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…
The third/fourth grade classes made paper mache masks. We used inspiration from the Pacific Northwest Coast masks and viewed a video about their culture. Here are the steps we used. Start with a papermache mask form (we used some from Nasco). Then, add appendages with newspapers, LOTS of masking tape, pieces of cardboard, yogurt containers, etc. So much fun to build up a mask! After all the parts are very secured with tape (and I mean lots of tape, MORE … Read more…
We learned about the artist Georges Seurat by reading Scholastic Art magazine. Students identified and described Pointillist paintings. They created a Pointillist painting of trees showing dimension and form by color mixing. Step 1: Introduce the work of Georges Seurat.Step 2: Choose a smaller sized piece of paper. We used 9 x 12″. Lightly sketch a landscape with pencil. Step 3: Using a paintbrush, Q-tip or pencil eraser, dip the end into paint and dab dots of color on your picture. … 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.
Third/Fourth Grade: The students learned how to identify realistic, abstract and non-objective art. The 3/4s worked on a non-objective graphite drawing. Using only shapes, lines, texture and value the students drew an interesting non-objective design. Non-objective art is art that has no recognizable objects. Value in art is the degree of lightness or darkness. The students completed a value scale using pencil. They learned how to create contrast by placing dark shades next to light shades, rough texture next to … Read more…
Here is a beautiful, awesome lesson plan I found from Kids Artists, called the Longest Line. I used it for a sub plan when I was gone one day. The kids loved it!
What is balance? What is radial symmetry? How is a compass used in art making? How can we use lines and patterns effectively in a design? The 3rd/4th grade class made RADIAL DESIGNS. They drew concentric circles using compasses. Inside the circles, they drew patterns and designs. Can you tell this class is really into Pac Man?
box of stickers This was a super fun art project that I forgot to blog about earlier. We did this at the summer art class I taught at my school. Tape and sticker pictures. I wrote about tape and sticker pictures earlier which I love to do with my 20 month old daughter. The above picture is a box of stickers I made. I took some sticky address labels, and color photocopied some patterned paper onto the sticky labels. Then, … Read more…
Puppets were made during my summer art class! For this project, I drew a puppet template, which the kids traced and cut out from felt. They cut out 2 pieces, a front and back. Then, I hot glued them together. The kids then cut out other pieces of felt and added googly eyes to decorate their puppet. They attached these pieces with Elmer’s glue. We added a large stick inside also to hold the puppet up. We made these really … 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!
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…
