5th Grade Surrealism Collages

Students explored dreams and reality with Surrealism. They studied the surrealism movement; a period in art history in which artists tried to access the creativity of the unconscious mind.  Artists including Rene Magritte, Kay Sage, Hannah Hoch, and Salvador Dali created many works that blurred the line between dreams and reality. To start of the unit on surrealism students participated in the surrealist game called Exquisite Corpse, in which a creature is drawn collaboratively. It's a great game to play with the family at home, look it up or ask a 5th grader how to play it.

Students then investigated the Surrealist technique of "seeing into" or "Paranoiac Critical Method". This exercise was coined by Salvador Dali and is all about looking at things in a new way. Students delved next into the surrealist technique of collage. Students began with a magazine background and had the challenge of altering an image and thus creating a new work of art.

2nd grade Cardboard Challenge

We began this unit reading Barney Saltzberg's wonderful and inspiring book, Beautiful Oops!  Students love this book and are constantly amazed at how the author turns rips, spills, and tears into new creations!   Before reading the book, each student was prompted to make a "mistake" on their paper.  After reading and discussing the book, students were given someone else's "oops" and had the challenge to turn it into something new!

This was a springboard for our final project, in which students created a painting inspired by a scrap of cardboard.  Each student began with a scrap of cardboard, brainstormed ideas, and used tempera paint to complete their ideas.  Students experimented with color mixing and using various brushes.   Pretty cool how the kids used their imagination and creativity to transform what would be considered trash to most into a beautiful work of art.

4th grade Totem Pole Collages

Students learned about the significance of totem poles and that they were and still are made by native tribes who lived in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. 

The big word for this project was stylize. We learned that some artists stylize their work by changing shapes, colors, etc. in order to give their work their own personal touch. Each student created one stylized animal in the style of a real totem pole. 

5th grade Notans

5th grade studied the art of  Nōtan 濃淡  which is a Japanese design concept involving the play and placement of light and dark as they are placed next to the other in art and imagery.  We talked about positive and negative space as well as symmetry to create a cut out Notan. Here are some of their works. They turned out amazing!

2nd Grade Autumn Collages

We discussed warm and cool colors and students learned different techniques to draw a tree.  Students used magazines to find warm colors to cut our for their leaf shapes.

Solar System Art!

We integrated the 4th grade space science unit into art class. We talked about how to use value to create an image that looks more like a sphere rather than a flat circle. Students used tempera paint to explore color gradation and they also experimented with using watercolors to create a wet on wet technique in order to make a more realistic planet.  Students worked in collaborative groups to invent their own solar system.  They shared some very creative stories to explain the history of their solar systems.

3rd Grade Autumn Silhouttes

3rd grade learned about collage using tissue paper, drawing trees, overlapping, space, warm and cool colors, and silhouettes to create these amazing works or art.

1st grade landscape collages

Friday's 1st grade started this project and most finished. We reviewed collage and talked about landforms in our front range landscape. Students tore paper into shapes to create a landscape of their own. They learned about background, middle ground and foreground. Their goal was to create a landscape with at least 3 different layers of landforms.

1st grade Matisse inspired Collages