5th Grade Landscapes with Zentangle Inspired Lines

5th Grade students reviewed line quality in a work of art while creating these 

landscape paintings with Zentangle inspired lines.

Students first sketched out their landscape as we talked about using a horizon line and different levels of ground. They were then able to paint their landscapes with a creative color scheme. It was a blast seeing them get creative with the color.
I encouraged them to use different colors in each section of ground.


Once painting was dry, students reviewed line quality and watched a couple videos on zentangle drawings and then they began to fill the sections of their painting with different lines. Most of the lines were drawing using colored pencils. Some were done using black marker.

I love the variety the students ended up having in the finished works!

iPad Art - Words and Landscapes - Manipulating Traditional Art with an iPad

Have I mentioned how much I love iPads? Once or twice :)

This first semester we've been enjoying our 6 iPads in my art rooms. Students have to take turns or work in groups but they don't seem to mind. They all love working with them. We will be working on creating original works directly on the iPad soon, but for now we have been using them to transform our traditional works in a few different ways.

The first example of this is adding words to the Grant Wood inspired Landscape Collages. After students finished their collage works, they used the app WordFoto to add a set of words to their art. Students learned how to use the iPad to photograph the artwork. Then they added 5-6 words that were inspired by their artwork. The first word they were asked to add was their name.

Here's one of the traditional works -

And here's her work full of words - 

The WordFoto app is customizable so that students can pick different fonts, colors, and other options to make their work as individual as them! They had fun playing around with the settings.

When a student liked their digital work they emailed it to me so that I could add it to their Artsonia Gallery.

The best part of this project was how the students worked on it. I showed the whole class using the iPad hooked up to the projector so they could see how it was done. Then while most of the class worked on another project, 6 students came back to an area of the room to work with the iPads. I helped these students on the steps, answering their questions and showing them some options. When they were finished I showed them how to email the image to me. Then the magic began - these students were asked to go bring another classmate back to the table and they taught that student by using words or pointing (not doing it for them) how to use the app and then how to email it. So by the time everyone's work was done they had been taught how to use the app and then they taught someone else how to use it!

Grant Wood Inspired Landscape Collage

A fun collage project with painted papers!

I was getting one of my favorite lessons from last school year ready to send into The Teaching Palette today and decided I'd post it here. My goal for this blog is to share all the project I did last school year here. I find so many great ideas from all of you creative art teachers that I want to be sure and give back some great ideas. As art educators we are always "stealing" from each other to better our own lessons for our students. I think we are the one group of professionals that do not care if our ideas are copied!

Any way...back to the lesson - 

This project took me 3 art days with my students. I took one day to introduce Grant Wood to them and we discussed his art - especially landscapes. We talked about how he showed distance and space in his paintings and we talked about how the sections of land contained different lines, colors, and textures.

Day 2 was their favorite - and mine! A busy art studio day of painting papers using brushes and lots of other painting tools to create texture, color, and design into the papers. The ooo's and ah's that I heard as they looked around at each other's papers. "How did you get that?! Oh...can I use that tool next?!"

It was a fun art time of total creativity. It was all about the process!  

The hardest part was reminding them that if they didn't put their name on the back before beginning painting  - they most likely would not get that paper to use next week.

The last day was spent creating the landscapes. This too was a fun time. Students shared papers with each other so that they would have many different sections on their landscape. By the end of class we had a box filled with painted paper scraps and a whole class full of interesting landscapes.

Some students who worked slowly just had levels of ground for their landscapes. Students who were quicker with their cutting and gluing had time to add more paper shapes to create trees, bushes, houses, and crops to their pictures.

I helped students as they finished to mount their picture on another paper  - some two colors to add extra interest to the finished work.