4th grade Colorado History Mural Underway

We receive a grant from ROCV to create a mural depicting Colorado History. Students in 4th grade are studying this so they came to art class with a plethora of background knowledge for ideas.  We collaborated with Ms. Carabell or librarian for this project. Students did a significant amount research and then drew sketches. They have painted the background and they are now working on sketches for the historical events.  I will post more photos and the mural progresses.

Monochromatic Picasso Portraits

Students learned how to make tints and shades of one color using white and black.  We started this lesson with a blind contour self portrait drawing.  Some students chose to use the blind contour for the monochromatic painting to have a more abstract style work of art.

2nd grade Super Heros!

Here they come to save the day, Second grade selfies are on their way! For second grade, I decided to do a fun self portrait lesson. The kids LOVED creating these super hero versions of themselves.

Students started by sketching ideas for their superhero selfie.  We talked about using shapes to create out bodies: rectangles for the torso and shapes for the arms and legs, etc. 

We also talked about masks, capes and symbols. When the kids were finished with their super hero, they traced them in Sharpie. Before coloring, we discussed about finding our skin tone. We also talked about limiting our color palette to three colors for our super hero costume. Checking out Superman, Spiderman and Ironman really helped them understand the idea of a limited palette.  Some kids added a sidekick to their super hero selfie.

Kids decided what powers their super hero has and in what type of environment they want to place their superhero. Some chose a city scape, landscape or in outer space. 

Once complete, the super heroes were cut out carefully before being glued into the cityscape masterpiece. Here are some images of their hard work.

5th Grade Monsters

We talked about monsters and we viewed many contemporary artists who focus on monsters. Students learned about texture, scale and proportion. They planned their designs in their sketchbooks and then created these amazing works of art.

4th grade collaborative Solar Systems

4th graders worked on a collaborative art project to create their own solar system.   This system could be real or imaginary.  Students were introduced to shading a form and sphere and also wet on wet watercolor techniques. They used oil pastel, colored pencil, watercolor paint and tempera paint to complete their projects.

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.

1st grade Mad Science Artists!

First graders learned the difference between a form and a shape.  They learned how to turn a shape into a form.  Geometric shapes become geometric forms. Circles become spheres, triangles become cones, pyramids or triangular prisms.  We used observation to draw various science beakers.  We talked about  transparent and translucent.  I added the color-mixing/wet-on-wet painting portion to add more science to the mix. Students drew lines for their liquid which we then filled in with secondary colors learning to mix the primary colors.  The next part of the project involved creating bubbles for our backgrounds using chalk pastel.  I found this project idea online, the kids did a great job.  This was more of a lesson on skill and technique (observational drawing, color mixing, and watercolor paints) rather than creativity

3rd grade Map Makers

I always like to collaborate with classroom teachers and integrate academic subjects into the art curriculum. Since student were studying land forms in their classroom I thought this would be a great art lesson. We looked at all kinds maps and talk about how they are used. We discussed and reviewed land forms and talked about how a map is different from a landscape painting as a map is a birds eye view. Students learned about cartography and what a cartographer does.

Students designed their own map of a fictional or real place. They had a lot of freedom to create and were required to include the following: water and land, a title, a compass rose, and a map key with at least six land forms. 

1st grade winter landscapes

To bring in the new year and celebrate the winter season first grade created winter landscapes. They learned  what a landscape is and how it differs from a still life and a portrait.  We discussed how objects in the distance get smaller as they are farther away.  They used sharpie to outline and bring out their bare branch trees and watercolor paint for their skies.