Hot Air Balloons!

     This was a fun project to do with my 4th Graders incorporating 2-D & 3-D art along with portraits.  To begin the lesson, we reviewed what we know about the difference between 2-D and 3-D art and compared and contrasted the two. Next, I gave the students white tempera paint to paint their clouds on their blue paper.  While that was drying, students drew the basket and worked on making their balloons.  I demonstrated how to fold a small section of the paper strip at the end for gluing purposes and how to bend it to make an arc and glue the other side.  Make sure to add lots and lots of paper strips so the balloons look full with no empty space showing.  Last, the students drew a small portrait of themselves in the basket.  I saved this step for the very end because even if they ran out of time for their person, their artwork would still look complete.  I also know that if we would have drawn the person first, they would not have had time to finish their project.  

Art & Music

"Hyper" by Briauna

"Energetic" by Shania

"Hyper" by Jada

"Energetic" by Zariyah

"Calming" by Jenaryea

Stamping with homemade paintbrushes

This project was a lot of fun!  I decided to go out on a limb and try something new for our St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Picture the Music Art Competition.  First, we all listened to a musical composition and brainstormed some colors, shapes, and lines that would go well with the music.  The students used oil pastels to create an abstract work of art that best represented the music.  Next, for some added interest to their drawings, we made our own paintbrushes/stamps using pipe cleaners.  Each student got 5 pipe cleaners, twisted them together, and spread out the bottom ends to create a 'star' shape.  Students then used their new 'paintbrush' to stamp colorful shapes on top of their drawings.  This was  a lot of fun and gave the students the chance to think 'outside of the box' or 'outside of the painting' for once!

Glue-Line Relief Pumpkins

     This is my fall go-to lesson that I have been using every year.  Typically I don't repeat lessons year after year because as an artist, I'm always looking for something new and fresh to use in my classroom.  However, I just LOVE how these drawings turn out and they look FABULOUS on the walls for a little fall decor.
     4th graders learned about depth perception and overlapping while creating these spooky pumpkins.  I like the effect of chalk on dark paper, so we started with a black sheet of paper.  The students drew the first pumpkin with a pencil right in the middle.  Next, they drew the two side pumpkins a little bit smaller and behind the first one to show depth and overlapping.  They traced over the pencil lines with a line of glue and waited a week for the glue to dry.  The next class, they colored inside the spaces with chalk pastels (VERY messy, btw) and cleaned up their drawing by wiping off the glue relief line, which is now a black line.  Here are a few completed works of art:

Mary Jane's Pumpkins

 

Grace's Pumpkins

Devan's Pumpkins

Color Wheel Ferris Wheels!

I have a confession to make...I don't always teacher color wheels every year.  There I said it.  Now, I do, however, teach color theory in lots of other lessons, but the actual painting inside the spaces in a particular order just, I don't know, BORES ME!  But I decided to give it a go with my 4th graders this year.  They loved it.  And they turned out great!  However, I just couldn't leave the color wheels as they are in their blah state.  We turned our color wheels into Ferris Wheels!  Who doesn't LOVE a Ferris Wheel?  The color, the lights, the shape, the excitement (just not the price, lol).  Here are a few of our fabulous Ferris Wheels:

By Kyra 

By Dominique

James Rizzi City Drawings

     This was a marathon project for my 4th & 5th graders!  We have spent the past 3 WEEKS working on our drawings.  The first week, we watched a You Tube video about James Rizzi and discussed his fun, whimsical paintings.  Students began by sketching out their cityscapes, making sure to create depth and dimension by including a foreground, a middleground, and a background.  Since James Rizzi was from New York and his paintings were based on his city, we decided to make our drawings based on our great city of St. Louis!
     The second week, students traced over their pencil drawings with a sharpie marker and finished up adding details such as people, cars, trees, windows, etc.  They also started using the markers to add color during the second week.  Most of my students were so enthralled with their precise coloring that they spent a LONG time on this particular task.
     The third week, students finally...yes, finally finished their drawings.  (Now, don't get me wrong...there were some students that STILL have not finished this project.  They fall into two categories: 1.  they lost interest in this project 1/2 way into week #2 and could not finish, or 2. they were soooo incredibly focused that they need more time because of all of the details they added and they were trying to make it 'perfect').

Here are some stellar works of art inspired by James Rizzi:

Josiah's city 

(He's not finished yet with his, but I love the billboard! Don't you?)

Victor's city 

(he's not quite finished yet...but this is FABULOUS!)

Katelyn's city 

 Brandon's city

George's city 

Jordan's city

Picture The Music art entries

Here are a few of the FABULOUS works of art created by my very own students for the annual Picture The Music art competition for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.  It was a difficult task to narrow down 333 works of art into a mere 7 entries/school allowed into the competiton.  I based my judgement on how well the student executed the art medium, how well the composition is arranged, and how well the mood or feeling of the work best represented the music.  I hope (and pray) that we have several winners this year!  This is my 5th year entering artwork into this local competition and I have had more than 1 winner each year that I have entered.  So, I am confident my students will have the honor of winning this prestigious award!

By Charlie 6th grade 

By Jada 2nd grade

By Madeleine 4th grade 

By Chad 4th Grade 

By Diamond 4th Grade

Snowflake Collages

     I really love projects involving snowflakes because of the technical, mathematical aspect.  Now, I will admit the ONLY mathematical theories that I enjoy are those involving symmetry and shapes...that's it!  So, to introduce this lesson, we always begin with an overview of symmetry and rotational symmetry.  By this point in the year, 3rd-6th graders are pretty familiar with the concept of symmetry so I'm basically just reinforcing what they already know and giving them a hands-on approach to further stretch their knowledge on the subject.  I showed the class several different examples of snowflake designs that I found on the ever-handy Google Images.  Next, I passed out strips of paper that measure 6" long and 1/2" wide.  They are encouraged to start the snowflake by gluing strips of paper in an X and putting one or two more strips of paper through the middle of the X both horizontally and vertically.  Now the fun begins.  I show them how to cut the strips into little pieces to add details to their snowflakes.  I reinforce that each line has to be the SAME in order for the snowflake to remain SYMMETRICAL.  Here are a few great examples from 4th grade:

 By Mary Jane

By Gabby

Painting & Descriptive Writing

     Well.  I have to admit.  I am a sucker for all things cross-curricular this year.  I was trained under the theory that Art is for Arts Sake.  A painting can stand alone solely on visual interpretation.  As I become an active member of our school 'family' by sitting in on grade-level data teams and see what concepts our kids are struggling with on assessments, I feel the need to support them in any way that I can.  There.  I said it.

    I feel like descriptive writing is a weakness for some of our kiddos.  It takes some 'thinking outside of the box'.  It takes some 'imagination'.  And what better place to use imagination than in the Art Room?  So, I found this painting inspiration on Pinterest (yes, I'm addicted):

Here's the link to the original lesson: 

http://arteascuola-miriampaternoster.blogspot.com/2011/01/paesaggi-in-gradazione-tonale.html

    We started talking about perspective and how objects become smaller as they go farther away from you.  Then, I introduced the students to the concept of Atmospheric Perspective and how the colors of things become less intense the farther you look.  So, I showed the students three different ways to draw their lines to depict either a desert or a meadow landscape (with soft curved lines), a forest landscape (like the one above), or a mountain landscape (using jagged/peaked lines).  Next, I let them select one color for their palette.  I gave them a scoop of white per area they had on their paper (5 hills, 5 scoops of white).  The directions were to paint the foreground with the original color, the second space with one scoop of white mixed in, the third space with another scoop of white, and so on.  

     When the paintings were finished, they were to write a descriptive paragraph telling the viewer where they are, what they feel (temperature or emotion), what they hear, what do they see, etc.  We talked about the moods of color and color temperature.  

     Next class period, I gave them colored pencils and let them add details to their paintings to depict exactly what type of landscape they have.  They were instructed to use visual perspective when drawing their objects.  Here are some stellar examples:

Cross-Curricular

      If you are like me, you are always looking for ways to connect art to the common core standards.  Yes, we do this indirectly with almost any lesson we teach.  But, how can we teach directly to implement the skills and strategies that our students NEED to know in an art lesson?  One way is through writing.  Our school has focus words that will prepare our students for the standardized test in the Spring.  This month, we are focusing on Summarizing.  So, I decided to have the students summarize the life and work of Andy Warhol.  First, we watched this fabulous video about Andy Warhol from the creators of "Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists."

(This is a short preview of the video from You Tube.  I have the full version on DVD.)

      Next, the students wrote a summary about the life and work of Andy Warhol.  I gave them ideas such as, who was he, what did he do, what kind of art did he make, and so on.

Their summaries were pretty interesting!

Here's a good one:

Here is how I displayed the writing and the artwork together:

      For the art portion of the lesson, we created flower prints using tissue paper and water.  I had the students cut out the flower shape, trace it on the paper, moisten the flower shape on the paper, and then lay the tissue paper flower onto the wet paper.  They were amazed how the color can transfer from the flower to the paper just using water!  For the background, we used pieces of tagboard dipped in black, yellow, & green paint to stamp the texture around the flower shapes.  Here is the inspiration artwork by Andy Warhol that we looked at before we began our artwork:

Kaleidoscope Name Drawings

I found this lesson on Pinterest several weeks ago and thought it would be a great back-to-school lesson to help me get to know ALL of my students' names.  Here is a link to the original lesson: http://www.teachkidsart.net/kaleidoscope-name-design/

I modified it a bit by doing the letters in cursive to make it a bit less geometric.  I did, however, use the basic block lettering for my 4th graders since they are not quite ready for cursive text.  Here are some photos that I took using my iPhone (forgive the quality...I'll try to remember my 'real' camera soon.)

 This is a finished product.  See...it says Mrs. Keller!

Here's one in the beginning stage.  The steps are:
1.  Divide a square into 8 equal triangles by folding the paper.
2.  Take a separate triangle and write the name from the top to the bottom.
3.  Turn the name 'lines' into name 'shapes' by going around the outside of
the letters and the inside of the letters.
4.  Trace over the name letters with a Sharpie on the front & the back
of the triangle.
5.  Place the triangle into one of folded triangles on the paper.  Make sure
it fits perfectly.  Now, put the triangle under the paper and trace the black
lines you now see through the paper.
6.  Now, FLIP the triangle to get a mirror image in the next space.  Place the
triangle under the paper and repeat these steps 8 times.
Enjoy! 

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?

Rotational Symmetry

I am pulling out an old lesson this week for my 4th graders who happen to be working on Rotational Symmetry.  I love teaching this lesson because the results are stunning, the kids feel confident about their work, and they want to work hard for the final product (which is sometimes a challenge).  I have the students create a simple drawing on 1/8 of their circle, then teach them how to "transfer" their drawing into all 8 parts of their circle by putting pencil led on the back of the piece of paper and tracing over the original drawing 8 times.  We also discuss some techniques of using colored pencils, like graduated coloring, shading, and blending colors together.

 

Step 1: Divide circle, Draw design onto separate 1/8th

  

Step 2: Fill backside of design piece with pencil lead

Step 3: Trace over design into each piece on the circle, 

pressing hard to transfer the lead from the back onto the paper.

Step 4: Trace over all pencil lines with a Sharpie & add color!