Sunflowers Up Close & Personal

Students viewed paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and we talked about his theme of sunflowers and also of painting heavily. We then decided to make a project using his style as our inspiration. Using oil pastels, students created a Sunflowers Project but changed it a little and made our sunflowers "up close" instead of in a traditional bouquet. They turned out bright and beautiful!

Unassisted Self-Portraits

I asked the students to create their own self-portrait without any help from me. This is certainly a good starting point for these young artists. By the end of the year, I will have "Assisted Self-Portraits" as well. I love seeing the difference!!!

Students participated in an art contest for a dental office in our town. Here is just a sampling of the wonderful projects that were completed.

Butterflies

Amazing things happen in class when you instruct students to "create a butterfly art project". I rarely do this, but wow, interesting and creative results!

Room Pictures 2010-2011

Joan Miro Paintings

Students viewed "People and Dog in Sun" by artist, Joan Miro and then created their own piece of art work based on this masterpiece. they used crayon, tempera paint, and watercolor paint.

Birds on the Beach

After discussing recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the ecological effects of it in our region, I led the students in drawing their own "Birds of the Beach". We discussed pelicans, herons, and the egret. Students picked the setting where the bird would be. We only used pencils for sketching and oil pastels for adding color.

Personality Suns

Students were asked to draw a sunshine that represented who they are as a person, or their personality. They had to include things they liked to do, as well as colors that made them feel good on the inside. Both of these designs were made by boys in the third grade.

Lucky Numbers!

After viewing the artwork, "The Figure 5 in Gold" by American artist, Charles Demuth, students created their own "number" artwork based on their own lucky number. They tried to guess Mrs. Woodham's favorite number too! Enjoy the examples. Their background color had to be any color or design that was not in a primary color. They then painted their favorite number yellow. We discussed how primary colors "pop out" when they are set against other colors.

My Own Adventure

In Kindergarten and First Grade, we read, "Harold and the Purple Crayon". It was a little long, but students love to know what Harold chooses to draw next! We then, decided it would be neat to draw our own adventures. Some adventures were truly adventurous! Some students view an adventure as going to the park or even Disney World, but others view it as fighting dragons! I love the imaginations of children. It is truly a blessing to teach them everyday.

Projects 2008-2009

Just a small sampling of past projects. These pictures are not the best, but you get the idea :)

Lower elementary students made pinch pots from model magic clay. Some of the student decided to make either a pot, bowl, or cup. Then they painted the pot any way they chose.

One second grade class made life-size portraits in art class and then
put "themselves" in their desks for Open House! This was an awesome project, but required lots and lots of help from parents. Our parent volunteers are the best!

3-D Spiders at Fall Time. Third Grade students created a web from black yarn and then made a spider from black construction paper. When you glue the tips of the accordion-folded legs down to the paper, it pops off the page. So cool!

My Crazy Self: Kindergarten and First Grade. This is a tissue paper collage. They painted themselves using black paint but had to make their head a triangle! :)

Fourth graders created a collage project from space! Their favorite part was splatter painting white paint to make stars. At the same time they worked on this project, they also were studying about space and astronomy in their fourth grade classroom. I love it when I am able to collaborate with other teachers.

The Art Room

I am always so very curious how other art rooms look and are run. So, I am posting pictures of my room if you have the same curiosity that I do. Please take note that these pictures were taken before art projects began and before students returned to school. I keep it pretty neat and orderly, but not necessarily this neat. :)

1st pic is: Side View of Room. 1st door is Project Storage, 2nd door is Teacher Planning Area.

2nd pic is: back of room where we clean up and materials for the day are stored, Art Patio is straight back through the glass door.

3rd pic is: Student work area. 1st door is Materials Storage, 2nd door is Kiln Room. We love, love, love our windows! Lots of natural light!

View from the Window

Students viewed the painting, "The Red Kerchief: Portrait of Camille Monet" by Claude Monet. We then discussed what we see when we look through the window Monet created. We talked about the muted colors, but the bright vivid scarf she is wearing. I then asked them to draw their own "view from a window". Some created a window, some created glass doors, but the interesting part was seeing what each student likes to see when they look out a window.

Statue of Me

Another self portrait project, the student created a statue of themselves after studying famous statues in the United States. They sketched a design first. Colored it in with using crayons, colored pencils, or markers and then painted a background for their statue. Personalities really came out in this one. Many different activities were presented in this project... from sports themes to shopping themes, to technology. Our students love to text on their cells! :)

Pysanka Egg Suncatchers

Third through Fifth grade classes made suncatchers using the traditional designs of Ukranian pysanka eggs. We learned the history behind egg decorating at Easter time and found out it didn't start as an Easter tradition but became a tradition in April at a later date. I had a few designs for the students to pick from. If they wanted a challenge, I gave them this one! After they decorated the suncatcher (made from transparency film!), I cut it out, hole punched it, and strung yarn at the top for them to hang in their windows at home. It was a fabulous decoration in the art room.

My Own Print

Printmaking is an ancient art form that began many years ago. We viewed different types of printmaking, from ancient to modern. The focus of our study was on the ancient form. We discussed that printmaking is alot like woodcut designs (Hokusai). I passed out styrofoam cut outs to each student and then instructed to make their own design. I let them figure out for themselves that they must write backwards in order for the print to come out right. This was a neat discovery! Some students traced their hands others drew a landscape just like the Chinese and Japanese would have years ago. After they were done "engraving" they painted their plates and printed their designs onto colored construction paper.

Mr. Picasso Heads

Students in the third, fourth, and fifth grade learned about the life and art of Pablo Picasso. I read a book by author Mike Venezia about the different periods of his career. We took some time to analyze his abstract portraits. Students created their own portraits based on his technique of lateral view/frontal view. Some of the students named their portraits after another person (friend, parent, teacher, etc.)

Instrument Art

In music class, students were learning about the instruments of the orchestra and also working on a music concert based on these instruments. So, in art, we learned to draw instruments using the picture cards from music. Some students drew instruments alone, others decided to draw people playing instruments. We lined the artwork up in the hallways and it was a wonderful visual effect for the music concert, "Music is a Blast"!

Birds on a Branch

I lead the students in drawing a bird found in the tropical region of the world. We began by naming different types of birds in this category. The most popular were the macaw and the toucan. Their task was to create their own exotic bird and paint it accordingly. They then outlined their bird with a black sharpie marker for visual effect.

"Snow" Scenes

We began class on "Snow" day by coming up with different symbols for winter. Oh, the symbols we came up with... too many to type! I then introduced the lesson of "Snow" Scenes. Their assignment was to create many different pieces of artwork instead of just one! We folded our papers so that we came up with 16 squares on it. I then had them write the word "snow" diagonally in the squares. It was their task to create a symbol in each square that represented the winter season.

Pencil & Ink Shoes

An art project using only a pencil and a pen? Yes! This project was actually a project I left for my substitute to do with my fifth grade classes. I was so delighted to see the results! The students were instructed to sketch a shoe that they owned with a pencil. Then, they traced over the drawing with a pen. Impressive results!

One-Point Perspective

Using a dot, a pencil, and a ruler fourth grade students created one-point perspective drawings. They also experimented with shading on the road. They figured out the shading gives depth to a piece of artwork!

Lighthouses

We discussed where lighthouses were located and what their purpose is. Then, we looked at a few pictures of lighthouses. I led them in drawing a basic outline of a lighthouse but let them a night sky or a day sky. They learned to draw rock formations and some even ventured into house drawings to scale of the height of a lighthouse. We had really nice results!

Hot Air Balloons

This project began as a drawing lesson and ended up being a great overview of foreground, middle ground, and background. Students drew hot air balloons using traditional hot air balloon designs. They had to draw 3: one up close, one in the middle, and one far away. They also created clouds in front of and behind their balloons. I encouraged them not to draw "circle clouds" but realistic looking ones. The most difficult part of this painting project was drawing the baskets underneath the balloon!