Jellyfish Painting
23 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2nd Grade, Animals, Painting Tags: free-form, jellyfish, painting, shapes
Second graders learn about geometric and free-form shapes. Geometric shapes are ones like circles, squares, and triangles. Free-form shapes are irregular like clouds and jellyfish tentacles. Each student drew the body using free-form tentacles and geometric circles for eyes, etc. using a crayon. Then we painted the jellyfish with flourescent tempera paint from Sax. The following week we drew seaweed and treasure chests with crayon and painted the water in the background with watery tempera cakes. For a finishing touch we sprinkled salt on top of the ocean to make it create bursts of color. I love the emotion on the jellyfish faces!
Picasso’s Rose Period Valentines
23 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in 5th Grade, Art History, Famous Artists, Painting Tags: heart, Picasso, Rose Period, Valentine
This February we studied Pablo Picasso’s Rose Period when he was in love. He used mostly pink, red, and bright colors in his paintings to show that he was happy. Each fifth grade student cut out a valentine paper heart from 9×12 white paper and used a variety of lines and patterns to decorate it. They had to mix tints (light colors) and shades (dark colors) by mixing red with white or black.
Picasso’s Blue Period Portraits
23 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in 5th Grade, Famous Artists, Painting, Portraits Tags: Blue Period, Picasso, portrait
My fifth graders studied Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period. He was very sad because his best friend had died. He painted in tints and shades of blue for a long time. The people in his portraits are sad and hunched over.
I taught each student to draw a face using proportions. Then they used blue, white, black, silver, and tan to paint their portraits.
Re-Design Your School Like The Greeks
22 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in 3rd Grade, Architecture, Art History, Drawing Tags: architecture, art, columns, drawing, Greece, Greek
I came up with this fun way for third graders to study Greek architecture a few years ago. Since they are learning about our government and Greek democracy in their homeroom, I wanted to tie in Greece to an art lesson. We reviewed the different types of columns: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. We also looked at pediments and friezes on Greek buildings. Then the students got a photocopy of our school building, a sheet of tracing paper, and a Sharpie. They were told to re-design our school building so it looked like it had Greek architecture. The kids loved drawing columns, friezes, pediments, statues, and other Greek items in front of the school on the tracing paper. Then they connected some of the lines of the building together to make the drawing look complete. Aren’t these darling?
Collagraph Print
22 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in 5th Grade, Collage, Printmaking Tags: 5th, art, collagraph, elementary, fifth grade, ink, print, printmaking
Fifth graders learned about printmaking earlier this year by making a collagraph. It is like a collage that is printed. They started by gluing different shapes and lines on a piece of posterboard using different materials. We glued foam shapes, wood shapes, yarn, and cupcake liners down on the posterboard and then rolled ink with a brayer on top. The students pressed a thin piece of newsprint paper on top of the collagraph and were amazed to see the image show up on their paper. This lesson took one and a half 50 minute sessions.
Penguins in the Snow
21 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in Animals, Kindergarten, Painting
I saw this cute one day lesson for kindergarten somewhere on Pinterest. The kids drew and cut out the body, wings, eyes, and beak of the penguin with construction paper. Then we used a q-tip to paint white snowflakes and an iceberg.
Stencil Snowflakes
21 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade, Painting, Printmaking, Winter
This is an easy and fun one day winter lesson. I do it with 3rd-5th grade. I show the kids how to fold and cut snowflakes. (It’s amazing how many of them have never tried this before!) They sit at a table of four people. Each person makes a snowflake. Then they kids share their snowflakes and sponge paint over the snowflakes with neon colors like they are stencils. Ta-da! Easy masterpiece!
