Third grade loved learning all about castles and then drew their own. They also learned about space and creating the illusion of form. They drew their castles with sharpie and then used water-based markers and water to color them.
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Fifth grade discussed the artwork of Ted Harrison (1926-2015). He was born in England and moved to the Yukon Territory in Canada. He is well known for his colorful landscapes. Students created their own abstract landscapes inspired by the simple shapes and concentric lines of Harrison's work. They were also working on creating tints by mixing their tempera paint. When they were finished painting, they traced over their pencil lines with white oil pastel.
We read the story, "Corduroy" by Don Freeman. They loved the fuzzy bear on his adventure to find his missing button and a home. We used corrugated paper to cut out a triangle and rectangles in order to make Corduroy's overalls. We glued them down and traced an oval for Corduroy's head. Students added the rest of the details on their own. They colored Corduroy with crayons, and added a background for him. We also went to town with the yarn again, since they are now experts at adding this for texture. Students had a class period where they were finishing coloring and then were able to get a Corduroy coloring sheet I made. I went around to each group, let them pick out a button and show me were they would like it glued. I used my cordless glue gun to attach the button. Students put their hands in their laps while I did this and I told them when it was okay to touch. They were great listeners!
Fourth grade students discussed the art of Salvador Dali and surrealism. They drew their own animal with extended legs in the foreground, and then added middle and background to the drawing. Students were encouraged to place their animal in an unexpected setting, just as Dali's Elephants in the desert. The animals were traced with sharpie and colored with markers/water. The background was outlined with colored markers and chalk pastel. There was an extremely high success rate with the objectives and the students really enjoyed the project.
Second grade listened to the story, "If the Dinosaurs Came Back" and discussed space, line and shape. They created their own scene with a dinosaur, and using space (overlapping). I also showed students how to make elements pop up off the scene to help create overlap and space.
First grade had a great time with their clay. They formed the air dry clay into a sphere and then stepped on it to make their texture. Next, they formed clay beads that they would be able to add to the necklace. Students painted their medallions and beads and then strung all together. They were very excited to wear their medallions home.
I read "The Mitten" by Jan Brett to Kindergarten. Students learned all about texture while making observations of the illustrations. Kindergarten then made their own mitten. I gave them a tracer for their mitten and then pulled out crayons and texture plates. The excitement was deafening! When is kindergarten ever not excited and enthusiastic?! They colored patterns, lines, shapes on their mittens and the next week we cut out the mittens and added pieces of yarn for texture. I have to say, the intensity with which the students worked was amazing. This was the quietest my kinders have ever been while they worked. They loved adding the yarn!
Fifth Grade did some printmaking. They made collographs and mixed tints to add depth to their artwork. Students began by making their 8" x 8" plate out of a variety of textured materials (corrugated cardboard, fun foam, shelf liner, yarn, bubble wrap...). It could be some sort of scene, random shapes, whatever they wanted to create. The first week of printing, students chose their color and moved to that station. I had 7 station set up around the room. Each student ("master printer") had an "apprentice" to work with them. They used a registration plate I created, to set their inked plate (marked with the top) on and then placed their paper on that to print. The apprentice took this to the drying rack while the printer began a second print. Students made 3 prints of their plate and then switched roles. It was fantastic to see the teamwork and how they helped each other remember all the steps they had been shown. The next week students pulled out their 2 best prints for the next step. This left one of original of what their plate looked like. They numbered the back of the remaining prints with a "1" at the top, rotate 90 degrees and mark it "2", rotate 90 degrees again and mark it "3". This day they worked with their "apprentice", mixed a tint of their color and printed with "2" at the top. The third printing on side "3 was done with the lightest tint. The result was an edition of 2 prints where the focus of the art became the texture and depth created with value rather than what the original picture was. These turned out beautiful! Way to go my fabulous fifth graders!
Second grade students painted two squares of paper; one in warm colors and one in cool colors. Next they added a snowman with geometric shapes to the cool paper and a melting snowman with an organic shape to the warm paper. They added details, then glued their papers to a blue background and then decorated the frame with white tempera paint.
Fourth grade students learned about the Pop Art of Andy Warhol and how he loved to experiment with ways of making art. They looked at some of Warhol's serigraphy and we also discussed positive/negative space. I was so excited to be in a classroom this year, so I could teach students about the process of screen printing. Students designed stencils and used complementary colors of paper for printing. They printed the negative stencil first and the next week printed the positive stencil. The last week they chose their best prints, cut them out and then glued them to a background. The art room was filled with excitement and mess! I taught students to wash their screen when they were done and then clean up their areas. Everyone was on task in the midst of all the chaos. We used embroidery hoops for screen frames, silk screen material, crescent board for squeegees and newsprint for stencils. The newsprint stuck to the screen after the first pass of ink and students printed 4 times with each stencils.
Kindergarten used cups and black paint to print overlapping circles. Students enthusiastically printed their papers with black circles! We were trying to make some overlap without filling our paper with too many. The next week, we watched the OK Go video about mixing secondary colors. It was my hope that students would paint (tempera cakes) some primary colors inside the shapes and sometimes mix secondary colors to paint inside. This proved to be a struggle for most. A few decided they would rather just paint all of them brown, and it caught on like wild fire in one of my classes! This class was given primary crayons to color the rest of their shapes and I was happy with how they were shaping up...we just had too much brown already painted. My other class switched to just painting the primary colors. We also had trouble with students using too much water and that caused black to mix in with their colors. Love the concept and will learn from our experimenting for an improved lesson next year!
One of my fifth grade classes created Notan artwork this year. We were learning about positive/negative space and balance.
Kindergarten excitedly commented on some of the heart paintings of Jim Dine. They looked at the shapes and talked about the colors. We are also learning about the primary colors and we talked about how to draw a heart. Since we only have 30 minutes together, I gave them a handout filled with hearts and they practiced drawing them be tracing and then drawing on their own. The next time we met students were given the primary colors and we talked about filling our page with a heart or many hearts. I demonstrated how to paint so we did not mix all of our colors. We wanted to be able to see our primary colors. Students were so excited to see that sometimes the primary colors mixed a little and then made a secondary color. They worked hard to paint so that they did not end up with brown hearts! We added yellow and blue squares of paper and drew hearts with blue oil pastel.
Kindergarten listened to the story, "A Penguin Story", Antoinette Portis. In the story, Edna the penguin searches for something more in her world besides white, black and blue. Her search takes her on a great adventure! Students made their own penguin and were determined to give their penguins a rainbow of colors to see. They painted the background for their penguin and added a torn paper iceberg. We created our penguins step be step with drawing, cutting and gluing shapes. I showed students how to measure their penguin's head and make a hat out of paper. Some students had additional time to add other paper details. Last, we added show with paint. I love how every penguin had it's own personality!
Third grade drew a cat or a dog and then colored it with cool or warm colors. They used chalk pastel and blended with their fingers. Students colored the background the opposite color scheme as their animal. Students also added some details to make their art more their own. Most named their "pets"! Some of the small details were outlined with sharpie and when they were done with chalk, students traced over their pencil lines with black oil paste.
Kindergarten looked at paintings of winter landscapes with great excitement! We picked out all kinds of shapes, lines and fun things we saw in the painting. Students got down to work tearing paper for the snow on the ground, then tracing, cutting and gluing shapes to make their houses. Students added details with smaller shapes and lines. We had quite the array of trees made from crayon lines! We used the handle of our brush to make snow falling on our landscape. Some students added in some additional details like snowmen. I'm disappointed that I only have one photograph to share. Guess I got busy and never took pictures.
Fifth grade has been focused on the element of art, form. We discussed the reasons a group of people would create masks. We looked at a variety of masks from Africa. We discussed how they were each from different cultures and would have special meaning within that culture. Students compared and contrasted elements they saw in the masks.
Students were also introduced to the ancient art of repoussé. Repoussé means to indent metal. Students combined working with metal to create their own mask. They incorporated some of the general elements they noticed that many of the Afrcan masks contained. Students chose betwee several different techniques to create symmetry in the features on their mask. After working the metal from both sides, students colored their masks with sharpies, and then added additional elements to finish the mask. We discussed how masks might be displayed in a museum. Students created unique bases out of air dry clay, a craft stick and metallic paint to use for displaying their masks. They topped off all their hard work with an artist statement. Students are so proud of their masks and their art has generated lots of interest among the younger students as well as the teachers! Can't wait to get these in our display case! Here at Hermes, we are busy planning an awesome wellness, art and music family night!
Save-the-Date for Wed., Jan. 18, 2017 from 6-7:30 pm. We have all kinds of great events lined up for everyone to enjoy! Students are learing about symmetry and organic shapes. They folded their 12"x18" paper in half and drew just half their butterfly. They used tempera paint in bottles to trace over their lines, then folded the paper to make a monoprint. Oh, the applause and the oohs and ahhs when I demonstrated this! They could hardly contain their excitement everytime someone in their group pulled their print and there was an amazing butterfly! The next week we added some details with white oil pastel and painted with tempera cakes. The results...just beautiful! I'll be repeating this project for a while.
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Mrs. Kendell
I was a graphic designer for many years, and then decided to make the leap into art education. I taught elementary art for 8 years. Archives
May 2018
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