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…
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…
Secret Cities The 4/5s learned how to draw 3-d forms and include shading and shadows. They stacked these shapes to make a “secret city”. I got this idea from a book about drawing by Mark Kistler. This artist had a series of television shows that taught kids how to draw 3-d pictures step-by-step. Here is a video of a “secret city” mural.
@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; } Hatching and Cross-Hatching by the 3/4s The 3/4s are learning about hatching and cross-hatching. They explored this technique in a portrait drawing. After a quick practice of portrait drawing, the students moved on to a cross hatched animal. Animal pictures lend themselves better to this technique, because there is a lot of texture on the surface of … Read more…
American Landscapes The 3/4s learned about Colonial times and Westward Expansion. The students watched a video about American landscape artists during the 19th century and they painted their own landscapes. One of the goals was to use inspiration from the environment to create a painting. The students chose a landscape scene from Wisconsin or a state they have visited. Painting lessons include how to add texture with a fan brush, how to mix colors and how to add shadows … Read more…
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.
The 3/4s painted Pointillist Trees. They have studied trees in Science. 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. Tips: use the back end of the paintbrush, a q-tip or a small brush. Keep the size of the paper small (9×12″ is plenty).
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.
Native American Potttery:The 3/4s are learning about Native American pottery, in particular the Mimbres bowls. Check out the link for more information. They made their own coil-built pot and used sgraffito techniques to design the inside of the bowl. We used Mayco Stroke and Coat Underglaze and then painted Amaco clear glaze on top. I love the brilliant colors. I would never have tried this because it’s more expensive than others, but my colleague WON a whole box of this … Read more…
I did an after school clay class with kids in grades K-6
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 … Read more…
