Eric Carle Creatures

The third graders looked at Eric Carle books.  We talked about the different ways he makes his shapes and characters out of paint and tissue paper and oil pastels. 

During the first class period we took tissue paper and modge podged it to paper.  We let the colors overlap and bleed together to create this really great colorful texture paper that makes great creatures.

During the next class, we talked about how the bodies and arms of his animals come from different colors of paper or different parts of the paper.  We talk about parts of the body that the creatures must have like heads, eyes, body and mouth.  We also make a list on the board of fun body parts that our creatures could have like wings, horns, teeth and claws.  We then discussed how to glue the pieces together and inhance the creature with oil pastels.  We used the oil pastels to add details like eyes and background objects like logs and leaves.  We also talked about where your creature might live.  If it is in water then glue it on blue paper and if it is in the desert then put it on brown.  However there were some that just put it on purple paper, because that is their favorite color.

I think that they have turned out really well especially for only using two class periods and me pushing them to focus and get it done.  Some choose to make an existing animal and some choose to make up their own.

Vincent

  





Allie







Jessica







Caleb





Ezzy





Morgan

Modern Mona Lisa

My fourth graders are working with various artists this year.  So we start each new project out with some VTS (visual thinking stratagey), then we make something that is inspired by that artist.

So this time we studied Leonardo DaVinci.  We looked at Mona Lisa and we discussed some of the things about her.  The kids noticed her lack of eyebrows, her dark clothes, her hairstyle and how her eyes seem to follow you.  After we talked about her and Leonardo, I then told them all that they were going to be Leonardo and make their own 21st century Mona Lisas.  They were all given paper and a coloring sheet Mona Lisa to help break down the image to a more manageable level.  We then discussed if she lived today what would be different about her appearance.  Here are a few examples of what they thought she would like like today.

 

 

She just looks fabulous, doesn't she!!!



Unique Birdhouses

I wanted my painting/sculpture class to creat a clay project.  Since afterall clay is a sculpture material it only made since.   So before Christmas break I told my Painting/Sculpture class that when we came back from break we were going to create ceramic birdhouses.  I of course had a few requirements.
1.  It had to be UNIQUE.  Something that you would never think of for a birdhouse.
2.  It did not have to be functioning, but it did have to be hollow and have a bway for the hypothetical bird to get into the non-functioning house.
3.  It needed to be about minimum of 8 inches.
4.  It needed to be made out of clay. 

With those being the only requirements here are some of the final results.  Overall they have been very creative.  Here are a few on the best examples that are done.  I will add a few more pictures when the rest get done.


Chris



Rylee

Alexis

Jasmine

Justin



 I am not sure you would be able to convince birds to live in some of these even if they were good sized.

Giant Paper Roses

Ok, so thanks to my friend Sarah I have found pinterest.  In someways I am being sarcastic, and in other ways I am truly grateful.  My husband would probably prefer I had never found the site, but I have found some great ideas on there. 

So today I am showing one of the really cool ideas that I have found.  The giant paper roses.  They are not going to be a class lesson, even though I will need to teach some kids how to make them, but they are going to be used for prom.  The theme this year is "Alice in Wonderland" and I am super excited about making these giant flowers that will go everywhere in and around the gym.  The process for this project was not that hard, but it is a little time consuming.  The pictures below show my attempts at using other materials than the expensive paper that they are asking for.  After all it is prom and they will be torn down and thrown away at the end of the night.  If I can make something work with what I can find around here, all the better.

Tissue Paper

Construction Paper

Copier paper

I think the copier paper is my favorite.  It is also the easiest to work with.  I just might have to buy a ream of red paper to make this work.  Because I wouldn't want to have to paint the roses red.  :)



Jan. 5 in South Dakota

It is not very often, that I can take kids outside to read their books on January 5 with no coats, hats or gloves on.  They were even complaining after a few minutes, saying it was too hot. 

All about Perspective

Everybody has made something that they just didn't like.  Maybe it was a meal, maybe it was an assignment, or maybe it was a project.  As an art teacher one of the most famous questions I get asked everyday is "How does this look?"    That is the hardest question to answer.

 First off, if I say "yeah, that looks great" they usually don't believe me and try to tell me that it is my job to say it is fine.  If I say "well, it could use some work"  then they think it is junk and will sometimes throw a fit and either start over or just turn it in as they mumble, saying "whatever I give up."  Criticism is always hard to hear, and there are times I don't want to hear it either.  Especially when no one in my family wants to give any suggestions for supper, but they all want to add in their two cents as to what I made.

But my point is, while we see the issues with what we make, someone might just think it is beautiful.  The following picture is a case in point.

Shayla

The student who made this did not even want to turn it into me.  She said it was awful.  (Ok I am paraphrasing, because her word choice was not as elegant.)  As an art teacher I can see faults with it, but when I first saw it I fell in love with her color choice and the overall softness of the piece.  Is it perfect, probably not, but my perspective of it is different than hers.  She can only look at it and see the struggles, and the areas where the paint wouldn't do what she wanted it to do.  Which is perfectly fine to see your faults,  at least she will hopefully learn from them and make the necessary changes for next time.  I only hope she does not get discouraged and give up before next time happens.

I hope the lesson I learned from this is that when I am told something looks good I forget the faults and the problems and say Thank You.

The Face of one color



Alexis A. "T.J"

  I teach an advanced art class every year, and each year the class rotates.  So this year it is Painting/Sculpture.  While my students are pretty good at painting landscapes they always seem to struggle with people.  So every year I like to make students either draw or paint people.  I know I am a mean teacher or at least they tell me I am.

For this year's people project, I not only wanted them to paint a person (either someone famous or someone they knew) but I wanted them to do it in a monochromatic color scheme.  They could either purchase a canvas to paint it on or they had to paint it on heavy tagboard. 

Some of them started by finding their picture and changing it into monochromatic colors in photoshop.  I then printed them off on the color printer so that they had a picture to reference.  They were told to think about what color would best suit their person.  If they were kind of dark or mysterious then go with more blues.  If they were bubbly or girlie, think pinks or yellows.  (However, yellow does not mix well with black, it was not our favorite color combonation.)

Some students then put their pictures into a grid, while a few chose to just free draw the face. 

Chris B. 

Overall I thought that the project worked out quite well.  Majority of the students picked famous people to paint, but a few tried to paint their friends.  Of course they felt horrible if the end result didn't look as well as they thought.  I guess there is something about not knowing your subject and that you don't have to worry about that person seeing the end result.

Olivia M. "Tebow"

More Monochromatic Face paintings can be found on my website.

http://dewittart.shutterfly.com/paintingandsculpture