2nd & 3rd Graders Take Creative Risks and Think Like Artists!

For a collage project last year I wanted to challenge my students - well, that's something I always try to do - but this time I really pushed them out of their comfort zones!

You Can Think Like an Artist!

I created this design in Illustrator and had it printed on canvas to hang up in my art room at school:

We refer to it often during lessons, and students will sometimes point out how we are thinking like an artist when I forget. Its been a great tool this year, as I am really working on teaching my students that art is not just about how real you can make something look. There is much more to artistry than that, and I think they are starting to really get it!

After School Sewing Class (and other classes too!)

I taught several after school classes this year to help make ends meet. I taught a clay class, messy mixed media, printmaking and sewing. All of the classes were a big hit with the elementary school kids - we had a great time!

Here are some of the projects we did:

Sewing Sewing Sewing - Kids Love Sewing!

What a crazy semester it has been! I wanted my elementary school kids to learn about Faith Ringgold. I just love her and her story. Through challenges and being told she can't be an artist to major success - and all along she believed in herself. Makes a great motivator for the kiddos and they love her painting style and children's books too!

So, that being said, I wanted to teach them about her and do a project based on her work. Yes, I could have had them make a drawing and surround it with paper squares for a quilted look and I know that would have been a great project. Instead, I thought, why not teach them how to hand sew? That won't be too hard. Was I wrong about that one! BIG challenge, but totally WORTH IT!

Floral Still Lifes a la Van Gogh

This project was my favorite from the past school year! We looked at a ton of Van Gogh's flower still lifes. The students in each grade level were directed to deconstruct the images to figure out what techniques Van Gogh used to make the vases with flowers looked like they occupy a real space. They determined the following:

1. The vases had an oval for the opening, and an arc that has the same shape for the bottom.
2. The line that defines the back of the table is somewhere between the top and the bottom of the vase.
3. The stems of the flowers cross through the oval and stop at the bottom to make the flowers appear to be sitting inside of the vase.

Next, the students chose a sheet of colored construction paper, 12 x 18, and started to draw out their still life using oil pastels.

The next meeting I showed them how to create volume using white and black oil pastels blended with the color they used for the vase. These are the stunning results:

My Elementary Moms are Awesome!

I had so many volunteers to help me with my sewing projects this semester and I really wanted to give them something special to say thank you. I found this terrific DIY online and tweaked it a bit to suit my tastes…

This is a mason jar filled with tons of preprinted questions you can ask your child to jump start a meaningful conversation (beyond the usual how was your day conversation). Questions like: "What was the first thing you thought about this morning when you woke up?" and "Who in your class is lonely?" The tags have a short instruction on how to use the jar and I printed up labels along with them and mod podged them on the front and sides. I used rainbow yarn to tie on the notes and add a little bright color.

The Key Jars ready to be wrapped

Watts Towers Field Trip - A Great Time For All!

A view of the base of the towers and decorative surrounding wall.

In November we took the 3-5 graders to see the Watts Towers. This was one of my favorite field trip destinations when I was in elementary - I think we went every year or so it seems. Since then things have gotten even better. They have added on an art gallery and a teaching studio. The tour includes a video about the artist who built them by hand, Simon Rodia, a tour of the towers, a tour of the gallery, and an art activity let by a highly qualified art educator. We had 35 kids and I was impressed at how he held their attention as he modeled each step of the printmaking process they were going to do.

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:

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

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:

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

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:

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: