Reflecting Swans Drawing Fourth Grade

Love this drawing lesson I found on an Art blog. Great lesson in symmetry because I had the students turn their papers vertically in order to draw the reflection as much like the swan as possible.

We drew lightly in white construction paper crayon and filled in only when we had the shapes as close to mirror image as possible.



Adding the water, plants and background was the final touch to these beautiful pictures.

 

Along with a patterned frame.

 

Giant Acorn Paintings Kindergarten Lesson Plan

What did I do before Pinterest and other art blogs when I needed a new project idea?! Love this acorn painting project I found for Kinders. 

First we looked at acorns under the doc camera and talked about value. We noticed how the shiny acorns had a light spot on one side.

I demonstrated how to draw the cap on top and then the rest of the acorn underneath.  Students colored the top with yellow construction paper crayon and then we painted 3 different colors on our acorns, going from lightest to darkest value.  They did a great job!

   
 
 
                   

Van Gogh Pumpkins 4th grade

it has been  quite awhile since my last post! So excited that this blog has received 9000 page views since I started it a few years ago. It isn't as technically advanced as most other art blogs but it is easy to look through and does the job.

I have been teaching over 20 years at the elementary level and even though I LOVE all things van Gogh, I just couldn't get excited about sunflowers again this year.  I found a new idea on Pinterest and decided to try a PUMPKIN starry night!

My 4th graders first did their group reading about van Gogh and then set to work drawing realistic looking pumpkins on orange paper.  The rule was they had to draw three completely different looking pumpkins by observing pumpkins on their table.
                                                                   

 

Next we used oil pastels to add values to our pumpkins and color the stems.

 

Fourth graders carefully cut the pumpkins out and chose a day or night background.

 

Grass or dirt was added with pastels in a painted way, letting the marks show like van Gogh did!

 

And of course, for the final touch, a swirling sky of many hues. Gorgeous!

 

 

 

 

 

Japanese Scrolls (Ink Blowing) 4th grade

This project is available on many art room blogs.  It is both my least favorite art technique to date, and my favorite most gorgeous project ever! My room was absolutely covered in ink even though we used art mats, paint shirts and tried to be careful.  Ink blowing is definitely more difficult than it sounds.

The background was colored with chalk and rubbed in with a towel for the first step.  I gave them long paper, 9" x 24" was the size. I put a line of india ink in the middle of their paper.
Blowing the ink with the straw was fun, but it was hard to make the ink lines go where we wanted them to go!

 

After the ink dried we looked at Japanese symbols and drew a few of our favorites in the bottom corner of our paper.  We also looked at cherry blossoms to see how they were different colors on the tree. We also learned how much the Japanese people like cherry blossoms and that there are weather reports to tell everyone how far the blossoms have spread across Japan.  So interesting!

 

Artists were given white and red tempera to mix their own pinks. We also were happy to discover that any "mistake"  ink blotches could be covered with a bunch of cherry blossoms close together. A Q-tip made perfect little petals for the blossoms.

 

Finished scrolls received many compliments and some moms posted photos of their scrolls on social media when the scroll was given as a Mother's Day gift.

 

My favorite Painted Pony 2015

I liked all the group project painted ponies but this one is my favorite because of all the great details! I am not even a big sports fan but you have to appreciate all the work the kids did on this sports themed pony.

Dragon Eyes! Pencil Shading lesson 5th grade

Another art blog discovery! The teacher who published this lesson did it in charcoal but since I do not have any we used plain old pencils.  I think they still turned out wonderfully and the other grades enjoyed having all the large dragon eyes staring at them from the art room walls.

 

We all drew the beginning shapes together using the document camera.

 

We reviewed the values of the value scale and students began shading.

 

Awesome details!

 

 

Spheres in Space Fourth grade lesson

This lesson is an old favorite that I used this year.  Love the lesson on tints and shades to make flat circles become 3 dimensional spheres! I had already splatter painted the black paper with white tempera (to save the art room) and the fourth graders enjoyed using chalk and paper towel as their medium for this art work.

 

 

People with Shadows (figure drawing) 3rd grade

Now that I have been moved to teach at only the Later Elementary for the remainder of the school year and have the kids twice a week, we are finishing projects much faster.  I needed a new project for my 3rd graders and I wanted it to challenge them for more than one art period. I found this on the internet and it was exactly what I was looking for. 

 

We started by drawing a person in pencil working together on each part to try to make it realistic.  Artists could draw themselves, a made up person, a famous person or a superhero. 

 

The person was then cut carefully out of the white drawing paper and laid face down on black paper. The kids traced with white colored pencil or crayon and then out the black shape as well.

 

After gluing down both the shadow and person on colored background, colored paper squares were added for a frame.  The kids did a great job and learned a lot about figure drawing.

 

Oil Pastel Kandinsky Trees Third Grade

 Third graders really enjoyed the process of making concentric circles like this artist.

I used a prompt found on another site and asked the students if they thought this was easy or difficult to paint.  What a great discussion we had! They were really thinking and relating it back to the cupcake painting they just finished.

                                                                    

 

                                                                They began by tracing and cutting a brown kraft 

                                                                   paper tree then glued it to white drawing paper.

 

 

Using oil pastels, third grade artists created concentric circle patterns in white space or touching the tree.  Limit was 6 different colored rings on each circle.

 

 

This student told me that the large center circle was the heart of the tree.

When they were done I decided the pictures looked like something was missing. We added marker lines and patterns around the edges of the paper to complete our composition. Several people stopped me to say these reminded them of something... either a painting they had done at a Wine and Canvas event or a movie they had seen about this artist. Love it when the kid's artwork sparks conversations in the hallways!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                               

First Peoples Cliff Dwelling 3rd grade

My 3rd grade artists have been doing a unit with several First Peoples/Native American art projects.  We made a clay project, watched a video about Maria Martinez, learned about cliff dwellings and adobe houses, looked at photos of Native American weavers, drew a picture of Native American blankets and are now weaving on our own small looms.

This is the cliff dwelling or adobe house project which was done with just construction paper and crayons.

Here is the three blanket picture we drew. I found this project on Pinterest and loved it!  I asked the students what their favorite part of the project was and many said it was designing the three blankets. Other kids really enjoyed blending the chalk in the background to make a beautiful sunset.

 
 

 

Great job third graders!

 

VanGogh Sunflowers Fourth Grade

My intern and I did our VanGogh sunflower project in a different way this September. We had the 4th graders use paper cut in shape of flowers and add it to their composition of oil pastel.  This was a very good lesson in problem solving and planning out the middle, petals and stems of the paper flowers in an oil pastel background.  Very beautiful as well!

I love how each project turns out so differently, even though we all used the same materials.

Reindeer Sculpture Fourth grade

Found on Pinterest, this project looked like a great painting and sculpture project for fourth graders.  These 3D pizza slice holders were given to me by the kitchen staff and made the perfect deer head shape.  A flat piece of cardboard in this shape was shown in the original project but the idea of having 150 heads to cut out made me look for alternatives! This was a wonderful way to recycle these pizza slice holders and make art at the same time.

First we cut out ear shapes and taped (and stapled them0 to the edge of the box. Students chose a color for the main part of the face and used tempera paint.

 When the face and ears were dry, students selected two twigs for antlers. Duct tape worked best to secure the antlers on back of the reindeer head.

 The final touch was to add glitter, recycled eyes and nose, and some bling to the antlers!
The students liked their sculptures a lot and it was a great 3 D experience in building a form using different materials.

 

Great job 4th grade artists!