4th Grade Georgia O'Keeffe Flowers

After my first two years teaching art a few years ago, I had to turn in a portfolio to the state to determine whether I received a "Proficient Practitioner" teaching license or not.  Until then, I had a probationary license.  (All new teachers needed to go through this process.)  In my portfolio, I was to select one grade level to showcase, so I chose fourth grade and had them complete these gorgeous Georgia O'Keeffe inspired paintings.

After viewing and discussing the art of Georgia O'Keeffe, the students got to work on their paintings.  For the drawing part of this assignment, I let the students choose to draw inspiration from some silk plants I had around the room, or look at images of flowers.  Each student was given a viewfinder so that their eyes could "zoom in" on one section of the plant or photograph.  They then drew what they saw through the viewfinder on watercolor paper, but not focusing so much on the tiny details of the plant.

Next, they traced over their lightly drawn pencil lines with regular school glue.  While waiting for the glue to dry, we discussed color families, specifically warm and cool colors.  The students chose one color family for their paintings.  Once the glue was dry, I demonstrated a wet-on-wet watercolor painting technique so that they could mix and blend colors a little easier.  (The color in these pictures are a little off, so unfortunately you can't see the color blending easily.)

I don't know if this next step was completely necessary, but I had the students trace both sides of the glue line with a thin sharpie marker.  I think that it certainly helped some of the artwork look finished and complete.

4th Grade Junk Art Wall Sculpture

Fourth grade studied the sculptures of Louise Nevelson to create this "Wall of Junk."  The students quickly identified her use of repeated shapes and forms, as well as using a uniform color. 

Like many art teachers, I'm a collector of junk.  You never know when you might need a bag full of buttons or a broken coffee maker.  The students sorted through my junk collection to find items that had similar shapes and forms.  Using hot glue (whoa...dangerous!) and regular school glue, they arranged the items inside a shoe box.  Some students strictly used one shape (like the cut paper towel tubes below), and some added more shapes.

I had intended on using spray paint to paint the sculptures one color, and even went so far as to have a "color election" with each section of 4th grade.  I don't have a spray booth, and the next best option to use spray paint is outside.  Unfortunately, the weather would not cooperate with our timeline.  It was either too windy or raining.  So, we just left the boxed unpainted, but I'm pretty satisfied with the look of the box collection as a whole.  I displayed the boxes on a rarely used bulletin board, and on top of my cabinets (until the fire marshall showed up) in my classroom for the school year.  The kids loved to look at all of the boxes each time they came into the art room this year.

4th Grade Jasper Johns "Encaustic" Flags

Fourth grade studied the flag artwork of Jasper Johns and created their own version of encaustic artwork with a sense of identity. 

This project was done in two parts: 

Step 1

The students cut out words from magazines that described themselves and collaged them onto white paper.  They then added a white wash over the collage so that we could still read the words, but everything was unified by the white. 

Step 2

Next, the students used a sheet of fine grit sandpaper and drew a flag in reverse.  They were to leave the white stripes uncolored.  I didn't require them to draw stars because of the melting process in the next step.

Once the students layered up enough color on the newspaper, I flipped their sandpaper upside down on top of their white-washed collages and pressed a hot iron to the back of the sandpaper.  The crayon melted onto the collage to create a very textured flag.

Make sure that you use a fine grit sandpaper because we found the a courser grit won't release the melted crayon when heated. 

4th Grade Van Gogh Sunflowers

Finger painting!!  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. :)  Fourth graders studied the art and style of Vincent Van Gogh, specifically his sunflower paintings.  No matter how many times we discuss the life of Van Gogh, the students are so fascinated by him that we end up spending the art period just talking about him.  It may push our project a little further along, but what art teacher would want to stop genuine conversation about an artist?!  The students examined many of Van Gogh's sunflower prints.  The most important characteristic they identified was the textural quality of his work.

First, the students drew the sunflowers with black crayon on white paper while looking at the Van Gogh prints.  Most students drew the head of the sunflowers facing the viewer.  For me, the most important part of this art lesson was texture, so I didn't sweat too much about the kids not showing other flower viewpoints.  

Next, the students used tempera paint and their fingers to apply the paint.  I stressed leaving texture on the paper and not smoothing out the paint.  This was definitely harder for some of them than I thought it would be.  When the students painted the petals, I told them to paint them like little pieces of candy corn, and then we blended the colors together a little bit.

Once the paint was dry, the students emphasized the texture of the paint by taking a peeled crayon and gently rubbing the crayon over the tempera paint.  Lastly, they outlined everything with black oil pastel.  

 

6th Grade Wire Figures

Sixth grade students studied porportion and the figure to create these wire sculptures.  We spent nearly an entire class period drawing the figure in a variety of action poses.  Using 20 guage galvanized steel wire, the students first created a skeleton and then wrapped the wire around the skeleton to give the figure some "meat."  The students painted a piece of scrap wood for the base and we drilled holes to attach the figure to the base.  Displayed here are some of the sculptures with mostly correct proportions.  :)

Kindergarten City at Night Collages

Kindergarten students created City at Night Collages using the massive amounts of scrap paper we've collected over the year.  They were first given random sized rectangle scraps and were asked to create each building with a different shape.  Next, they added windows with black and yellow paper to represent lights on or off.  Lastly, they added a night sky with white crayon.  We were going to add a little more detail in the buildings, but I could tell they were getting bored with cutting and gluing windows, so we just skipped the details.  As I look at the artwork collectively, I don't think those details will be missed!

Thanks to Deep Space Sparkle for the great project inspiration!

2nd Grade Aborigine Hands

"One old man in Arnhem Land remembered being carried as a child on his father's shoulders as his father climbed up a log leaning against a rock wall. His father then sprayed his hand with red ochre against the rock, leaving a stencil he could still recognize many years later. The main function of the stencils was to record people's presence and association with a site." Aboriginal Art Online

Second grade students studied the Aborigine Art of Australia.  They traced their own hand and painted dots in the style of many of traditional bark paintings in Australia. 

Earth Day Art Project

I know that Earth Day has come and gone, but we've had some really sporadic bad weather here over the last few weeks and we were just NOW able to get outside to create our environmental art pieces.  The students looked at the art of Andy Goldsworthy as their inspiration for their artwork.  They were to use only natural items from the schoolyard for their creations.  Once photographed, everything was put back where it was found.

This is a project that I've done every year and the kids never get tired of it...probably because they get to go outside. :) 

Kindergarten Dale Chihuly Macchia

We have such a great local museum for our students to view a real-life Dale Chihuly artwork and the Kindergarten students visited the museum during a recent field trip.  The Kindergarten teachers have been so wonderful in allowing a little collaboration between what they're studying in the classroom and what we do in the art room.

Each student was given a coffee filter and a piece of scrap newspaper (to protect the table).  They then chose 3 colors of water-based markers and created some kind of pattern design on the coffee filter.  Once colored, the students sprayed the coffee filter with water to let the colors start to blend together.  We dabbed away excess water and then set the wet coffee filter on a cup to dry to create the macchia shape.  Once dry, I glued the macchia shapes on poster board to create a collaborative kindergarten art project!

Thanks to We Heart Art for this AMAZING project idea!  They suggest using spray starch to help keep the macchia shape, but I found that plain water worked just as well!

5th Grade Doodle Profiles

Fifth grade studied visual texture to create these profile drawings.  While the students were finishing their previous project, I traced each individual student's profile.  Using an unlimited amount of colors, they added the doodle designs with marker.  They then cut out their profiles and attached them to colored paper.

This project turned out to be a great stress relief from all of the testing they had been doing!