What's Going on in the Classroom- Mixed Media Paintings

Have I mentioned that I love our painting unit? Not only are students sitting quietly and working hard, but they are producing some amazing images! After creating a watercolor composition, we moved into mixed media pieces. For this piece I limited the subject matter a little bit. Each student had to incorporate hand into their mixed media composition. That hand had to be interacting with an object or item. So it was somewhat limited, but the object or item and how the hand interacts with it is up to the student to decide. We spent some time taking our own reference pictures of hands with objects and then we practiced how to draw a hand. I made up a little worksheet to get them started, it looks something like this...

After this basic intro to figure drawing, we talked about how to draw the different hand positions that each student wanted to use. This was mostly done individually between myself and each student. The steps after this were to draw the hand and object lightly with pencil on illustration board and then do light watercolor washes of basic colors to fill in the image. Then student could the choose to use oil pastels, chalk pastels, and/or colored pencils to had shading (depth) and details to their image. Here is what we have so far... we're spending the rest of the week on it as well so these aren't quite done yet.

Practice drawings and sketching out the final image

Finally starting to do some painting!

Environmental Art Project

So the year is winding down. Look at all the things that we learned about this year!

My challenge is always to find things to do with the students in those last days of school. Something that is meaningful but not a project that will take more than one or two classes. One of my favorite projects I wanted to share here...

I love to spend time talking about Environmental Art and Andy Goldsworthy. I usually do this project with 2nd grade.There is a lot of information about him online and plenty to images to show the kids about his work. Here are just a few.

We spend one day learning about Andy Goldsworthy, getting into groups and planning our environmental sculptures. Students have to work together to come up with one sculpture idea. This really encouraged communication skills and collaboration within the class. They make a sketch and a list of things they will use. They are only allowed to use things that they would find outside.
We also spend quite a bit of time talking about how Goldsworthy always left his art in nature and so sometimes that meant that it didn't last. I wanted to make sure students knew that we would be taking a picture of the sculpture and then leaving it for nature to take it course (or the students on the playground to take their course!).

On the second day, we go outside and make our sculptures. Some of them turn out exactly like the drawings and some are modified on the spot, but that's okay. Students know as artists, they can change their minds when they need to. One girl even brought rocks from home and make sure she had the design her group was looking for. Here are some of our Andy Goldsworthy- inspired Sculptures.

Printmaking: For all Grades!

As the school year winds down, the challenge for me is to have projects that students can complete by the end of school. With class picnics, parties, field trips, and kids just being absent for whatever reason, it's not always a good idea to start long projects.
One thing that I know we can do in one or two class periods, is printmaking! Specifically in this post I'll show mono printing with 1st grade students and chalk prints with 4th grade students.

For monoprints, I have some plexi glass sheets that I set up with paint into stations for the kids. We either watch a short video or I demo how to create designs using whatever tools we have sitting out. We talk about how to make a monoprint by laying the paper on top of the design and pressing down. We also talk about and the kids make a ghost print right after their first print. This way they usually get at least one successful print! While kids are waiting for their turn at a printmaking station, they can free create, but also should be thinking about what their design is going to be.

Chalk prints are a little different, although I would still label them as a monoprint. For this project, we involve stencils. Not gonna lie, I got this idea from Cassie Stephens, check her out here. Again, I set up stations, but this time, instead of a paint covered plate, it's a shallow tub of water. 

I demo the process to students and then they head back to their seats to put their names on their paper and cut out shapes to be their stencils. We talk briefly about how simple shapes are more successful, but there's always someone who tries letters which have to be done backwards. It's a hot mess!

When students are ready, they come up to a station of water. With scissors, they scrape off a layer of chalk right onto the water. The water holds the chalk on the surface. When they have the color coverage that they want, they lay down the shapes that they cut out and then their piece of paper on top. This part is tricky! They have to just tap the paper lightly with their fingers to pick up the chalk from the surface of the water. They should NOT push the paper down so that it's submerged. After they've tapped all over the paper, they lift it up and viola! A wonderful chalk print!

While kids are waiting for their turn, they can be cutting out new stencils and preparing their paper. 

Cupcake Containers- Kindergarten

In Kindergarten, our curriculum calls for teaching the students how pinch and roll clay to make a piece of artwork. We decided to make clay cupcake containers! The kinders were so excited!
First we had a day where we just got comfortable with the clay. Students smushed and smashed and made all sorts of things, but at the end of the day, they had to give the clay back.

During the next class, we talked about how air bubbles can form in the clay and how we need to get rid of those so our pieces don't explode in the kiln. We all wedged our clay and then rolled into a ball. Using thumbs and then pinching, students made a hole and then enlarged it. This created a small pinch pot. I showed everyone how to use their fingers to smooth the top edge. Then using a small wooden tool, students created a cupcake holder texture on the outside of their pinch pot by lightly etching vertical lines into the clay.

For our third class, students rolled out a looooong 'snake' of clay. A lot of students had trouble doing this at first, but after a kick start from the teacher, they got along just fine. Then the clay was laid on the edge of the cupcake bottom (which is by now dry so it's more sturdy!) and coiled around until it came to a point. I did a quick demo on how to lightly smudge the clay together so that the coiled 'snake' would stick. ( I also went back after the kids had left and made sure they were all secure, mostly on the inside of the coil so as not to ruin the frosting effect.) The kids then rolled out small balls of clay to attach to the top as cherries!

Out last class was painting/glazing the cupcakes. Since I have a limited amount of glaze, the students got to select a glaze for the icing and then we painted the cherries red. We're still waiting to do the last step, which is to paint the cupcake holder or the bottom of our cupcake container. We will be using tempera paint for this so that the kids have a wider variety of colors to choose from. They are so cute and charming. For the record, I borrowed the idea from a picture I saw on Artsonia, found here. I modified it a bit for kinders and I simply used this project to teach clay techniques, we didn't talk about Wayne T. It was so fun to do this project, the littles love clay!

DIY Ugly Doll and an Update on Some Projects

Hello all!
I think I've finally changed my name with every known institution in the universe. Now that I have my prep time back, I'm hoping to blog weekly again!
In this post, I want to post a quick update on the latest kinder project and then talk about how we're doing a sewing project with the 4th graders! We're all making our own Ugly Dolls!! Which are so stinking amazing and we've just started. Okay but before I start gushing about that...

The Kinders! When I last posted, they were working on drawing faces using their knowledge of line and shape. We used pencil first and then traced over it with black marker. We had a chat about facial expressions and each student picked a different expression to use. Here are what they looked like before we colored them:

After that, we got out the oil pastels and talked about the correct way to use them. We also discussed how we wanted to be sure to get the right color before we started coloring, especially when coloring the face! We came up with a neat trick of testing the color on the back of the paper to make sure it was the right one. I had them color the whole thing; skin, hair, eyes, shirt, and background. They turned out so awesome and expressive! Check them out!

Now on to the very exciting 4th grade sewing projects. Ugly Dolls were designed by David Horvath and his wife Sun-Min Kim.to see their homepage, click here. What I love most about the Ugly Dolls is the message they preach which is: "...we should be celebrating that which makes us different, never hiding the twists or turns which make us who we are, inside and out." What a great message for our kids!!!

We started by looking at examples and then we went to work drawing a pattern for our own Ugly Doll using construction paper. Students were encouraged to be creative. But I also warned them that very tiny appendages etc. would be hard to cut out and sew and maybe they would want to stay away from them. The pattern was then cut out and pinned to a piece of felt that the student chose. They traced around their pattern with a pencil and then came back to me to have the pattern moved so that the could trace it again. They cut those identically shapes out to make the back and front of their Ugly Doll!

Now we're working on attaching any features or accessories to the front side of the Ugly Doll. Although it's taking them awhile to figure it out, the kids love working with their hands and creating something like this. Look at how awesome they look so far and we've just started! Stay tuned for more updates!