Art Room at the Beginning of the Year.

So we've really dug into the first couple of weeks of the year and the kids are already working hard to complete their first art projects. It's a time that's full of experiments, both on the part of the students and their artwork and for me as a teacher. I'm learning the personalities of the students and the classes and deciding what will work with each one. It's a stressful time, but also exciting!
I'm especially proud of the 4th and 5th graders who have started the year learning about, and creating projects using some tough stuff. Shading and contour lines. With the 4th graders, we're even trying Continuous Contour Lines! Here's what they've accomplished so far:

4th grade is working on Contour Lines, We learned about how to draw using Contour Lines. We chatted about going slowly, following the line with our eyes as if we were ants crawling, going along the outline, and even trying not the lift our pens! (Check out the video I used to show this, I didn't use it all, but it was neat for them to see) Then we practiced doing a Contour Line drawing of our hands. They were frustrated that their hands didn't 'look right', but it was a good exercise in slowing down and taking our time.

In our next class, I showed them our finished project, which is taking a picture of each student and placing a transparency sheet on top of it so that students can use a Sharpie marker to trace the contours of their face. We also worked on colorful backgrounds to accompany the transparencies when it's all done. Next week we will attach the two and mount it on black paper. I'm excited for this project because it's easy, but they learn a lot and it looks cool! (Inspiration for this project comes from here)

Next, the 5th graders, who have been learning all about shading. We discussed what shading is and why we use it. We came to the general conclusion that we use shading to make objects that are on a 2-D surface appear to be 3-D and realistic. We practiced a bit and then dove right into using oil pastels to shade crayons on black paper. (we traced the crayons the day before we started using oil pastels.) So far so good, although nice and messy so watch out! (inspiration for this project can be found here)