Colorful chameleons

Chameleons are a wonderful subject to study while practicing a technique or media. These lizards are just plain cool and the kids love learning about them and their color changing abilities. Recently, first grade has finished some great chameleon collages. Check them out below!

Painting in a 3/4ths view

Almost every year I have my student create a self portrait. It's a great practice in observation and its a good connection to famous artists who have all created numerous self portraits.  This year I felt like my 5th grade students were up for a challenge and I decided to have them create a portrait in 3/4th view. Understanding the difference between a frontal view, profile, and 3/4th view came first. Then we practiced face mapping or drawing out the measurements of where features are on your face. Next we drew our own features complete with accessories like glasses and earrings. Last the 5th graders did some color mixing with water color paint to add color to their portraits. Overall, it proved to be a challenge but a good one that my students took on with great effort.

Paint Like an Impressionist

I love having students do something totally unexpected (to them, that is). When they are use to filling in shapes solid with smooth, long brushstrokes painting like an Impressionist is completely different. The Impressionists are a group of artists who worked in France over 100 years ago. The best known artist of this group is Claude Monet. The Impressionists developed a new way of painting using small quick brush marks. Up close the paintings can look blurry, but when you stand back the entire image is revealed.  The 2nd graders took a shot at painting like an Impressionist through their landscape artwork.

Circular weaving

There's something great, even peaceful about having students weave. I think that weaving becomes therapeutic for many students once they figure out a rhythm. I am always amazed at the focus I receive from students while they are in the thick of weaving. Here are the circular weavings created by 4th grade. They looked at historical weavings as well as the work from the contemporary artist Xenobia Bailey for inspiration.

Sculptural weavings

By 2nd grade most students have practiced a basic paper weaving so this year we stepped up the difficulty level on the basic weave and created a piece that is both a weaving and a sculpture. Here are the results.

Kindergarten lions

There's nothing like studying animals with elementary students. They love it! Starting with a great subject matter for practicing a technique or tool is how to get to get everyone excited about what they are learning. In kindergarten we studied the king of all beasts, the lion. We focused on basic shapes to create these amazing pieces. After drawing the outline, kindergarten practiced holding a paintbrush appropriately and controlling the paintbrush while painting. The end result is awesome.

Jasper Johns is an artist we study in 1st grade. His number and alphabet paintings are always a hit with younger students. We wrote the letters of our first name over and over to create a piece in the spirit of Jasper Johns.