Cityscape prints

Kindergartners explored shapes while making collages of cities out of tag board.  Once the cityscape was complete we rolled over it together with ink and printed our art on yellow paper!

Mouse Paint

K students discussed primary and secondary colors.  We listened to songs about color, explored color mixing on the smartboard and even created a color wheel with oil crayons!  Our main inspiration for this project was the book Mouse Paint.  Three little mice find jars of primary color and after dipping themselves in the paint discover that they can make new colors!  Students had the opportunity to paint with primary colors like the mice in the story, and used their primaries to create secondary colors as well!  Finally we discussed collage and texture.  Students ripped the paper to mimic the fuzzy texture of a mouse and collages their shapes together on top of their paintings.  Great work Kindergarten!!

Musical Compositions

When Kandinsky first displayed his abstract artworks some called it the work of a madman; but one critic recognized it for what it was- pure visual music.  Kandinsky would often sit and listen to music imagining colors, shapes and lines drawing themselves before him.  He tried to capture this in the paintings he created.  Students studied the array of shapes and lines Kandinsky used to express the sounds he heard and discovered how abstract art can express an artists ideas in a different way.  After analyzing a few of Kandinsky's works, students were told they would be creating an abstract painting of sounds like Kandinsky as well.  To give them a better idea of how to approach this we watched the beginning of Fantasia to see how Disney animators interpreted the sounds they heard into shapes, lines and colors.  We also used the Music Lab on the smartboard to create a musical composition we could play together as a class (look under art games and great sites to find the link).  Finally, students listened to jazz music and painted with tempera cakes to create their own musical compositions.  Once the paintings were complete students drew images of jazz instruments to collage on top of their work.

Color Experiments

First graders have been exploring the elements of art.  For this project we focused on form and texture.  We began by learning how to draw forms (things that appear three dimensional).  Students drew three forms that resembles glass beakers and containers that might be used by scientists. Next we did a little color experimenting of our own inside these drawings.  Using the wet on wet watercolor technique students applied dots of two primary colors of watercolor onto their bottles which they had already painted with water.  The dots spread out on their own and the colors magically mixed to produce secondary colors; orange, green, and purple.  Finally, we observed photographs of bubbles, noting their characteristics- like circle shapes, transparency, rainbow colors....We then used this information to assist us in drawing our own realistic looking bubbles using construction paper crayons on black paper.  Last but not least we cut out our bottles and glued them to our bubbly creations!

When your kicked out of your classroom....

At the last minute due to some burst pipes and flooding in classrooms I learned that I was going to be traveling from room to room for the day...Being that it was close to Valentines day I thought this heart lesson was fun, quick and easy to travel with!

Still Life

5th graders created a still life by studying value and form.  Using chalks and pastels we discovered how to use these two elements to make our art more realistic.

Texture Prints

Kinders explored texture and color by printing bubble wrap with primary colors.  Towards the end of class we mixed primary colors together to create secondaries to print with as well!