Egyptian Profile Paintings:The 4/5s have studied ancient Egypt in their social studies class. In Art class, they are using the standard proportions of the human face to draw each other in profile. Then, they are adding typical ancient Egyptian headdresses, clothes and jewelry to their portraits. Finally, they are drawing some hieroglyphics to finish the picture.
Every year, students in grades 5-8 participate in a local contest called the Yahara River Writers Contest. There are categories in poetry, editorials and editorial cartoons. In art class, we study editorial cartoons. We analyze cartoons for their use of exaggeration, symbolism, irony and point of view. Cartoons for the Classroom has an amazing selection of lesson plans for studying editorial cartoons. There are over 200 printable cartoons with questions and explanations about them. We also watch this video The … Read more…
In this project, we studied the repeating patterns found in Islamic art. These students have studied about Islam in their Social Studies class. This project also ties into geometry and math. I have been doing this project for a few years now, and the results have always been stunning! I originally found this lesson in an old School Arts magazine from the 90’s. Last year, I posted a tutorial with steps to achieve the designs.
These are drawings by 4th/5th graders. Who was Keith Haring? What is gesture drawing? The 4/5s learned about the artwork of Keith Haring and practiced figural drawing. In pairs, the students posed for each other and practiced gesture drawing and longer posed drawings. Then they drew stylized people, kind of in a cartoon-like way. We read pages from this book about Keith Haring and analyzed the meanings of his artwork. The kids were encouraged to add their own symbols to … Read more…
Our 5/6 class is going to host a Madrigal Dinner, complete with musical acts. The music teacher asked us to make decorations for the dinner. The kids each made their own Coat of Arms. We read a little bit about the significance of Coat of Arms and the symbols used. The children then drew their own Coat of Arms with symbols and designs that represented themselves and their family. Then, we assembled them all on to long banners of blue … Read more…
Fourth and Fifth Grade The 4/5s drew trees to complement their studies in Science class. How can line be used creatively to make a stylized picture? How can oil pastels be used effectively? The students aimed to use line creatively and made stylized art. A focus of the lesson was color mixing, blending and layering of the oil pastel. 1. Show images of Piet Mondrian’s abstract trees. Discuss how he started out with realistic trees, then they became more and … Read more…
We learned about Sumerian art. The students drew Sumerian statuettes and we also made some figures out of clay! These statuettes are characterized by large, staring eyes, clasped hands, cylindrical bodies, expressionless faces and bodies devoid of gender differentiation. They have religious and cultural meaning and we will investigate this in class.
The 5/6s were developing their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination through observational drawing of a still-life. Their goal for this unit was to use proportion, overlap and pattern to create a unified composition of a still-life. They viewed a slide show presentation of a variety of still life artworks. Step One: Arrange a still life set up. Kids should work collaboratively at their table to do so.Step Two: Draw your picture with pencil first. The objects must touch at … Read more…
@font-face { font-family: “Cambria”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } GRAPHIC DESIGN By the 5/6s How is design used in daily life? What do graphic designers create? How can we investigate a variety of symbols and fonts? How can we use appropriate symbols, colors and fonts to represent ourselves visually? The 5/6s read Scholastic Art magazine about Robert Indiana and his designs. Careers in art were … Read more…
You may remember my last post about the magazine covers. Here are some that the students created. This was an end-of-the-year project and we didn’t have as much time to devote to the project as I would have liked. I think these turned out cute though!
The 5th/6th graders have been studying Medieval art and we viewed a powerpoint about stained glass windows in cathedrals. The students use glass stain on pieces of plexiglass to make their own picture. We first drew the lines on a piece of paper. Then, we placed the plexiglass on top of the paper. They painted their black lines first and let them dry. Then they use the glass paint to color in the areas.
This lesson plan is an idea I tried at one of the National Art Education Conferences. This is such a fun project because it gives you the experience of paper pulp painting, but without the blenders or mess. One thing I will be sure to remind the kids of next time is to be sure to tear the paper into really small pieces. The larger pieces fell apart. We coated these with a modge podge after to secure them completely. … Read more…
I wanted to introduce graphic design to my 4th graders and I thought a magazine cover would be super fun. I was able to check out the mobile lab computers for one of my classes, but for the other unit, the cart was already checked out, so those kids are doing something else completely hand drawn. I showed them a short powerpoint about graphic design elements, quickly showed them my example and set them off to create their own magazine … Read more…
The 5/6s visited the Chazen Art Museum to see Medieval illuminated manuscripts. These delicate and decorative books were amazing! The students designed their own illuminated letter using inspiration from the illuminated manuscripts they observed. Weused pencil, watercolor paints, colored pencils and gold inks on parchment paper.
The 4/5s (4th/5th graders) learned about Greek and Roman mosaics and frescoes. We poured mosaic cement onto masonite boards and then placed our mosaic tiles onto the cement. When it dried, we painted with watercolors on top. A few of them cracked a bit, so next time I will probably try using plaster.
