Picasso Paper Portraits

my coffee cup on the supply table like it is every morning.
Anyone guess whose portrait is on the other side?

It appears that last I left the blog-o-sphere, a few of my classes were beginning to learn about Picasso. Since many of my students have never had "a real art teacher" before, I try to introduce them to famous artists from time to time. I have really enjoyed using Laurence Anholt books as an introduction, so for this activity, we read Picasso and The Girl with The Ponytail.

We then talked about how cubism uses simple shapes and how Picasso would look at the front and the side of a face at the same time, and put it in his painting. We followed Phyl's steps at There's a Dragon in my Art Room. Thanks Phyl!

 
I managed to forgot to take pictures of the final products. We have had many events at school lately, and a few had to be rescheduled. At times I wasn't sure who was going to show up at my door expecting an art lesson. And as we all know, it takes a lot of preparation. So needless to say, juggling the schedule and preparing took priority over pictures at times. The 3rd graders loved this activity though! And its amazing how one class will take it to the next level, and the other wants to fly though it...

Up next, grades 4 and 2 and their adventures learning about Picasso

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!

Mona

*sigh* its just me, my blog, and the record player. yes, record player. we're both closer to thirty than twenty, and enjoy the sound of vinyl and buy more records than cds or mp3s. its interesting how the bands we listen to are releasing new music on vinyl more often. i am also learning to listen to more music as we are canceling our cable contract. its just too much money that can be spent more wisely. and so, the channels we get on the antenna are the basics, and countless pbs/ public stations. even as an art teacher, i can only take so many "happy, little trees."
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grade three, for the most part, finished their Mona Lisa portraits. I have been dragging my feet with grading this week. I want to transition the third graders into using rubrics. and I know next week I will have countless hours in the morning to get work done, with standardized testing going on. needless to say, the rubrics are made and I will finish grading by the end of next week. here are a few interpretations:

Phantom of the Opera Mona

Mona in the Hat

Mona Mom

Mona Ms. Cameron (our Principal)

(unfinished) Mona in Space

Bruins Mona

(unfinished) Sleepy Mona

the Moooona Lisa

we talked about what makes the Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa and what to add to our portraits to tell the viewer that we looked at the original. We also looked at a powerpoint of other artist's interpretations and discussed why this was such a monumental portrait and why it is famous. We tried to include things similar to the original horizon line, the river or mountains, her clothing and the position of her hands. I think they did a fantastic job and wish I could say the same for my camera! (I really want to get a new one. not necessarily an SLR, but maybe one a step down. still, $300, gotta save up!)

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.