Kindergarten's Totally Texture

The kindergarten enjoyed all the mess that went along with this project. We first started off with texture plates and did a rubbing. Over that we did a thin watercolor wash. Day 2 the students used gadgets & bright paint to make prints over the texture from the class before and finally we used foil for a little border. It was a great project and it really got all the forms of texture from visual to implied.

Saturday Visit to the St. Louis Art Museum

On Saturday there was a new Dick Blick art store opening in University City. The first 25 teachers got a free back of goodies and a chance to win $1000 shopping spree for their classroom. Okay, I was there, got the bag of goodies and am hoping to hear that I won ;)! Since we were so close to Forest Park and the STL Art Museum my husband and I went for a little visit. The museum is under construction so there wasn't a whole lot of special displays, just the normal art. We managed to see a couple of Thomas Hart Bentons, a few VanGoghs, Monets...it was fun. My husband has never been to an art museum and kept asking if these were the real thing. Kind of funny, but if you're always used to seeing prints it's really hard to believe you're staring at a true original!

An early dismissal on this Monday morning, we've got sleet & ice! I'm afraid we are in the middle of a huge snow/ice storm here in mid-Missouri! Sorry for the project delays! We were mostly all starting new projects this week too. Not sure how many days we'll be out this week but the forecast in predicting 12-15 inches of snow. More pics as soon as we're back in school. In the mean time here is a picture of my daughter and her Mickey Mouse snowman we made yesterday with the snow remaining from our last storm & snow days! Happy week everyone!

Tree Resist

First graders did these blending tree resists. We started by using rulers to create a border. We drew the horizon line, 3 triangles above the line and squares for tree trunks. We started with blue, violet & red-violet. I added a little salt at the end for some texture.

Wolf Kahn Tree Resist

I saw the Wolf Kahn idea from another blog, I don't have my plans at home but will credit you as soon as I get there! I changed a bit and did a resist with the oil pastels and watercolors. Day 1 we looked at art by Wolf Kahn, discussed a resist, blending and analogous color schemes. Day 2 the students choose 3 analogous colors from the wheel and we used a wet-on-wet watercolor technique to get blending results. These are two student examples and they turned out pretty good. Any oil pastel color could have been used, just making sure it wasn't part of their analogous color scheme.

PS-Just found where I got the original idea: http://onecrayolashort.blogspot.com/search/label/Artist%3A%20Wolf%20Kahn

which I notice is way different than they way I did it. That's why I love the art blogs because we each see an idea and make it in our own way!

Foreshortening Self-Portraits

My fifth grades are working on a foreshortening project. I've seen these projects buzzing around. We decided to show ourselves falling, sliding, floating, hanging...anything that would show them compressed from a certain point of view. More finished projects pics to come. The kids will finish with a watercolor wash. So far so good on this one! Lots of creative ideas from the kids!

Matching Mittens

This is a good back to school after winter break for the kindergarten kiddos. We talk a lot about patterns, and things that match. They get to use markers and crayons, we cut and paste on a matching paper color of their choice.

Crazy Print Birds

This was what I decided to do with printmaking this year in first grade. We also used the primary colors. I found various junk items around the room, some paper plates and let the kids print on two 9x12 sheets. This week when they come in we will assemble the birds. Drawing an arch across the first 9x12 turned horizontally. Fold the 2ND piece in half, draw a 'U' shape with a cloud-like line over the top for the wings. Make sure the kids keep the paper folded in order to get two wings. We will finish with some eyes, a beak and little legs. I'm anxious to see these hanging around the school!

Valentine Pop Art

2ND grade is currently working on this project as an upcoming Culver's display. Once a month I take art to the local Culver's restaurant and they put it in frames around the restaurant. The kids enjoy seeing their work up. I usually try to go with a theme/holiday/seasonal art for the Culver's activity. We talked about Jim Dine, Andy Warhol, actual texture, simulated texture and finally positive and negative space! The kids enjoyed using the texture plates with the melted mini muffin tin crayons I made over the summer.

First Day Back...

First day back from break! Probably the one of the most dreaded days EVER...but it went well! Break seemed short this time because we just got out of school on Dec. 22. It felt good to be back and see the kids! The first two hours were quiet, I think the kids were still asleep! Everyone listened to directions, followed along and wow we got a lot farther than I expected! This afternoons classes were K, 1 & 2...a little more wound up and I think most of them were tired and ready to go home...me too..yawn!

So a busy day, all started new projects to begin our 2ND semester. We started lots of cool color, watercolor resist, winter scape sort of things. Photos and postings to come towards the end of the week.

I hope everyone had a great vacation and hope all get off to a great start to the new year!

Snow Globes-4th Grade

This project was back by popular demand! I saw a similar idea over at:http://oodlesofart.blogspot.com/, but we changed it up a little. Be prepared, this project took us a good 4 classes! Yikes, I know, but the results were SO worth it! We learned so much vocab with this one: perspective, close-up view, transparent, trapezoid, landscape, winter scene & fore, mid & background. The students really got into the inside drawing since it was supposed to look close to their home...some added some things like a fireplace :)! We started with the outdoor scene in the snow globe, drawing, colored pencils and diamond dust glitter in the snow. We added a trapezoid as the stand. Then we created our background, we drew the perspective part together, then they added their own home-like ideas, colored in with construction paper crayons. They look amazing hanging in our hallways! Great job 4Th graders!

Model Magic Snowmen

After 3rd grade completed the off-center snowman painting we started with a 3-D clay snowman. Model magic is great for this project. This took us two 60 minute classes, one to make the snowman and the second to color in with markers. Makes great little Christmas gifts for the kids to take home!

Angel-1st Grade

I take art work to the local Culver's Restaurant every month. I needed something Christmas and quick for the December display. I started the students out with a 'U' shape to help them get the proportions correct, we drew step by step with sharpie. Student colored in with crayons and added glue and glitter for the halo. Nice work first grade! This took us one 60 minute class.

Giant Christmas Lights

Kindergarten finally did their first painting with this project. We had to draw colors from a hat and trade if needed, this way we didn't have all pink or red lights. I created a large light shape

template, students traced on thick 12X18 paper, cut, made curved line for the top and painted below. The results are always great! I saw this project my first year teaching from the pre-K teacher, thanks Ms. Housewright!

Candy Cane Overlap

I saw this project last year over at Oodles of Art. We changed it just a bit. I did the project with second grade but it was quite a challenge. I let my older graders do this as a holiday bonus project! The results are always great!