It's Snowing in the Art Room...Wait it's Snowing Everywhere!

 How fitting that my second graders finished their fun snowmen and tomorrow NY is supposed to get hit yet again with a major snowstorm!  If there's a snow day tomorrow it'll be our 4th this year! I can't remember the last time that's happened...Anyways, I want to give credit for this lesson to the blog "What's Happening in the Art Room?".  When I was fishing around for a winter themed project some time ago I came across this one and thought it was adorable.  Turns out, it is!  These snowmen are soooo fun and spirited and they really capture the energy and personality of the children who made them.  Here's how the lesson went down:

The project took 3 days.  On day 1 we read the story "Snowmen All Year" (you could also read "Snowmen At Night") by Carolyn Buehner. Before I read the story I asked the students to pay particular attention to how Mark Buehner, the illustrator, created the snowmen.  After the story we created a class graphic organizer with all the students observations.  After that I used the Smartboard to show the students how they could draw their snowmen by zooming in on them.  They could do a diagonal composition, a side composition, upside down, or centered, but the image had to be large!  I told the students to use some of the ideas from our graphic organizer to add details to their snowmen. 

On day 2 I had the students use white oil pastels to create a resist design.  They then went over the oil with liquid watercolor and lots of water to create a fun and colorful wash.

On day 3 the kiddies used Mr. Sketch markers to color the details of their snowmen and lastly I referred back to the graphic organizer when we discussed the way Mark Buehner use color to emphasize the white of his snowmen.  We use 2 colors of chalk pastel side by side and then gently blended them around the perimeter of the snowmen. 

You know it just occurred to me that I should be saying "snowpeople" or at least snowmen and snow-women, lol! 

Oh well, either way, I just love these!

1st grade clay hands

I tied out making these hand-bowls with my first graders. My only complaint was that sometimes the edges got a little jagged on the hands, after glazing, this was mostly remedied, but if you try this lesson make sure to reinforce that after tracing the hand templates, they smooth out the edges before lifting it into the bowl.  I didn't have the kids trace their actual hands because they are too little and their bowls would be too tiny! I trace my hand and cut out about 15 oaktag templates.  Also when glazing make sure to tell the kiddies to glaze everything, no white spaces, otherwise the hands won't be as bright and vivid.  Overall they came out cute, I plan on posting more pictures as soon as my kiln is up and running again (the touch pad shorted out!)

2nd grade texture-scapes

I had seen this lesson awhile ago and wanted to do it for some time.  I have a bunch of plastic texture plates for rubbing and being that between last year and this year my second graders have studied landscapes, cityscapes, and seascapes, I figured now was as good a time as any to have them try out this lesson.  I basically told them to draw either of the three "scapes" mentioned above using large simple shapes and then showed them how to use the side of a crayon to create a rubbing.  We discussed the difference between visual texture and physical texture and then I sent them on their way.  

I gave each table some scrap paper to test out the textures before they used them on their final piece as some textures transferred better than others on the white drawing paper.  Ideally, to get the clearest texture rubbings you'd you tissue paper but I was afraid making them create a whole landscape on tissue paper would end up with artwork that looked like the kids had put it through a shredder!

Dale Chihuly "glass" compositions

These "glass" compositions were the first part to the macchia that second graders did based on the artwork of Dale Chihuly.  

 

For these I used cellophane sheets in red, yellow, and blue on clear 9x12" acetate sheets.  The only problem was that the cellophane doesn't stick to the acetate and so after the kids created their compositions all the pieces started falling off!!  As a result, I had to sandwich the cellophane in between to sheets of acetate and staple the edges like mad.  Lastly, the kids decorated white frames I ordered in packs of a dozen from Sax and I hung them where the light would hit them.  I had also done a bulletin board with them but it just isn't the same on white paper backing.  

Grade 2 Chihuly Inspired Clay Macchia

Dale Chihuly is one of the most, if not the most, famous contemporary glass artists living today.  Any time I've ever show my students his artwork, they've always been captivated by it.  The clay macchia we created were part of a two project unit based on his work.  I took a bit of a chance with this idea.  I wasn't sure the finished results would really look enough like the glass macchia but so far they are very cute. 
To make them, I had the kids roll out a slab clay and then use a wooden pin tool to "cut" a wavy shape out of the slab. They then pressed the slab into a plastic bowl and bent the edges in and out to create waves. When they glazed their sculptures, I really pushed to make sure they covered EVERY spot of clay with at least 3 coats of glaze.  In order for these to look like the authentic macchia, they had to be bright and colorful.  I have 4 more classes to fire but the keypad on my kiln just broke :( so as soon as I get it fixed I'll have more pictures. 

The pumpkin patch at night 3rd grade

Wow, so after my student teacher finished his 8 week stint with me, I got started on my fall art project.  I love fall and try to do at least 1 fall themed project with one grade level per year.  The only problem with starting fall projects in November is that they don't get completed until almost February!  Needless to say I didn't get a chance to hang these on a bulletin board, I feel like hanging fall projects in the heart of winter just doesn't make sense....Any-who, regardless of the late timing, these came out pretty good.  We learned about value, perspective, highlight, shadow, blending, overlapping, and curvalinear shading.  The kiddos used white, blue and purple oil pastels for the sky, blending it from light to dark.  They used crayon for the foreground and paint for the tree.  Lastly, they used white and black oil pastel to add the highlights and shadows and make the picture pop.  All in all not too shabby for a last minute fall project.  

4th grade color wheel compositions

I was at an elementary art show some time ago and saw a lesson similar to this that was done in middle school.  Since I came across it I've wanted to try it and I'm glad I did because they came out really nice!  This was one of those lessons where after teaching the first day of it you think to yourself "I don't know if this one's going to work out...." Initially when the kids were up to the painting part of the project, I demonstrated how to mix a "true" secondary color (no white or black) and then how to create the tint and shade of that color.  I described the dark colors as "hungry" colors and warned the kids that when mixing light and dark colors to use much less of the hungry colors than the light colors because they'll eat them up.  Many students had trouble mixing tints and shades on one color wheel so I ended up making a chart and differentiating the lesson by giving the kids the option of doing a color wheel with no tints/ shades.  a wheel with the color and tints, or a wheel with all three.  The differentiation saved the lesson because it gave them the ability to be successful at their own ability level.  I can't wait to hang these on the front bulletin board, they're going to look great :)

1st grade pumpkin patches revisited

I had done this lesson a year or two ago and really liked the results.  The only part of the lesson that I was "iffy" on was the background.  Initially, when I first taught the lesson I had the children draw everything in pencil then fill it in with chalk pastel and finally, trace over their drawings with white oil pastel.  (See the original lesson HeRe) The problem was that when they got to filling in the background, which was a fairly large area of the paper, with the chalks it would smudge all over the pumpkins.  Even my really neat students would get a certain degree of smudging, and many times, it would cover some of the beautiful shading they had learned for the pumpkins. 

This year, when I taught the lesson I decided to do only the pumpkins in chalk and the rest in oils.  The results were a much more varied, interesting, detailed, and neater batch of artworks.  I liked the lesson the first time, but I loved the lesson this time.  Even the kids with less fine motor coordination were able to come out with great results. 

Some of the vocabulary we covered was foreground, middleground, background, value (shading light to dark, or in this case light yellow to red), and perspective, specifically, the way objects appear smaller, less detailed, and duller as they recede into the back of the picture. 

Merry Christmas!

From our house to yours...have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Loved it so much I had to share it

"Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don't apply to you."
-Chuck Close

I found this video from the blog Art is Basic in her post "5 Fabulous Things".  The video is part of a series of entitled "Notes to Self" featured on the news show 'CBS This Morning'. The person they were featuring was artist Chuck Close.  If you are familiar with Chuck Close then you already know what an amazing and inspiring artist he is and how his love of art has given him the strength to overcome obstacles in his life that could easily stop most people in their tracks.  I had originally learned about Chuck Close from my high school art teacher in 12th grade.  Two years ago (12 years after graduating high school) I had the good fortune of attending the NAEA conference in NYC where he was a keynote speaker (along with another of my favorite artists Janine Antoni).  His words and philosophy on art-making are profound and honest.  This short video is chock-full of quote worthy mantras to not only use as artists and art teachers, but also as words to live by.  I love Chuck Close!

Youtube.com: "CBS This Morning: Artist Chuck Close Writes Note to Younger Self"

Roll a Monster-A Halloween Activity

 

Three of my classes had finished their projects early and had a little extra time.  Being that it was Halloween, I thought it would be nice to do something easy and fun.  I used the template above that I had found online and borrowed some dice from our schools math teacher.  The kids really liked the activity, but I noticed, as they played that the heads of the monsters were drawn on roll 4, which was silly because the eyes, and mouths were supposed to be drawn on the rolls before.  If I do this activity again, I'll probably make my own handout, but nonetheless, it was a cute 15 minute time filler for Halloween.