Art & Music

"Hyper" by Briauna

"Energetic" by Shania

"Hyper" by Jada

"Energetic" by Zariyah

"Calming" by Jenaryea

Chinese Dragons

We rang in the Chinese New Year with some colorful paper dragons! I showed this short video about the New Year and we talked about some customs and traditions of the Chinese culture. Next, I gave students a handout showing different dragon faces so they could get an idea about what shapes to cut out. Here are some of our finished dragons:

One Point Perspective

     This lesson on one point perspective went incredibly well yesterday with my 5th and 6th graders! I was shocked how quickly they picked up on the basic knowledge of using the vanishing point for every line they drew! I don't have any finished projects yet to share but here are a few pics of the beginning lesson. I began class by showing this You Tube video I found and the students were quite intrigued with it. So, I think it heightened their interest in the drawing lesson itself. Otherwise they may not have been so excited about the project...who knows! It's hard to get adolescents excited about art sometimes. We plan on adding some really cool colorful designs to the sky next week. I'll keep you posted! 

Macaw Watercolor Paintings

Do you ever make a plan and write it down and then at the last minute decide to do something completely different? Yeah, that was me this morning 15 minutes before class started. And I'm glad I did. I went on a whim and decided to come up with a unit on the Rainforest for my 5th and 6th graders. For one, I looked at the hallway and saw some lonely wall space and envisioned an entire Rainforest display. I do that often...decide what art projects to teach based on where I'm gonna display it. We are making these paintings large, on 16x20 paper, so they will be quite striking on display. I had complete faith in this group of kids to make these paintings beautiful!  And I was right, again. I walked them through each step on how to draw the bird and how to use the watercolors to give it a feathered effect. Let me add, these were finished in one 50 minute class period! While they were working I showed them a You Tube video on the rainforest. 

   

Here are some finished paintings. 

Shamrocks!

I found this great project on Pinterest (where else? Haha). I figured I'd give it a go with my 6th graders today. To start, I introduced them to the idea of paper quilling by showing them examples from google. This amazed them. They had never seen or heard of paper quilling before. This project is obviously much easier than quilling, but it still have us the main idea of bending strips of paper into new and unique shapes. And for the sake of everyone's sanity, I had staplers on their tables so we didn't have to literally sit around and watch the glue dry. Lol. Here are some of our creations: 

Kaleidoscope Art

Remember using kaleidoscopes as a kid?  I LOVED them!  This project was referred to me by a teacher here at school, and I love it.  The kids were really interested and engaged throughout the entire class period.  I had them trace circles with a sharpie because I wanted this to be a 1-day lesson.  If you wanted to extend it, have them stamp circles using black paint and then when the paint dries, you can have them use watercolors to fill-in the areas.  Another idea is to have the students experiment in color mixing where they paint the entire circle a solid color and then when it overlaps with another circle, they can see what new color is made by overlapping the colors.  Of course I thought of this technique AFTER I finished the lesson, but good to know for next time!  Good luck!

Squish Painting

This was a very fun experiment I did with my 6th graders yesterday.  I call it Squish Painting.  Basically, this is an experiment in color mixing.  They take a scoop of paint and put it on their paper, place the wax paper on top, and squish the colors together until the whole background is filled up.  And you may be thinking this is a bit too young for 6th grade.  Yes, it probably is, but I was looking for a fun way to add color to the background of their paper so we can do more surface work next time.  We are currently participating in the Picture The Music art competition for the St. Louis Symphony.  For the contest, students are asked to create a work of art that represents a certain piece of music the Symphony has selected.  Before we began, we discussed the different moods and feelings you can get by listening to music and the moods that certain colors can portray.  Students were to choose colors that they think best represented the music and squish them under the wax paper to mix them together and make new colors.  I'll post pictures of our finished art next week...

Haunted Landscapes

     In true Halloween spirit, I decided to let my 6th graders have a little bit of fun this season.  Usually I save all of the holiday themed projects for my younger kids and keep the older kids working on things like value, perspective, art history, and the like.  Now, don't get me wrong, all of these things are VERY important in an art lesson and some could say that the elements and principles of art are the foundation to everything we do.  I could not agree more.  However, 6th graders are kids, too, and they deserve to make a Halloween project just like the rest of them.
     So, we painted the background first using red, yellow, and orange paint to create the sunset.  Next, I showed them how to cut out the shape of a house and fold the paper to cut out the windows (believe it or not, some kids didn't know this little trick!).  For the details like bats, trees, and so on, we used sharpie markers.  It would have been a tad too tedious to make the kids cut out the tree silhouettes and the small details.  Hope you find some inspiration you can use in your lessons!

Colored Pencil Drawings

This is a great lesson on using a value scale.  First, we put a dot in the center of our paper and used a ruler to draw straight lines all around the paper.  Next, we used colored pencils to add color to our drawings.  Before we began, we practiced using the same color with different values on a scrap piece of paper.  Students are always amazed at the different variations of value they can get using just one colored pencil!  This project took about two weeks to finish.  Here are a few samples:

Monoprints!

     My 6th graders this year are FABULOUS!  So, I am excited about doing fun, experimental art projects with them this year.  This project is one that I came up with using foil wrapped around a cardboard circle and using it to make monoprints.  Each table had two colors of paint on it and 4 paint brushes.  Students rotated to each table every 5-7 minutes so they could experiment mixing the different colors and making a different monoprint at each station.  Here are the students mixing colors and adding the paint to the foil surface:

Here are some finished monoprints:

And here are some finished prints with some colored pencil line drawings and patterns added:

Metal Tooling & Window Markers

Let me be honest, I haven't done metal tooling since I was in college.  Mainly because of the expense of the metal itself and the expense of permanent markers to add color to the metal.   But guess what I discovered?  Crayola makes window markers that come in 8 fabulous colors and these not only work on windows, but they also work on metal (or any slick surface that would not normally accept water-based art supplies).  Ta-Da!!!

Klimt Trees

    What does an Art Teacher do when she needs a moment of sanity?  She brings out the Metallic Markers of course!  Let's face it, it's the end of the year...kids are losing their attention to detail, they are tired of being here, and need some sparkle & shine!  And let me tell you... IT WORKED FABULOUSLY!  These 6th graders were peaceful & fully engaged in the project for the entire HOUR!  I deserve an award for this monumental idea!  In fact, I think all teachers should break out the metallic pens and pencils for the remainder 4 weeks of school and these kids will do their work, be excited about it, and will be eager to learn (hahaha).

Dubuffet Sculptures

Today in Art, the 6th Graders learned about the abstract art of Jean Dubuffet.  He is an interesting artist to study because kids can relate to his simple, graphic, bold artwork.  I also emphasize that Dubuffet was inspired by the simplicity and immaturity of children's artwork (& the art of the criminally insane, but I leave that out of my introduction).  I really love teaching this lesson because it gives students the chance to create a paper sculpture, use what they know about free-form shapes, and the end result is quite beautiful.  Here are three great examples from my 6th grade class:

Carson's Sculpture 

Celeste's Sculpture 

Brea's Sculpture

Sunrise Silhouettes

     These paintings made by my 5th graders turned out so beautiful!  Using watercolors, we painted our skies first, focusing on using colors that we would find in a sunrise or sunset.  Next, we painted the tree branch silhouettes with black tempera paint.  This project lends itself to the discussion about how backlighting the subject creates outlines or shadows and loses detail.  Painting tree branches is a great way to teach kids how much pressure they should put on the paintbrush for the desired result.  We painted the large branches first, making sure we loaded our brushes with an ample amount of paint and pressed down on the bristles to make the thick lines.  For the medium branches, we used less paint and focused on pressing down and lifting the brush up at the end to create a variation of thickness.  Lastly, we worked on 'flicking' our brushes to create small, thin branches.  For added detail, I gave the students Sharpies to add the very small, fine branches to their silhouettes.  Here are two great examples:

Elijah's Painting

Timothy's Painting

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