semester in middle school computers we learned some keyboarding skills, how to format in and work with Microsoft Word, and do a little Microsoft Excel. The best part, however (at least for me!), was teaching the kids how to work with HTML/CSS and code their own web pages. Even though it was frustrating at times, as HTML is so sensitive to errors, they seemed to really enjoy it and loved the immediacy of making something happen in front of their eyes! Here are some of the webpages they created:

The Best Kid Shows of 2000 to 2008
IceCream.org
NBA Basketball Teams 2013-2014
Top Five Crossovers of the 2012-2013 NBA Seasons
Top five NBA Dunks
Mr. Woofless' Pet Shop