Directional Lines and Pumpkins

By the end of Second Grade I want my students to be able to describe and draw directional lines.  I want them to be able to tell you which way a horizontal, vertical, and diagonal or oblique lines goes. I also want them to be able to use these different lines in an artwork. 

This year we are learning and practicing this knowledge by painting pumpkins. Not just ordinary orange painted pumpkins - but pumpkins filled with lines. 
Students had fun mixing colors as they painted. They used horizontal lines in the background and vertical and diagonal lines in the pumpkin. They were able to be as creative as they wanted. Some added lots of lines and different colors while others kept is simple and limited their lines.

Here are some works in progress:

Zentangle Pumpkins

My Example

More Zentangle projects - 

4th Grade students at two of my schools are reviewing lines by doing some cool pumpkin drawings with Zentangle designs drawn in them.

They seemed to really like this project. I reminded them that it takes a while and not to rush through. 
Here's a sneak peek at some student work in progress - 

I love the way the art room is hushed when students are doing zentangles. It seems to calm them and they often loose themselves in their work. 

Finding the right music to play while they are working can be a challenge though. Does anyone have any favorite Pandora channels to play during classes for elementary students?

Animals with Zentangle Designs

My Example

One of the first things I focus on with my elementary students is to introduce or review the use of line quality in an artwork. I've done this in a variety of ways over the years with the different grade levels. One of the projects we are working on this year is animals with zentangle-like designs added to them. 

At one of my schools I decided to focus on the theme of animals in art. So this project seemed to fit right in. I focused on my 4th and 5th graders for this project.

We spent an art time drawing out an animal of their choice. My goal this year is to give students as much creative choice as possible within the confines of what I want them to learn or be able to do by the end of each project. So the choice of animal was extended to include imaginary, combined, or "creatures" of any kind they wished to create.

Once their drawing was done, I went over a few different watercolor painting techniques. We went over wet into dry, wet into wet, and adding salt to obtain different results. 

When the paintings were dry we discussed line quality and I showed some examples of zentangles. I showed the students some parts of YouTube videos by the artist Milliande that I have linked on my Art with Mrs. G website. I also showed them my finished giraffe. I had a blast making it and wanted to let them know that. 

Students are still working on their animals but here are some sneak peeks of them in progress -

Art Room Job Poster

Wow! Been a while since my last post. Busy...Busy!

I have a lot of things listed on my To-Do list that I keep in my iPhone "Reminder" app. It seems as I check one off I add at least a couple more. One that has been on the list for quite awhile is making an Art Room job poster for my 3 schools. I assign various jobs to students each art time. I do this by selecting a certain number that corresponds to a student at the table. I have a colored mat on each table that has numbers painting on it. You can see this in the picture below.

Our school district uses Kagan Cooperative learning techniques and the numbers are used for that. They do come in handy even more in Art to have different students do different things. So each week I might say 1s are in charge of collecting folders and 2s are taking care of water cups. If a number I called wasn't there the job went to their shoulder partner. Sounds good right?
Well...it was until I kept forgetting to mark down who did what when so that the jobs would rotate around the table. With 3 schools, 27 classes, and let's face it age it just stopped being easy to keep track of. I'd ask the first class that came in for the week, "Who were folder helpers last week?" Of course more than one hand would go up at each table.

So I wanted to create a poster to help the students and myself know just who's turn it was to do what. I had a design in mind and finally this past week finished making 3 of them.

I laminated the palette, brush, and paint splats with jobs written on them. I laminated the numbered circles separately. I chose 5 jobs that are needed most in my rooms. "Dusty's Helper" refers to my dustpan and broom that has a face painted on it. "Dusty's his name...cleaning's his game." Adhesive backed velcro on the numbers lets me rotate them each week.