Happy Summer!!!

     Thank you so much for visiting my blog this school year, but the time has come for us to part ways until August.  I need some much deserved R&R and this is exactly where I will be spending my summer...poolside w/ a good book!  This is not exactly MY poolside, per se, but I wish it was!  Here are some of my summer plans...

1.  Finish reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series

2.  Have a BLAST teaching 4 weeks of Summer Art Camp here at school and in my small town

3.  Sleep in past 7:30

4.  Go to the park

5.  Have a Kool Aid stand with my kiddos

6.  NOT clean my house (thanks to my newly hired housekeeper)

7.  Work on my tan

8.  Avoid that pesky snake in my garden

9.  TRY to keep my flowers alive this summer

10.  Enjoy my days off!!!!!

See you in August!  I will post pictures of my summer art camp :-)

Wire Bird Sculptures

I found this lesson at Stuck in the Mud Pottery and really wanted to try it out with one of my classes.  Here is a link to her original lesson: http://stuckinthemudpottery.blogspot.com/search?q=soda+can

Here is my teacher sample:

And here are the wire bird sculptures before we had to chance to add the soda can feathers:

      I decided to tackle this project with my 5th grade students because they are a very creative group of kids.  I think they did really well with the form for their birds so far.  Basically, I told them to create a "yarn ball" with their wire; a large one for the body & a small one for the head.  Next, I showed them how to attach the head to the body, add legs, a tail, and a beak by bending the wire.  The legs attach best if you feed them through the body, having them actually attach to the top of the back.  This seems to give it more strength.  I have an endless supply of these cedar blocks, so I poked holes through the wood, added hot glue, and stuck the ends of the wire through the holes.

     Next class period, I will have the students finish the birds by adding colorful soda can feathers.  I had the aluminum pre-cut for the students so all they have to do is cut out some large tear-drop shapes for the feathers.  I found that some of the aluminum can simply be bent into shape without the use of hot glue.  However, most of the feathers and details will have to be added with a glue gun.  I have 2 in my classroom and I do the majority of the gluing and I use a good amount of discretion before letting the students use the hot glue gun by themselves. 

     I will post pictures next week of some finished pieces (hopefully). 

Fine Arts Fair Prep

I have been neglecting my blog this past month because I am getting ready for our Fine Arts Fair in a couple of weeks, as I am sure you are too!  Although, I hope you are less stressed about it than I am.  For some reason, I have this innate desire to out-do myself every year.  So, this year, I am having my students display one 2-D and one 3-D piece of art for the event.  I also planned each and every class to have a separate 2-D and 3-D work of art so there are no classes with the same project.  That's a grand total of 36 different lessons and 600 pieces of artwork that needs to be finished, presentable, and displayed by May 15th.  Whew!! And of course I have left ALL 300 3-D sculptures for the month of April, that's what I do best...wait until the last minute.  So, here are a sampling of the lessons we have been working on this past month.

4th Grade Origami Flowers

The 4th graders have created glue-line relief flower paintings in the style of Georgia O'Keefe, so I thought some flower sculptures would compliment the paintings nicely.  I walked them through the step-by-step process of folding each flower petal and I hot-glued the petals together when they were complete.  I also added a dowel rod for the stems and a wood block so the flowers could stand tall.  I will also have the students paint the stems & base green and add some leaves next class period.  I used a collection of buttons for the center of the flowers.

2nd Grade Ceramic Cloud Mobiles w/ birds

I want to give credit to the Etsy artist who inspired these cloud mobiles.  You can find her work here: almapottery, http://www.etsy.com/listing/49331222/sale-price-adjusted-rain-cloud.

We started out with a slab of clay and I had my students roll the slab until they had even consistency.  Next, they cut out the cloud shape and saved their scraps of clay to make the birds.  They poked three holes in the bottom of the clay and one at the top for the strings.  The next class period (after the clay has been fired), I helped them hot glue the beads along their strings and they painted the clouds and the birds.  I had to spend a lot of my free-time attaching the birds to the strings and attaching a wire at the top of the clouds so they can hang.  But, I think they turned out pretty well!

3rd Grade Stamped Ceramic Pendent Necklaces

This was a really fun project to do with 3rd graders!  I showed them how to pinch off a small piece of clay, flatten it out into a round disk, and stamp the bottom of their shoe on the clay to get the texture.  This was neat because everyone's shoes had different patterns on the bottom.  Some even had the name brand stamped on like the one above.  After they were fired, I had the students paint them using acrylics and I helped them hot glue the string to the pendent and attach the beads. 

2nd Grade Q-Tip Colorful Dandelions

I was inspired by an Anthropologie photo that I saw on Pinterest using q-tips to make dandelions.  Of course, I couldn't leave the q-tips white!  All you need are enough styrofoam balls for each person and q-tips cut in half.  I thought 1,000 q-tip halves would be enough for one class, but I definitely could have used more!  Again, I used dowel rods and wood blocks.  Maybe we'll make some leaves for these, too?

Cube Sculptures

3rd graders last week worked on folding paper cubes in Art Class.  It took 2 weeks of folding cubes before students were ready to create something interesting out of them.  I encouraged students to have a collection of 5 or more cubes to work with.  Some students created alphabet letters, robots, rockets, and other objects.  But this student created an adorable little building and attached it to a scrap paper, colored it, and added details.  I thought she did a fantastic job!

Starry Starry Night

I decided it was time to break out a lesson on the ever-popular Starry Night for my 2nd graders.  I found this fun video on You Tube that I shared with the class before we began our painting:

I went over Van Gogh's textural use of paint & his depiction of movement and rhythm.  This was a very messy project, so I suggest a tall cup of coffee to any of my adventurous colleagues beginning this lesson.  First, we worked with dark blue paint for the sky.  Next, I had the students dip a fork in white and yellow to mimic the effect of impasto and Van Gogh's brushstrokes.  Then, we added yellow dots to the sky and circled around them with the forks.  The students then worked on the mountains & the ground, first with a solid color and then dipping their fork in contrasting colors to add the impasto effect.  Lastly, we painted the large tree in the foreground with black & used brown on the fork to add texture.

Step 2 was creating the houses for the little village in the second class period.  It was just too much to do this in day 1, so I thought it would be best to wait until the paint has dried.  When I passed out their paintings I asked them to compare and contrast their paintings to Van Gogh's painting and think about what we need to add to make ours more similar to the original Starry Night.  They pointed out things like the moon, the houses, and smaller trees & bushes.  I had the students draw the objects on white paper, color them with colored pencils, and glue them to the background.  Voila!

Sidney's painting

Brian's painting

Alan's painting

Aaliyah B.'s painting