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!

Mixed-Up Chameleon

Welcome to the third week of school!  I'm a little embarrassed that this is my first post of the new school year, but things have been so busy around here!  I have been focusing on the all-time favorite children's author and illustrator Eric Carle this week.  In fact, I have found some great You Tube videos showcasing his lively illustrations and storytelling!  Most of the kids have heard this story before, but who can complain about hearing an Eric Carle story for the second time???  Not I!  Here are some fantastic Mixed-Up Chameleons made by some fabulous 3rd graders:

Wow City!!

      I found this book on Pinterest and asked my librarian to track it down for me.  I like it because it is visually stimulating.  The author is actually an illustrator who decided to write a book after he took his 2-year old daughter to the city for the first time.

      I used this book with my K-3 classes but changed the medium according to grade level.  For example, these are examples of glue-line relief drawings using chalk pastels.  K&1 classes used Crayola oil pastels to add color to their drawings.  The first class, we drew the city using the concept of overlapping buildings.  I showed them how to draw buildings in the foreground and add buildings that look like they are behind the other buildings.  Some little ones got this, and some didn't.  It is a more advanced thinking skill for little artists, but I figure I may as well introduce the concept early so they might remember it when they are ready to manipulate the skill.  Here are some stellar examples:

By Krystal

By Rachel

Fancy Peacocks

I have been seeing beautiful peacock artwork on teacher blogs and Pinterest a lot lately, so I hopped on the bandwagon and did a peacock lesson of my own.  This was the first lesson that I tried out my new liquid watercolors and I have to say, I am quite impressed.  We first drew the peacocks with Sharpies and painted the background using the liquid watercolors in cool colors.  Next, I passed out cool colored oil pastels and instructed the students to draw the 'eyes' on the feathers right on top of the watercolor paint.  The oil pastels I use are Portfolio, so if we had drawn the 'eyes' on the feathers before the paint, the oil pastels would have washed away since they are water soluble.  Otherwise, traditional oil pastels would have worked fine before the paint was applied.  Here are some samples of 3rd grade peacocks:

 Tyler's Peacock

 Elise's Peacock

Noah's Peacock

Oil Pastel/Chalk Pastel Pumpkin Drawings

3rd graders yesterday afternoon 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 blue sheet of paper.  The students drew the first pumpkin with an oil pastel 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 colored inside the spaces with chalk pastels (VERY messy, btw) and cleaned up their drawing by re-tracing the oil pastel lines.  Here are a few completed works of art:

Mary Jane's Pumpkins

 

Grace's Pumpkins

Devan's Pumpkins

Tree Silhouettes

My amazing 6th graders created these beautiful paper tree silhouettes.  I showed them how to use the Portfolio water soluble oil pastels by drawing on their paper using lines that express rhythm and movement and spreading the color around their paper with a wet paintbrush.  We talked about the color wheel and which colors will mix well together and which ones will look like 'mud' when mixed.  The students chose what time of day they wanted to depict and which colors would best represent that particular time of day.  While their paper was drying, we started to draw the trees.  This is a difficult task to draw branches using lines that overlap, show thickness/thinness, and are connected together.  Here are some of the finished projects: