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

Tye-Dye Line Designs

I wrestled with this project for over a week now until FINALLY yesterday morning, I decided that we would create a sort-of 'zentangle' pattern in the foreground of our tye-dye paper.  Whew.   The kids LOVED making the tye-dye paper using water color markers.  Here are the steps:
1.  Draw a large swirl in the middle of the paper using a pencil.  Make sure to draw very lightly so the pencil will not show through the marker.
2.  Scribble the first color on the swirl line using the side of the marker to get a lot of watercolor on the paper.
3.  Scribble the second color next to the first color, overlapping just a bit.
4.  Scribble the third color in the remaining space, overlapping the colors just a bit.
5.  Mist the entire paper with water so the colors will bleed together.

But, what next?  I didn't want to ruin the 'musical' elements that we spent half the class working on last week.  I wanted there to be emotion, and whimsy, and added surprises...but I was struggling with what would work best.  So, I handed out some of my own tangle creations that I have photocopied, available on the activity shelves.  I inspired the students with the VERY simple process in creating shapes using line variations and filling in the shapes with patterns.  And then. I brought out. The. GOLD & SILVER MARKERS!!!  Ta-da!  That's what was needed to make these colorful creations special, interesting, and whimsical :)  Here are some of my 6th grade students' masterpieces:

 Nile

Xavier

Marissa

Drew

India

 Kalle

Art + Music + Kinders = 1 Tired Teacher

Today we worked on our art for the annual Picture The Music Art contest for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.  We talked about how different kinds of music and evoke different emotions and how certain colors can match those emotions.  (Deep, I know).

Then, I had the students pick three or four colors that they thought best matched Beethoven's 5th Symphony.  They 'scribbled' the colors all over their paper and then I sprayed water on top of their paper so all of the colors would bleed together.  This was the background for our paintings.

Next I gave the students a tray of tempera paint and gave them some specific things to paint.  First, I told them to paint a wavy line, then a square, three circles, two straight lines, etc.  I think they are fabulous and we had lots of fun creating these musical paintings :)

Our "marker paintings" drying on the floor

 

a finished painting with the details added on top