Visual & Actual Texture

      This is a great lesson for this time of year!  The leaves are changing, the air is crisp, & the colors are vibrant and warm.  I found this lesson at www.thatartistwoman.org/.  She does an amazing job teaching lessons that involve layers of interesting materials, colors, and themes.  Check it out!

      First, we worked on tagboard because the yarn can be heavy when glued to paper.  The students cut out circles from brown poster board and used long pieces of yarn to glue around the circle.  Since this is a skill that can take a LOT of time, I had them fill the inside of their circle with pre-cut pieces of yarn.  This way, we still get the radial design of the circle with added texture in the middle.  Next, the students cut the tree trunk from pieces of brown poster board in the shape of a letter "Y".  Lastly, I demonstrated how to paint the background to depict visual texture.  This painting technique involves NO BRUSH WASHING, which makes the project move faster.  We started with blue for the sky and added white for contrast.  The colors mix to create a lighter hue and eventually the brush will dry out from making the left-to-right brushstrokes.  Then, they dip the brush in the green, make sideways brushstrokes until their brush is dry and use white again for contrast.  Next, the dip their (dry) brush in the red, then in the orange, yellow, and lastly white again.  Now don't get me wrong, some of the students DID, in fact, end up with a brown ground because their brushes weren't totally dry before they dipped into the red.  But, that's OK... a brown ground is just fine!  Here are some finished 5th grade works of art:

 By Victor 

 By Stephen

By Diamond

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:

Ceramic Leaves

These beautiful ceramic leaves have been hanging in our foyer for the past several weeks.  I finally decided I should photograph them and share them with you.  First of all, I have done this project for the past several years, but never have they turned out this beautifully...and I have to admit it was by pure accident.  My sixth graders made these leaves one day in art by pressing a real leaf into their clay to create the texture.  They cut out the shape of the leaf while it was pressed into the clay.  After they dried, I bisque-fired them and had them ready for the surface treatment.  In the past, I have used black glaze to fill in the veins and the texture with a colored glaze on top.  But, with budget cuts, I am in short supply of glazes this year.  So, I had the students use black acrylic paint to fill in the veins and wipe off the surface with a damp sponge so the paint only goes into the texture.  Next, I had the students use watercolor paint to add color.  This is where the "happy accident" comes in.  When the watercolor was first applied, it looked nice...a suggestion of color...not too vibrant.  But, when it dried, it looked like mud!  Chalky-mud!  So, I was going to have the students repaint them until I tried putting a gold glaze on top of the watercolors.  And, voila!  It made the color come to life while adding a shimmer of gold.  Perfect!!!