Fall Projects

Hello fellow art teachers or other interested parties... I decided to post some of the fall artwork we have finished recently. Enjoy!

3rd Grade: Texture Scarecrow

Students listened to the book Scarecrow Pete by Mark Kimball Moulton (Author), Karen Hillard Good (Illustrator). We did a draw-a-long and using basic shapes to create the torso, head, arms and legs of our scarecrow. We added a horizon line. We talked about space, and how somethings in our background should look close and some should look far away. Students added detail with pencil then traced with sharpie. The next class, we talked about texture. We also discussed the difference between implied texture and actual texture. Students used texture plates and paperless crayons to create implied texture, and yarn to create actual texture.

2nd Grade: Black Cat Weaving

Students started by learning how to weave. We folded out 6x9" black square in half and cut slits. Then we wove gray strips into it. Next students cut a branch out of 3x12" brown paper. We discussed that these are all NEUTRAL colors. Students glued the branch and cat body to dark blue paper. Next we made a head out of a 6x6 square I had cut diagonally into a triangle. Students cut the corners off the triangle to make cat ears. Next class, I passed out WARM colored paper and texture plates with leaves on them. Students used paperless crayons to get rubbings of the leaves. They cut them out and glued them to their branch. Last, they used black oil pastel to add a tail and paws, and white oil pastel to add a face and stars in their sky. 

1st Grade: Pumpkin in a Wagon

Students learned about mixing the primary colors to make the secondary colors. We started with a 9x12" white paper and a 3x6" purple rectangle. Students glued the rectangle near the bottom of the white paper. We drew wheels and a semi-circle for the pumpkin. Students were given primary colored tempera paint. We painted our pumpkin yellow, then swirled a tiny bit of red in for make orange. Those went in the drying rack. I then passed out white 12x18 paper. We folded it in half the long way then traced the line with pencil to create a horizon line. The students painted yellow then blue for green grass, and red with blue for a purple sky. Next class, the students cut out their pumpkin and wagon and glued it to the middle of their grass and sky paper. They used oil pastel to create a night sky and fall leaves. 

The Prairie Branch Phoenix!

Each 1-5th grade student made a feather during their first art class of the year. I put all the feathers together to create a giant bird to hang in the commons for the year. It is hung with a combination of poster strips and strapping tape. The students (and teachers) love it!

2014-2015 Bulletin Board

Had to post some pics of the bulletin board I spent all day making... love the "fly free" and "hope is the thing with feathers" ideas so made them apply to my art class. :-) I found a few ideas on Pinterest (see my Bulletin Board pins here: http://www.pinterest.com/jagnew/bulletin-boards/) including how to fold the origami bird. I made the first one from a 7x7" square stapled to the board, the second with 9x9" hung with fishing line, and the last is 12x12" also hung with fishing line. The board itself says "Welcome to Art Class" on the ribbon at the top, then "Let your Imagination Fly Free".

Here's hoping this school year will be the best yet!

3rd Grade Art Club

3rd Grade Art Club has just come to a close. We made a variety of projects including a crayon transfer t-shirt, clay bird bath, a mobile, a Van Gogh inspire oil pastel drawing, scratch art, a canvas painting of a robot, and the student's favorite: the recycled robot! Enjoy the pictures.

Year (so far) In Review

We have been busy bees this year at Prairie Branch Elementary! I realized since I love teaching about other cultures and art around the world I had not spent much time teaching about the "masters" from Western art. So once again I have been coming up with new lesson plans with the help of amazing art teacher's blogs and Pinterest posts! Here is a sample of what we have been up to.

Kindergarten: Cezanne Fruit Still Life

 We read the book How Are You Peeling? Foods With Moods by Freymann and Elffers. The photographs in this book are hilarious- the authors took real fruit and veggies and gave them facial expressions. This gives the students a good look at the colors and textures of fruits and veggies. We then looked at the artwork of Paul Cezanne focusing on his still life paintings. I had a bowl with real looking plastic fruit set up in the middle of the room. With me guiding our drawing, we drew our bowl and fruit inside. I encourage the students to draw large- the apple has to be as big as your fist! We drew in pencil then traced with sharpie. The next class, we painted with tempera cakes.

First Grade: Dali's Elephant

Students looked at the artwork of Surrealist artists including Salvador Dali. We talked about how Surrealist art is realistically painted, but it has something unrealistic about it. In The Elephants painting, we see two elephants with abnormally long skinny legs. We imitated this painting for our project using marker and chalk pastel. For complete directions check out this great blog! http://elementaryartfun.blogspot.com/2011/03/salvador-dali-elephants-and.html

Second Grade: Impression Sunshine

Students learned about the Impressionist art movement. We looked at a variety of Impressionist artist's work and noticed that they used short brushstrokes to create their paintings and focused on the way light hit things in nature. Since light was so important to the Impressionist I thought it was only appropriate to create a sun! We used the impressionist "dabbing" technique to create a cool color sky. We used a printmaking (stamping) technique using warm colors and marker or glue bottle lids for the sun. Next class we ripped the yellow paper up and collaged it on the blue paper to create a sun. Last we used gold metallic paint for the rays.

Third Grade: Van Gogh Flowers

For this project we looked at the many sunflower paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, and did a compare and contrast with them. First we did a draw a long with pencil on black paper to create the vase, table line, and flowers. Students chose whether they wanted to draw sunflowers or a different type of flower. Then I demonstrated how to trace a glue line with Elmer's school glue over their pencil lines. Students placed these on the floor by the wall to dry as putting them in a slanted drying rack causes the glue to run. Next class, we used chalk pastel to color between the glue lines. Sometimes I take the whole class outside and spray each of their artworks with clear spray paint, but it depends on the weather, wind, and if it is a class that can handle being outside without running around like crazy! ;-)

Fourth Grade: Japanese Bridge

Students looked at Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet. We saw how he would paint the same outdoor scene over and over again in different seasons and times of day. He liked to watch how light would change the scene over time. The artists also used small brush strokes instead of long smooth ones. Monet painted the Japanese Bridge on his property many times. We used this as the inspiration for our painting. We used liquid masque to create a bridge across our page the first day, then practiced small brushstrokes on scrap paper. The next class we painted dabs of paint all over our bridge paper to look like trees above the bridge and reflections of trees below. The third class we took off the masque, added highlights and/or shadows to the bridge and painted horizontal streaks of blue as well as waterlilies under the bridge to make it look like a pond.

Fifth Grade: Value Self Portrait

This was the 5th graders first project this year. We looked at Albrecht Durer's self portrait from 1484 that he drew when he was only 13 years old. It is done in black and white and has shading to make it look realistic. We learned about basic facial proportions and practiced drawing a face together. I took pictures of each student by my lamp to create a highlight and shadow on their face, then printed them in black and white. Each students drew their self portrait on white 12x15 paper. We learned VALUE refers to dark and light. We used dark, light, and medium values to make our portraits look 3D. We also learned if you VALUE something it means you care about it. We wrote things we valued around the edge of our portrait. 

Thank you for stopping by... hope to post more soon! :-)