Symmetrical Monochromatic Paintings

Another gem from school years passed AND based on a lesson from Making Amazing Art.
I think these paintings were by fifth and sixth graders my second year of teaching, as a way to introduce color, value and balance.

1. Create a symmetrical drawing.

The original lesson called for an outline of a butterfly. I didn't want these preteens to be insulted, so we stuck to abstract, tessellated designs.

a. Fold a piece of paper in half hot dog or hamburger, and draw any kind of line that starts at the top and ends at the bottom. This was a great way to review kinds of line as well. 
b. Add five more lines to break up the two shapes. Remember to use a variety of lines to add more interest. Keeping the number of lines limited helps to not make the final composition an overwhelming design. (As it was, these took weeks!)
c. Re- trace all the lines heavy and dark with pencil.
d. Fold the paper in the opposite direction and apply pressure in order to make the lines "jump" to the other side. There are multiple methods to transfer the lines, but you don't want to spend a ton of time with retracing everything perfectly because painting takes the most time.

2. Pick a color and paint!

• Make sure to introduce or review value and monochromatic color schemes. 
• Remind students that for their paintings to be truly symmetrical, whatever value they paint in one shape, they must paint the corresponding shape the same value.
• Demonstrate the process you want your students to use when mixing their own paint values and clean up procedures. 

In my room, each student gets their own "palette" or Styrofoam lunch tray and is responsible for their own materials. Tables are labeled by color and each are called to the sink by me. Clean up time has to be an orchestrated event for chaos not to ensue. My students know the routine and know my expectations. (And it took a lot of patience and learning on my behalf to figure out what works!) 

3. Retrace original lines in black if desired.

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!

For Baby

one thing I love about blogging is checking my "stats" at least once a week. I suppose its a sign of the times, maybe even my generation, the instant gratification and the knowledge that someone out there on the world wide web actually cares, even for a few seconds, about my little life. that being said, if you have read my blog more than once, follow me!
since January, my blog had been viewed over 500 times! but I only have 8 followers... click it on the right (Mom)

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the day came when I had a chance to show off my fourth and fifth grade work during the spring concert. I was actually nervous! mostly because I was not comfortable setting up the projector with my laptop by myself in the church where the concert was held. but, I did it. I think the best compliment I received was that the combination of the images and the kids singing made the fourth grade teacher cry!

So, what we did:

• First we listened to John Denver's "For Baby" (aka "For Bobbie").
  Then we listened to the song and looked at the book illustrated by Janeen Mason.
• Finally, we discussed what an illustrator does, talked about what the theme could be and brainstormed what our illustrations could include.
• Meanwhile, students practiced singing the song in music class.
  

I am a teacher who enjoys the process of art making. So as much as I know it annoyed some kids, I required students to come up with three ideas. We quickly sketched them in rectangles on an 81/2 x 11. And by quick, I mean that it took some of us a class and a half. We looked at old calendar pages filled with landscapes and animals for inspiration. Prior to starting this lesson, I did a quick lesson about drawing people and faces too. I attempted to conference with each student about which idea they would like to use for the final before starting.

• The background was lightly sketched on white 12x18, traced with black sharpie, and painted with liquid watercolor.
• Students were then given a 9x12 white paper and were instructed to draw their people or animals as large as possible. I would give out more paper as needed.
• The people or animals were colored in with color pencils and students could choose if they would like to trace their lines with sharpie or not.
• Finally, students cut and pasted their people or animals into the background.
• I also had a very simple rubric for students to read and grade themselves... I wanted to know their thoughts on their craftsmanship, thought process and in class behavior. 

Maybe I can put the show on you tube, but in the mean time, here is a selection of the almost 70 pieces in yesterdays show. 

people and faces

I don't want to jinx myself, but I recently took down this winter display of our art. it is time for some positive thinking!

It has been replaced with a new display, showing off what 4th and 5th grade have learned about drawing people and faces.
year after year, its a huge request to learn how to draw people. i insist its all about practice, practice, practice, but teach students anyway how to use circles and ovals. kinda like this guy:


we then spent just a couple of classes talking about the proportions of the face. i feel like it was lost of some of the 4th graders, and even a few 5th, but you can't win them all, all the time. and drawing is something we will keep using, and practicing every year. those who did take the information and use it came out with some great drawings.

these are 4th grade's before and afters. I did NOT do this to show them what they do "wrong." the last thing I want to do is put students down. first we drew the one on the left. then folded it under while we followed some directions of the board. we even used our fingers to find the tops of our ears in relation to our eyes and things like that. when were done, we opened the page and observed the difference. I really wanted students to realize that your eyes are not on your forehead and your hair does not start growing at the top of your head. 

the next class, we took out mirrors and drew ourselves:

gotta love the Justin Beiber face paint! and not bad for a 45 minute class!
here's what 5th grade impressively managed after two classes:

these lessons are all in preparation for our "For Baby" painting, drawing, collage, illustrations. we started planning this week and God willing, I will have them done, scanned, and digitized by the April 28th Spring concert.

catching up with Grade 5

I have gotten to the point where I am going to need an external hard drive for all my photos, lessons plans, and power points. last weekend, while sick with my second case of strep throat(!), I had to completely rebuild my iphoto library after attempting to clean off my hard drive. it was not fun, and once the fatigue set in and I accepted that I was sick, it was the only productive thing I did for three days!
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we have been super busy in room 15!
I am aiming to have an "Arts" day at the end of April. The Spring concert will be in the afternoon and I thought it would be great to open the school halls afterward, for parents and families to view all our hard work. --- there are many things we still need to get done! And I am feeling the crunch. (there is an entire week coming up when I will not see ANY of my morning classes due to standardized testing - I'm trying not to panic)

catching up with Grade 5
Fifth grade is my largest class... I can't complain about 26 students when I know public school teachers who deal will class sizes in the 30s. (I read someone on an email list had 40 kinders in one class!) However, when you do not have a budget and literally need to use folding chairs to fit all the kids at a table space, some days with 26 kids can feel like there was a herd of elephants in your room.

before we started the figure drawing lesson I posted about a few weeks ago, we spent a few weeks painting in the style of Canadian folk artist, Maud Lewis. we had spent about 6 weeks completing different Latin American themed folk art, so I thought I would wrap up the "unit" talking about another folk artist. much of the work we viewed when I introduced the lesson, were scenes of coast line and snow covered hills.... similar to how our neck of the woods can look like!

example of Maud Lewis

I first learned about Maud Lewis from a post on deepspacesparkle.com and since did some research on my own. Maud's story is pretty great. Once she started painting, later in life after receiving a gift of oil paints from her husband, she would go door to door with her husband, who would sell fish, and try selling her work. after being featured on a local tv station's show  (I told the kids that it would be something similar to our Chronicle) Maud became a more popular artist and had people asking her for paintings, up until she pasted away. one of the points I attempted to make with the students was how Maud overcame physical difficulties, having deformities after suffering polio as a child, to do something she really enjoyed. she enjoyed painting so much that she painted anything she could find in her 12'x 12' home!

student work

 

 

I feel like folk art is really approachable for upper elementary students. Grade five in particular starts to feel like whatever they create has to be "perfect" and get caught up in things needing to look "real." and its a natural progression. so introducing folk art -art made by people who have been taught by passing down a skill, or who are self taught with little or no "formal training"- lets students loosen up a bit and have fun painting.