Picasso Part 2

Up early on a Sunday morning... thanks to my teacher schedule. however, the likelihood of seeing at student at the local super market is less than usual at this hour in the morning. I will be headed out soon! but not before a post. oh how I missed blogging the last few weeks!

Rose and Blue Period 4th Grade Portraits

Another lesson I totally stole from Phyl! check it out
I introduced Picasso to the 4th grade by reading Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists- Picasso. We talked about Picasso's different "styles" and how he "invented" Cubism. We focused mainly on the Rose and Blue period though. It fit in really well because we had been doing a lot of portraits in 4th grade. So much so that I think I need to switch it up next year. This one focused more on color and expression than others though. The kids actually had fun having to pick from a bowl which period they would be painting and I think they had even more fun once we started painting because they got to switch up their seats!

2nd Grade was also introduced to Picasso this year. This lesson was essentially my own. I did find some guidance at the Incredible Art Department, but had to do some tweaking to get into the 2nd grade mind set. I also had 2 classes and experimented with the process just between the two. Its one that I will revisit and continue to work on. It wasn't a total flop, but I would like a higher success rate. anyway...

2nd Grade 3 Musicians 
I blew up a copy of Picasso's 3 Musicians and we sat on my rug to make some observations.

What is this a picture of? How many people do you see? What instruments can you see? What simple shapes do you see? What colors? What patterns?
We talked a little bit about Cubism and I tried to stress how Picasso made pictures out of shapes.

We went back to our seats and drew... this is where I need to start revising.
I asked students to draw 3 instruments using simple shapes. They got that part... but they somehow missed when I asked for them to be big. We had teeny tiny guitars and drum sets!

this one, not so much. this student is an outstanding 2nd grade artist

After drawing the instruments, we added the "shape people." This was another area of struggle. Some kids totally grasped the idea of block heads and triangle legs, others couldn't get over it. Understandable. Then, some kids struggled with how the instrument they just drew connected to the person they needed to add. I know my instruction for this could be better. It was also an opportunity for the students to really use their imagination and creativity and I didn't want to push them in any one direction (wow do I sound like the crazy art teacher! but its true!)

I go back and forth about starting with black crayon. I had one class draw with pencil, trace with crayon then use watercolor. The other drew with pencil, painted, then used Sharpie. (I don't like the younger ones using Sharpie and I told them how special of an occasion it was!)

Overall, I am happy with this lesson. It needs some revision and I know that not every lesson I do is going to be a home run, or even a double!
These are 2 of my favorites from this activity:

before paint

after paint

We're Not in Kansas Anymore...

despite tornado warnings for the area, yes tornado, our first ever Art Show was a huge hit!

I live in an area where a tornado actually touching down is a rare occasion. the one that touched down a few hours west of here made national news the night of our show. I of course had no idea what was going on, as I spent over 10 hours in the same auditorium trying to put everything up before the 6pm show time. needless to say, we were skeptical about attendance, especially after seeing the devastation in Joplin. but by the end of the night, all the juice, cookies, and coffee were gone and I am continuing to hear positive feedback from students, parents, families and friends.

before

after

Those are shots of just the classes I teach. There are six more that I currently do not, but they were also included in the show. In the future, I would like to teach K and 1st, but starting at 2nd this year was a good transition from 4-8 last year, and 6-8 the year before. We'll see what the budget has in store for next year!

I also learned a TON from putting up the show, and the lessons, classroom set up and management this year. I still have a few weeks left, thanks snow days! But soon I will post some of the lessons we have been working on, now that I have some "down" time.



oh yea, and if the work seems squished... its because it was.
I did not find out until 10am that day that I would NOT have additional space to hang art, unless I wanted to use the walls... talk about last minute. out of my control. But, there is always next year!

Sunflowers

I know reproducing "Sunflowers" by van Gogh is a pretty standard lesson. I have only done it twice in the last four years though, and I could not resist reading another Laurence Anholt book to introduce my second graders to the artist.

• first we read "Camille and the Sunflowers" then looked at van Gogh's "Sunflowers." we talked about what we saw in general, then narrowed it down to the elements of art. for the first class, we specifically paid attention to the shapes and lines.  one class thought some of the flowers looked like fuzzy donuts!
• we drew with black crayon on 12x18 manila paper. something that I think helped with the composition was asking the kids to draw all the flowers above the vase first, even having some go off the paper, then adding the stems. for some reason, I think because of a lesson we did back in the fall, my second graders love using overlapping. so when it came time to add the stems, they knew some would overlap before making their way into the vase.
• the second class we began by revisiting the painting and this time looking for as many colors as we could. the kids realized that the flowers were not painted with only yellow!
• with oil pastels, we began to add color. I went from table to table, demonstrating how to layer the oil pastels, and how to add all the little lines and different colors we saw, especially in the fuzzy donut :)

some kids really got into this lesson. so much so that they needed an extra class. about every six weeks I have a "choice" day for second grade. its an earned treat for good behavior. so what I have done the last few choice days is have the students who need more time on an assignment finish first and then pick a choice...

choices are things like "free" draw, using my how to draw books, sometimes a little "special project" with me (watercolor, extra scratch art paper etc.) art games like cloodle or "the word game" (I have a deck of cards with adjectives, nouns, verbs and places. the kids pick one of each to make a silly sentence and have to illustrate it) pattern blocks, crystal climbers and if I am feeling particularly nice, legos... again, it has to be earned and we have a chart to keep track of our good listening and behaving day. having never taught as young as second grade, its been a learning experience, but rewarding. I would like to take the idea of the earned choice and use it next year with other grades.

back to Sunflowers.... it totally worked out that we did this the week of van Gogh's birthday. our principal talks to us about "this day in history" during the morning announcements and I could almost hear the second grade cheer from down the hall when she mentioned it was van Gogh's birth anniversary over the loud speaker. a simple, yet awesome lesson. I can't wait to see what these little ones will be able to accomplish when they are older.

p.s. LOVE my new camera! can't stand loading and formatting pictures in blogger though. so frustrating!

little bunny fu fu

is it the week before vacation or what?
it feels like we all have one foot out the door ready to bolt. and then, when we get back, its only a few short weeks and the summer will be here!

with everything going on, my poor 8th graders will have very little in their portfolio to choose from when it comes time to put up the art show. we do have until the beginning of june, but thats really not a lot of time.
currently we are working on still life value drawings. we are focusing on composition, drawing from observation, creating a range of value and the illusion of space. I brought in an almost 5 foot tall charcoal drawing of an interior stairwell that I did in college and asked questions about space and value. I really hope we can finish before the art show... I'd love to work on a self portrait and wire sculpture before they "graduate" June 10th!

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last week, after finishing up another artist study, this time of van Gogh, grade 2 took some time out for a holiday themed activity. I really need to get better at coming up with original ideas. I really do! we painted bunnies like this lesson I found at Deep Space Sparkle.

this one oddly looks like the artist

here is a dilemma to ponder:
first we drew with chalk on color paper. next, I placed a tray with sponges of white paint. as students were finishing sponge painting, I placed another tray with a multi cup holder of pink, black, and green paint. as I placed this at each table, I gave very specific instructions to the small group of three to five students. (first add pink details with the pink paint brush. second, trace your chalk lines with the black paint brush. third, add grass with the green paint brush) out of 36 students, I had 2 like these:

 

both students sat at the same table.
"copying" usually happens at the same table. I don't encourage it, but I hardly ever say anything. maybe thats wrong, I don't know. if students mention it to me, I remind them of the trees we look at at the beginning of the year... we look at pictures of trees done by different artists throughout history and talk about how we all have our own style even if we have the same subject or idea. of course I encourage thinking for oneself but sometimes theres something to learn from other people.

in this particular case though, I was bummed. the student with the purple background had made a mistake with the white paint. typically, that would throw him off for the rest of class. his painting would become a giant mess, or he would sit, do nothing and be grumpy, or both. but this time, this time he creatively solved his problem! he used what he had and fixed it! our plan was to add white oil pastel when the paint dried to add eyes and other features.
the student with the green background had followed directions very well, up until he saw the other student's work and decided to use the black paint for something other then what was directed. I am sure there are black bunnies in the world. and I can't blame him for wanting to be "creative." but I just didn't know what to say or do... I asked how his bunny became black when it was white before. *shrug* I also asked if it was because he saw someone else do it. he said no. I asked if he had followed directions. umm, not really. I didn't know what to say or do from there. I said okay and we continued with clean up.

I feel like I still have a lot to learn!
Maybe sometime during vacation I will post about how we made Easter lilies out of our hands and how I am awful at giving directions...

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

I really enjoy reading to my younger students and taking our inspiration from books. Last week we read Simms Taback's There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. Then, following one of the lessons I found in 25 Terrific Art Projects Based on Favorite Picture Books, we drew our own illustrations. We talked about exaggeration and expression too.

• First we followed some step by step instructions to draw the "old lady" on a 12x18 white piece of paper. We kept it simple, using "U" shapes, and we discussed different options for hats, shoes, and clothing, and how to draw them.

• Next, we traced our lines with black crayon... I know it tends to flatten an image, but its a really appealing look for small kid's work. It also helps the artist, and the viewer, really see all the patterns and shapes she or he creates.

• We then used crayon to color.

• The next class, we started with a simple line drawing of a fly in the middle of an 8x8 inch white paper. Keeping in mind that the "old lady" swallowed the next animal to catch the first, we drew the spider around the fly, so the fly looked to be in the spider's belly. I drew on the white board and talked about the simple shapes and how many legs etc. Students drew all the animals, in order, around the one before, until there was no space left on the 8x8.

• We started coloring again with crayons.

• Finally, during the last class, we assembled our pictures, even if we were not done coloring. First, we cut out the animals, then the "old lady's" arms. (the horror!) We then pasted the armless "old lady" to a colorful piece of construction paper and pasted the animals over her belly. Lastly, we put her arms back! And they rested nicely on her full belly. At that point, I know we had all our arms and legs and animals, and we could all get back to coloring.

The lesson may have taken a few classes, and we only used crayon (the original lessons does a watercolor resist), but I feel like everyone was successful and proud of their work. AND, we had fun being silly! Its a nice lesson to drive home the fact that taking your time will result in good work. We also practiced cutting skills and following directions.

quick few things

here's the Visual Music display I put up last week. I was lucky to be able to display it outside the music room. just this afternoon, a teacher told me that she loves seeing the display on her way up to her classroom in the morning; that she feels happy and cheerful when she sees it.

third grade is still finishing up their "My Mona Lisa"s, and will hopefully be done tomorrow. I plan to take a break from our getting to know artists series and do some "old school" spring themed scratch art drawings. if they finish tomorrow, I will ask them to draw with crayon on a manila paper, heavy and dark, and not tell them why yet :)

second grade also learned about Leonardo da Vinci, but we focused on his sketchbooks of inventions and desire to draw everything he saw- how he observed and learned from his drawings. we learned how to draw a horse. then used markers, q-tips and water to create a sepia tone drawing.

we started this week a drawing of the old lady who swallowed a fly. the kids got a kick out of me reading the book! we will use a crayon and watercolor resist to complete these drawings and I will post some pictures too.

I am really looking forward to the middle school finishing up their current activities. 6th grade is working on emphasis and distortion self portraits. 7th grade has learned about pop art and roy litchentstein and making food designs using ben-day dots. 8th grade is finishing up drawings using a grid.

in honor of Youth Art Month, I had all my classes today write a quick response to "what does art mean to you?" hopefully I will have some good quotes for the blog... but also to make some posters to hang as advertisements for the upcoming, day yet to be determined, art show.