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.  

Black History Month Value Portraits

For Black History Month, I wanted to do a portrait drawing lesson showing value scale.  Last week, the students were given one of 6 famous African Americans and read a short biography about their person.  To begin the lesson, we made value scales and practiced shading with pencil.  Next, students practiced drawing their person's portrait on a scrap piece of paper.  My main goal was for students to draw their person on their tie-dye paper (which we made in a previous class) and use sharpies and pencils to add the value.  However, I could see that this particular skill was far too advanced for 5th and 6th graders.  I quickly realized that drawing value portraits was too abstract of a concept for my students because they were instructed to look for the shapes that the highlights and shadows made on their faces.  Most students got so discouraged that they stopped drawing altogether.  I had a week to devise another plan before I totally scrapped this project.  So, I came up with the idea of drawing on transparencies and painting the shapes the shadows and highlights made by tracing them right on the transparencies.  I feel this was the perfect accommodation for my students in learning about value scales and realistic portrait drawings.  In the future, I will start with this technique and develop another lesson to follow this one where students can create a grid drawing and paint the value scales on their own.  We will be displaying these striking portrait paintings at our annual Black History Program!

Booker T. Washington by Adreana 

Bessie Coleman by Amani

Frederick Douglas by Jayven

Jackie Robinson by Antoine 

Rosa Parks by Faith 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  by Sidney

Magazine Portraits!

This is a great project to do with 5th and 6th graders!  Kids at this age feel very self-conscious about their drawing skills, so giving them a project where the end result is SUPPOSED to look funny is a win-win!  Thanks to all of my friends who have donated magazines to the Art Room, especially the ESPN magazines (the boys LOVE them).  I started by showing the first photo (thanks to a project I found on Pinterest).  We talked about sizes, proportions, texture, details, and how to integrate all of those things into one great work of art.  

Magazine Portrait by Kelli

Great Job!!!

Pop Art Self-Portraits

Well, well well.  I am itching to post something interesting, but I am waiting for my students to finish their self-portrait drawings so we can paint them and I can post some stunning student work.  But, as we all know...stunning work does not come from 1 single class period (or rarely comes, I should say).  So, I will post what we are working on this week and will post the finished paintings next week.  That way, you can be anticipating the marvelous work to come :)

The main idea is to create a Pop-Art self-portrait in the style of Andy Warhol.  I like Pop Art lessons because it really breaks down the intimidation barriers and helps kids to see that art can be fun and simple without being complicated.  One of my 1st grade Art Campers this summer said of Warhol's paintings..."It's so boring but so exciting at the same time!"  That was my 'Ah-ha' moment of being an art educator...I finally reached the other side!!!

This was the You Tube video that I showed the students:

So, I gave each student a piece of paper that measured 6x9".  For the older grades, I took the opportunity to teach them facial proportions, and for the younger grades (3rd & 4th) I just gave a quick demonstration and let them draw their portrait without the "rules" of proportion.  Next, I showed them how to heavily mark their drawing with pencil lead, turn it over, and rub the back of the paper with a scissor handle.  Then, when their image transfers, they outlined their drawing with a Sharpie.  Here is one example, look for more to come.

Silhouette Self-Portraits

I love, love, love silhouettes!  I remember when my little guy was in preschool and his teachers traced his silhouette.  I still have it to this day, framed, and on display.  I think a silhouette is like frozen time.  You can see the chubbiness in their cheeks, their hairstyle, their serious faces.  They are timeless.  So, I am doing a silhouette project again this year with my 5th graders.  These are different and more artistic than a typical cameo.  The objective for my students was to create a collage of things that represent them at this point in their lives.  So, some are doing shopping, sports, food, etc.  I also told them to add text- words that represent them (ie. kind, athletic, smart, funny, reliable) to get them thinking of some traits that are unique to them personally.  Here are some photos that I found on Google Images that I am using for my powerpoint (not my student work, just samples for inspiration):

This one is from princetonol.com

This one is from artismessy.com

I will post some of my students' creations when they start to come together next week :)

Our Many Colored Days...

We began our lesson on abstract art and Picasso's Portraits by reading this book by Dr. Seuss and discussing feelings and color emotions.  This story could go with many different art projects, but since it talks about being all "mixed-up", I thought it would go with our Mixed-Up portraits.  We drew our Picasso Portraits with oil-pastels, divided the paper with one vertical line and three horizontal lines, and used watercolor paint to fill each space in with color.  I showed a PowerPoint presentation with a variety of Picasso's paintings while they were working so they could see his abstract portraits and how colorful they were.