My 3rd/4th grade class made clay pots. We looked at the Mimbres pottery of the Southwest Native Americans, but I did not require them to use any of the imagery in their pottery. They could choose to add glaze designs however they wished. These are all coil built pots and glazed with Amaco Stroke and Coat glaze.
Here is a slideshow about my trip to the NAEA conference in New York! NAEA No Video
This is a favorite project of mine, because I love how the designs look!I have written about this project before and you can see the tutorial HERE.
The first graders made these lovely sculptural dolls! You can see the tutorial here. Some of the pieces were attached with hot glue. I have an older student who is my helper during that class.
Wow, I have been non-stop busy! I try to pack in as much as possible at the convention, because I figure I can sleep when I get home. Some of the highlights so far are hearing Peter Max speak, meeting Barney Saltzberg who wrote Beautiful OOps, hearing an awesome presentation about a year of kindergarten lessons, meeting art teachers from all over the US and Canada, catching up with many old friends from college, trying out lots of new art … Read more…
I’m in New York! I made it to the National Art Education conference! Proof: I already went to a bunch of sessions and am thoroughly exhausted. More updates and pics to come!
5th/6th grade Castle Drawings The 5th and 6th graders have been studying the Medieval time period in their Social Studies class. For this project, the 5th and 6th graders looked at pictures of castles and drew their own castle using pencil and pens. Then, they added watercolor washes to the picture. Some of the students discovered that it looks really nice when the castle is left white.
We had our Youth Art Month regional art show at the mall this week. The reception was yesterday. The judges pick one artwork from each teacher to go on to the state art show at the capitol building, which will be held during the actual Youth Art Month (March). Here are my students’ artworks:
Hello! Can you believe there’s only 3 days left until the National Art Education Conference in New York? woo hoo! Each day I am planning to give a short update in pictures and words recapping what I did all day. I know I will be so super busy though, so we’ll see if that actually happens! Today is also our regional art show, so I will have pictures of that to show you later. The kindergarten class studied penguins in … Read more…
The 3rd graders have been learning about China in their social studies class. They practiced brush painting with Chinese calligraphy brushes. These were made into a little accordian book. Watercolor painted covers were glued on to the front and back.
2nd Grade Winter Landscapes For this project, we read a book about Grandma Moses: Grandma Moses (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists) We discussed how to draw a river or road showing depth (by drawing it converging to a point in the distance). We talked about using size variation to show distance while drawing houses and other objects. The students cut out mountains from gray paper and a snowy patch from white paper (I walked them through this step-by-step). … Read more…
The 1st graders studied the Arctic in their Language Arts/Social Studies class. In Art class, they chose an animal from the Arctic to depict in a print. They made impressions on styrofoam printing plates using regular pencils. Then, they inked the plates using a brayer and printing ink. These lovely prints are the result! Tips: Set up printing stations and watch a small group print at a time. The other kids can work on a drawing while some are printing. … Read more…
I made a Value Scale worksheet for an upcoming project. Use it if you’d like! I use this for kids in grade 3-4. Value Scale Handout
The kindergartners made Maps of their Hearts! They included things that were important in their lives. We drew with permanent markers first, then watercolor painted them in.. I got this idea from the book “Playful Learning” which would be a great book for a classroom teacher. It was interesting to read, but most of the activities are math, science, reading related.
I was so excited to see this idea of Circle Painting!! I first learned about it at Barbara’s Thought of the Day and then at We Heart Art. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. for this wonderful idea. We are making several collaborative canvases with this technique and they are going to be raffled off at our end of the year school FUNdraiser. The kids had a blast creating these paintings. This is the first video I have edited … Read more…
