Friday, December 16, 2011

Tree of Life

4th grade students learned about the artist Gustav Klimt.  I used images from the book "Klimt and his cat" as well as "The Tree of Life."  Students discussed the artist's message, symbolism and their own personal interests   After discussing and critiquing the artwork, students drew their own tree of life and used black and bronze paint to fill it in.

The next art day, students brainstormed symbols & designs to include in their own artwork.  I kept asking students, "What do you want your artwork to say? What is important in your life?" They used manila paper and markers to create their symbols.

The last day was just cutting & gluing to put the tree of life together! Check out trees below, some students made a "space tree", "angry birds tree", "my favorite things tree",  a "money tree" ect.






Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Secondary Colors are a Hoot

Second grade students used owls as subject matter when learning about the secondary colors.  As I demonstrated on the board, students followed along and drew 3 owls on their panoramic paper.  Next, they used crayons to assign each owl a secondary color.  On each owl they used the primary color crayons for that owl to add lines and designs. (Ex, on the Orange owl they were allowed to use Orange, Red and Yellow.)  This part really tested their prior knowledge of primary colors & mixing to make the secondary colors.  After all the owls had designs they added white stars to the sky and painted with water color paints! 











Bald Eagles

1st grade students listened to the story  "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What do you see?" by Bill Martin Jr & Eric Carle.  They talked about the Bald Eagle and other American symbols.  Students created painted paper to make their bald eagle collages. 






Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Folk Art Fish

Second grade students loved this whole class collaboration project! Believe it or not, this was only a 1 day lesson! I used a power point to introduce the artist Karla Gerard.  Students analyzed her artwork and discussed folk art pieces.

I did a short demonstration on how to draw a fish.  Students used crayons and water color to add color to their fish.  While students were working on their own individual fish, I called groups over to a table to work on the background.  I tried different techniques with each class.  Some classes used the cool color tempera paints to paint water and other classes did a chalk-smeared background.  They created the bubbles with white paint and cup printing.  Check out second grades folk art murals below! 












Mexican Mirrors

I borrowed this idea from the painted paper blog.  Fourth grade students learned about art & math connection through radial design and symmetry.  They also experienced metal tooling and it's importance in Mexican art and Colonial Virginia art.  Students used oil pastels to add color in their designs and foil for the middle part of the mirror.  Some students added extra gems and sequins as establishments as well.









Monday, December 12, 2011

Fall Landscapes

Third grade students learned about landscapes and the warm and cool colors.  They drew the background, middle ground and foreground with a pencil first on water color paper.  Next they traced their pencil lines with glue and let them dry overnight.  The last step was to add color with water color paint!




Friday, December 9, 2011

Stain Glass Stars

Kindergarten students created these stain glass stars in just one 40 minuet art class! The kinder's had lots of practice with cutting, gluing and tracing. The best part about this project is that the stars are so small! Every student's artwork was able to be displayed. I placed them on the windows around my school, the art room, music room and gym!








Circle Weaving

Forth graders learned about the craft of weaving in Colonial Virginia in this lesson.  They brainstormed example of weaving in their every day life & utilized previous knowledge of radial design in art. .  Because of time constraint, I prepared the looms for them along with the help of a parent volunteer! They learned about important vocabulary with weaving such as the loom, warp, and weft! 

Students chose 3 colors of yarn to in their weaving.   The hardest part was getting started.  Once they figured out the over, under, over, under pattern they were on a roll!







After the loom was full, they used markers to decorate extra room on their paper plate.