Variations on a Theme

      Pumpkins, Squash and Gourds!  When Fall arrived here in Texas, the only way we knew it was from the displays in the stores.  The trees did not turn, and it is only now getting cool out.  With the long drought we have had to suffer through and the 100+ days of 100+ temperatures, I was ready to usher in Fall!  By far my favorite season for the colors, the smells, the tastes, the temperature and the clothing!  It was time to bring Fall into the art room.  

     I purchased a large pumpkin and a bag of smaller squash and gourds.  A teacher friend, Judi, donated a bag of small pumpkins.  The students were amazed at the sight of the huge pumpkin and the tiny ones, the unusual textures of the squash and gourds.  I passed them around the room for the students to feel and describe before they would draw them.  Then I set them all up on a rolling cart in a still life with a beautiful complementary blue cloth below them.  We discussed the shapes, sizes lines and textures in the still life.  Proportion, overlapping and perspective were also discussed.

    K, 1st, 2nd and 5th grades all drew still lifes in different medias using different elements and principles of art.  Above I've shown three examples; a 5th grade value drawing, a 2nd grade oil pastel drawing and a 1st grade painted paper collage.  The painted paper collage idea I got from the wonderful Deep Space Sparkle sight.  This project was a big hit with beautiful results!  

    If you have any questions about how we went about these lessons, please message me and I'll be happy to share in more detail.  Happy Fall Y'all!!! 

First Grade Starry Nights

    Well, first let me start off by admitting something about this project...it did not start off as a Starry Night lesson.  Originally, it was going to be a Snowy Mountain Cool Collage.  We created them before the holidays, when it was cold, then I went away for 9 weeks to the other school I teach at and we had to put it on hold.  When I returned, it wasn't cold anymore, so it felt a little funny making snow pictures.  But, true to my plan, I had a first grade class sponge snow over their cool mountain collages.  I was definitely non-plussed with the results!  I felt that the collages were so nice, but yet still needed something to complete them and decided to hold onto them until I figured it out.  Meanwhile, we went on to a new project.  When that project was finished, I was looking in an art book at Van Gogh's Starry Night, and had a light bulb moment- we'll use oil pastels on top of our landscapes to create our own Starry Nights!  I really love the results.  First graders enjoyed making the swirly broken lines just like Van Gogh, and  added their own ideas... the results are beautiful-just like them!   

"Under the Sea" Recycled Art/Mixed Media

    This is probably my favorite elementary art project to date...for sure my favorite 1st grade project!  Ocean scenes are a great theme in elementary art, incorporating science into the art curriculum.  I also tied math into this project, by reading a great book by Lois Elhart- "Fish Eyes", a counting book.  Lois' books are beautiful in their vivid simplicity, her artwork uses bold color and simple shapes combined for eye popping visuals.  The students loved the book, and as we read I pointed out the bright, beautiful fish they could get ideas from.  

    The first step in this multi-step project, was to create the ocean water.  Using a 12" x 18" sheet of white sulphite drawing paper, green, white and blue tempera paint and a 1" brush, the students created their ocean water by blending the paint on the paper.  I gave them their paint in one small metal pan...3 blobs of each color paint- they shared a pan to a group table.  I demonstrated for them how to pick up 2 or 3 colors with their brush at a time and then blend them together by brushing them out on the paper.  I emphasized they should not stir the paint in the pan, making it into one color- the beauty of the water was in all the tints of blue and green they could make on their paper.  They were to start at the top, painting from side to side, back and forth all the way down the paper- never painting in another direction.  Once they were done with the water, we set the painting aside to dry.  

    Next came the recycled portion of this project.  Laminating scraps that I had been collecting in the workroom for some time were my inspiration for the fish.  I have been experimenting with many different recyclable materials this year, and laminating scraps were one of the most challenging.  (By the way, if you have any ideas or suggestions for using them, please message me, I would love to have your input!).  I tried to warp them by applying heat from the oven, the microwave, a hairdryer, a heat gun- they are not to be warped!  If only!  Dale Chihuly projects were my first thought, and still are not out of the question, but they would have been easier to accomplish had I been able to warp the material.  I have other project uses for these that I will be sharing in future blogs, but I digress...

    Paint will not stick- at least not water based- I do not use acrylic with my elementary students, though I could with the older grades, and that could probably work.  I wanted to be able to color the plastic, so I kept at it.  I found that permanent markers work beautifully, and I had some with wide tips.  They colored large areas more quickly than a fine tip marker, of course.  So, I made some drawings on the clear plastic scraps and one was a fish...my project was born!

    Once the fish were drawn on the plastic, the students cut them out and we glued them on their ocean scene.  For some fun detail, we used glitter glue on top of the plastic- sometimes this can fall off when it dries, but I had very few incidents.  Overall, the glitter glue adhered nicely and was a beautiful touch.  The project was going to end there, except for a few white oil pastel bubbles in the water, until a student grabbed a colored oil pastel and without my knowing began drawing some sea plants in the water.  When I saw what they were doing I got so excited!  Oil pastels are beautiful on top of tempera paintings...why hadn't I  thought of extending the lesson with that?  My students ALWAYS come up with better ideas and surprise me with their creativity!  So, out went all the trays of oil pastels and the bottom of the ocean came alive!  

    These projects are so impressive and gorgeous!  The students had a blast creating them and were proud to turn trash into treasure!  I told them that I am a proud dumpster diver...especially when it means that we turn something discarded into a thing of beauty.  :)

Cityscape Collages

  5th grade students made these striking neutral collages of cityscapes as their first art project of the year.  I found it was a great way to begin the year in art, because it wasn't as intimidating as drawing is to some students, and each student could be successful with this project.  We first looked at a PPT presentation I created on  "The City in Art".  We discussed paintings of the city by various artists, what a skyline is, what makes a skyline interesting to look at besides the sheer size of the skyscrapers (the variety in the skylines' rooftops, sizes of the buildings- some tall, some shorter, the colors of the buildings), and we looked at our own Houston skyline.  I asked the students what they noticed about our citys' skyline on their trips into the city with their families, what their favorite building was and why, how tall they thought the skyscrapers were and how many windows they had, and what happens in the everyday hustle and bustle of the city (transportation, people moving from here to there, where are they going, what are they doing).
    Last, I showed them a photo taken of three buildings with different styles of architecture in Houston; the photo was of one building in front of the other, the shortest one in front, then the medium sized one in the middle and the tallest at the back.  It showed how the buildings overlap one another.  It also showed three distinct styles of architecture in our citys' history; one from the 1970's, one from the 1980's and one from the 1990's.
    Before teaching this project, I tore the cardboard layer off of sheets of cardboard scraps to reveal the corrugation.  I cut them into various sizes of rectangles.  I cut newspaper clippings into various sizes of rectangles, as well, being careful to weed out any inappropriate ads or pictures or text.  I also cut black, gray, and brown papers for buildings.  Included in our supplies were; glue, black sharpie markers, white prismacolor pencils, and scissors.
    I handed the students a brown piece of paper as their background, a gray piece of paper to tear for their road, and piled a variety of materials for their buildings in the center of their tables.  They were free to choose the papers in the sizes and colors they wanted.  I instructed the students to make interesting rooflines, overlap buildings, fill their papers up with them and most of all, make sure there was a lot of variety in their building sizes and rooflines.  I demonstrated different ways they could cut or add to their papers to create them, and told them not to be concerned with the finer details of their buildings in the beginning, that would come last.  Right now they were "building" their citys.
    Once the students had glued the buildings to their papers, it was time to add those details; windows, street scenes, billboards and signs, newspaper clouds in the sky, were some of the suggestions.  As usual, they totally blew me away with their creativity and imaginations!  This project allowed them the freedom to express their own ideas of the city and what they know and feel about it.  The wheels were spinning in their heads as they were deciding on what papers to use, what buildings they could have in their artwork, how they were going to make all the windows on their skyscrapers and what types of details they wanted to add.  I reminded them about the scale in their project; making sure they didn't make their doors or windows too large, or a sign or a person the size of a skyscraper, that they would be tiny in comparison.
    They all loved working on this project.  Not a student in the class didn't know what they wanted to do.  It was great to witness them so engaged and working with their hands and their minds to problem solve and make choices and decisions.  They also found it interesting to work with the cardboard and the newspaper, commenting they didn't know they could make art with those materials.  The recyclable aspect of the project was appealing to everyone.
    This project took about three art classes to complete.  When they were done, we had cityscapes galore and an entire school ooohing and ahhhhing over them.  They were amazed at how creative the students were and how beautiful their art was.  Since the project was such a hit, I decided to expand on this architecture theme in art and have them create 3D buildings using paper folded into right angles to make the structures of the buildings... more on this project to come.  We had to put it on hold, since I teach 9 weeks at a time at each of my two campuses.  It was time for me to go to my other campus, so we put away our buildings until I return... that's life in the big city!

Torn Paper Animals

    While the original idea for this project (Torn Paper Zebras) was found on the wonderful Deep Space Sparkle Website, I decided that since I have (6) 2nd grade classes, that would be waaayyy too many zebras hanging around this art room!  So, I decided to make this a unit on wild animals, making a Power Point Presentation for each class on a different wild animal to introduce our animal and our art project.  So far, we've learned about zebras, lions, tigers (2 classes made tigers) and owls.  Still to come are giraffes.  2nd grade students love to learn and talk about wild animals... really, who doesn't?  They're endlessly fascinating.  We not only learned about the animals and their habitats, but also about different types of animal art, how the animals are the subjects of sculptures, paintings, drawings, graphic design, and more.  

    First, the outline of our animals was drawn using an oil pastel, then we tore and pasted stripes, manes and feathers on.  Next, the students cut their animals out and glued them to another sheet of paper that would become their animals habitat.  Students got creative, making rainbows, suns, clouds (even rain clouds with raindrops falling from them!), grass, water, rocks, trees, flowers, moons and stars.  They really enjoyed this project from start to finish and so did I... we learned a little about our animals and a lot about how to take what we learned and create a wonderful work of art from it!

Four Seasons Prints and Collages

    This was a lesson that could be done with many different themes, but for second graders that were learning about the seasons, it not only helped reinforce what they were learning in science and writing, but, it helped them to think about color (warm and cool families), taught them about the printmaking process, and showed them how they could add dimensionality to their art with collage.  

    To begin, I read them a book about the seasons and we discussed the adjectives that described each one.  What did each season make us think of?  How does each one feel?  Look? What colors do we see?  Then we talked about a tree, and how a tree looks different in each season.  We discussed how to draw a tree with bare branches and what lines we would use.  The students practiced drawing a tree on scrap paper first, because I explained that once they pressed their pencils into the foam board, their drawing could not be erased.  Each mark would show up in their print.  

    After doing a quick practice sketch, I gave each student a 4" x 6" piece of foam board and instructed them to draw their tree in the middle, being sure to use their space wisely, not drawing it too small.  I told them to add a horizon line to their drawing, as well.  Once they had made their tree drawing, it was time to print them on their paper.  For each second grade class, we tried printing different colored inks on different colors of construction paper, so that we wouldn't have 5 classes with the same exact looking project.  I set up a printing station in each classroom (this is the school where I teach art from a cart), and I called the students up by tables.  They would bring their colored construction paper with their name on the back, and their tree drawing.  I would ink their drawings, and they would roll the brayer over the back of the drawings to make the four prints.  I found this was the most efficient way of doing this part of the project, but it was very time consuming, taking the whole class period to finish.  

    Once the prints were complete, they were set aside to dry until the next art class.  During our next art class, the students were shown how to collage leaves and snow onto their trees and the ground areas of their pictures.  We tried different collage materials or media in each class to make our leaves and snow.  One class painted theirs on with q-tips dipped in tempera, two classes used felt, one class used small pieces of wadded up tissue paper and one used colored construction paper pieces.  Each had nice results, but I think the most visually interesting projects were done with either the tissue paper or the felt.  

    After the students completed the collage part of their project, they were instructed to write about the seasons using the adjectives that we had talked about.  They wrote around the perimeter of their picture quad in pencil, then they traced over their writing with fine point sharpie markers and erased the pencil underneath.  The bilingual classes wrote in Spanish and some students chose to write rhyming sentences that read like a poem.  The students were very proud of their work and received many compliments from admirers.  Their art was just gorgeous on display throughout the hall!

GIANT CROCS!

2nd grade students created these Giant Crocs!  Elementary age students (I can only speak for them) have a very hard time drawing BIG.  This project was the perfect subject to teach them how to draw on a large scale- I told them, "I don't wanna see any itty bitty little crocodiles!  Crocodiles are BIG!  So fill up your whole paper!" 

We watched a Power Point presentation I created on crocodiles, with lots of pictures and factual information.  We discussed the texture of the crocodiles skin and the lines we would use to draw the crocs. 

Then, using a large piece of green craft paper, we drew them step-by-step.  Once they were drawn in pencil, students outlined them in black permanent marker.  Next, we added texture to the crocodiles skin by using rubbing crayons and texture cards.  Students colored in the teeth and eyeballs with white crayons and cut their crocs out.
The final step was to make an environment for our crocodiles.  We learned that they live in the water and find their prey on the banks of the water.  So, on a large piece of cardboard, approx. 12" x 28", we collaged water and a sandy bank.  This was the most fun project!  The students liked making our BIG art project and they named all of their crocs!