Recycling, Rousseau, & Technology

A project that started with these -

And ended with this -

As part of my Reuse*Recycle*ReCreate unit with students at one of my schools, first grade students used egg cartons, paint, and lots of odds & ends to create Henri Rousseau inspired collage pictures.
Students were introduced to artist Henri Rousseau through watching Dropping in on Henri Rousseau and exploring his paintings using a PowerPoint I made up for them. This took one whole class period. I also explained what artwork they would be creating inspired by Rousseau.

Next class we started by painting some tagboard to give a jungle-like colored background for our collage. I had students use white tagboard instead of regular paper so it would hold up to all the stuff that would be glued to it. I gave students green tempera along side a little dab of yellow, brown, and blue. This allowed students the chance to experiment with color mixing to create some different greens in their background painting.
When they finished the background painting they picked up two or three egg carton sections and some yellow, orange, and brown paint. They were told these would be lions for their jungle collage and encouraged to mix and paint them with colors that would work for lions.

The third class we started the big fun of beginning to glue down things into our collages. The lion egg cartons were glued on first and then students gave them faces with fine markers and googly eyes. They added manes using yarn scraps or Christmas tinsel. They also added yarn tails.
Once their lions were complete the real creativity began. I had scraps of odds & ends in boxes and students used these and paper scraps to create a jungle environment for the lions. The favorite supply was some green twisted paper ribbon that I had gathering dust on a shelf for years. This, I'm sure, was donated years ago.

Here are some of the wonderful finished works!

To bring this lesson to a close and reflect on our work students used the smartboard to create a jungle scene inspired by artist Henri Rousseau. The program these students are worked with, along with more information on the artist, can be found at the National Gallery of Art kids website
This interactive program allows students to create a jungle scene similar to the paintings of Henri Rousseau. Students can change the sky and ground and then add trees, bushes, flowers, and animals. This program allows students to practice placing objects into a landscape and resizing them or placing them as to create distance and depth in a picture (what we refer to as perspective in art). Animals and plants placed lower on the screen and made larger give the appearance that they are close up, while placing animals and objects higher up and smaller give the appearance of being farther back in the distance. Students can also explore overlapping to show depth and distance. This is a great tool. Student also really get excited when certain animals or objects flutter or move when they touch them on the screen.
While students in pairs got a chance to work on the smartboard - which I rather like to refer to as the smARTboard in my room - other students finished any details on their collage or worked on Rousseau coloring sheets.

It was a very successful project that incorporated a great deal of elements!

A special thanks to Jodi at Onecrayolashort.blogspot for the wonderful idea!

Did You Hear the Oven Beep? Our Cupcakes are Ready!!

The Completion of the Cupcake Unit! Oh...That was FUN!!

Fourth grade students and I had a fun time with this unit. After learning a little about the art of Wayne Thiebaud the students drew cupcakes. I have two fourth grade classes this year - one in each building. The make up of the two classes are quite different, as are the two schools. So I approached this unit knowing I would do some experimenting with the methods and how I planned the progress of the project. For the drawing part, one of my classes used oil pastels on white paper and one class used chalk pastels on black paper. I did this to see which drawing medium would work the best. I think the most successful was the chalk pastels on the black paper. Students were able to blend the colors faster and achieve success easier.

Another difference came with the timeline of the clay cupcakes. The one class has more students who need more one-on-one attention and more students in general. They were the first class I started the clay work with. I realized about 15 minutes into the 45 minute class that the cupcakes would not be completed all in one class, so I told the students to just work on the bottom part and then we placed them into plastic bags so we could finish them the next week. That same week when I began the clay cupcakes with the students in the other school, I was prepared with plastic bags in the event that this class would be the same in their progress. That was not the case with this class. They completed the entire clay cupcake with great success within the 45 minute period.

Here's a look at their cupcakes after they were bisque fired -

Here are some finished glazed clay cupcakes -

Clay Cupcakes Part 1

Cupcakes...mmmm...I Love Cupcakes!

I decided to take my love of baking cupcakes to the Art room. Inspired by other teachers who have created clay cupcakes with their students, I introduced the art of Wayne Thiebaud to my 4th grade students. We started out by first doing a chalk drawing of a cupcake - discussing value and shading as we worked. I told them at the end of that class that next class we would be doing cupcakes again - but this time with clay. That of course got their attention!

The next class these students came into the Art room and you could just feel the excitement in the air. Clay Day! I had prepped the room ahead of time - putting out water cups, assorted clay tools, a stack of paper towels, some plastic cups to help mold the shape of the cupcake bottom, some pieces of corrugated cardboard, and the box of clay mats.

Students quickly created the bottom of the cupcake. I demonstrated how to create a pinch pot. Students then placed the pinch pot into the plastic cup lined with a paper towel. They pressed the pinch pot gently to shape it more like the cupcake bottom. The clay was flipped gently out of the cup and the ridges added to give the appearance of the cupcake liner. The ridges were added by pressing the sides of the pinch pot onto the piece of corrugated cardboard. This was a quick and easy way to create a great texture.

Another quick demonstration of how to create the top of the cupcake gave students enough ideas to make some delicious looking cupcake tops. Students were reminded that when you attach clay to clay you must slip and score. I have students use toothbrushes dipped in a little water to do this. This method works pretty well. I also show that the simplest tools - a pencil- can create some great details.

Here's a finished clay cupcake complete with a cherry on top!

Here is a table full of cupcakes ready to be transported to the kiln room. The students placed the paper towel they used in the plastic cup between the bottom and the top of the cupcake to keep it from sticking together.

Stay tuned to see the cupcakes after students glaze them. I think I am as excited as they are to see the finished results!

My Favorite Project

You just have to love Monet's paintings.

The color...the quick brushstrokes...love it love it! So of course this is one of my favorite lessons to do with my students. I started it long ago - probably within the first couple of years of teaching. There has been a few years along the way that I have skipped it to try something new. Last year was one of those years...and I so missed it. So I knew that I needed to make sure and get it in this school year.

I usually target 3rd grade with this lesson. I love 3rd graders...they still have that sense of inhibition with their artwork but are more capable of understanding a bit more complex directions. They are also still very curious.

Here's a finished 3rd grade acrylic painting inspired by Monet-

I start the lesson out by showing the Getting to Know Monet dvd by Mike Venezia. http://www.gettingtoknow.com/videonew.htm I also have a PowerPoint of photos of Monet and the different paintings he did of the Japanese bridge that I go through with the students. This introduction and discussion takes up a whole class period but gives students a good introduction to Claude Monet.

The next class I show students how to use cotton swabs(q-tips) and sometimes stencil brushes to make quick marks to create the "impression" of trees in the background. Using cotton swabs instead of paintbrushes helps the students create quick marks instead of painting smooth areas. I encourage them to dab colors into colors to change the look of different areas of the trees in the background. We usually have time to also complete the water. The water is usually the only area that I have students use paintbrushes on. Large brushes allow for a base coat of blue to go on quickly. I remind student to still try and use quick impressionistic marks. Switching to cotton swabs, students are then encouraged to add other colors into the water like greens and white. I provide lots of Monet images to remind them of the impressionistic marks that they want to use as they paint.

The next class students finish the painting by adding bushes, the bridge, waterlilies, and any extras they wish to include. All of this painting is again done with cotton swabs. I demonstrate an area of my painting then allow them time to work on theirs. The demonstration is not for them to copy what I'm painting - but to learn how to use the tools to create different types of marks. When I show students how to do the bridge I use black first to paint the bridge lines then use a cool color to go over some of these lines. I finish the bridge off by adding some white onto the lines while the paint is still wet. We discuss how this addition of a little white makes the bridge "pop".

When they work on the waterlilies they need to be reminded to use impressionistic dabs and marks and not try to paint a flower shape. If students have time they might add extra bushes or other plants into the painting.

The results of this project are always wonderful!

This year I incorporated a bit of tech into this lesson. While students were working on finishing their paintings I took a picture of them standing in front of a green screen (a big piece of green bulletin paper tacked to a wall) posing as if they are standing on the bridge of their painting. I used Keynote's alpha tool to cut out the green so that I could place the student in a digital image of their painting. This will then be printed out and students will use paint to touch up the bridge in front of them to give the illusion that they are on the bridge in their painting. Students really loved this idea of being able to be a part of their own painting. We are still working on this part of the project - I will post a picture of a finished one as soon as I can.

Cardboard Creations

What do you do with a whole bunch of cardboard boxes from all the food we eat?

You start to cut them up...and glue them together...

A Cardboard Creature emerges...A Lucky Ladybug!
This is an example for a project I will be doing with some of my 3rd grade classes as part of my Reuse-Recycle-Recreate unit. When I was gathering up ideas for this unit I came across some great projects done by other wonderful art teachers around the world. This project is inspired by Katie Gonzalez from Briargrove Elementary. Here's a link to her blog http://katieweymouth.blogspot.com/2010/01/cardboard-animal-creations.html She has a lot of great ideas!

Stay tune for more Reuse-Recycle-Recreate projects!

What a Creatively Messy Morning!

Have you ever looked at your lesson plans and exclaim "What was I thinking?!" When you are planning to try and give your students, that you only see once a week, the best possible art education - you are not always thinking of your own sanity. That was the case with this morning's classes. I had scheduled three messy (two of them very messy) projects all before lunch! But in the end we all survived, had a pretty good time, and saw a lot of creative results.

The first class of the day was a 6th grade class who are working on an Andy Warhol inspired printmaking project. Today was printing day! They had created their styrofoam printing plate the past class - focusing on an animal or "creature". Today's goal was to have each student print at least 4 prints using 4 different colors. Did I mention their were 33 students in this class? The thought of that many students moving about from table to table to print the different colors they needed made me regret not having that second cup of coffee before school. But they did a really great job. All students made at least 4 prints and many even had time to do some extra prints experimenting with mixing colors. They even did an excellent job of cleaning the tables and room up before leaving. Though I was left to clean off 7 trays of printing ink and brayers and I told the students I would rinse off their printing plates for them.

The next class was a 3rd grade class who had been introduced to Grant Wood in the previous class. They are going to create a landscape collage inspired by Wood's paintings. Today we were painting papers to use for this collage. I gave the students construction paper in various earth tones. I place a large variety of brushes, sponges, and painting tools to create interesting textures in their painted papers. Trays of paint were filled and the painting began! Each of these students painted at least 3 papers - some more. The movement around the room was a bit chaotic as students tried out different painting tools and made trips back and forth between their tables and the drying rack.

They also did a really good job cleaning up the tables and their hands but left me a really big bucket of dirty brushes and a sink full of painting tools to wash up.

Two very full drying racks!

The last class before lunch was a 2nd grade class who was glazing their clay monsters. This was the least messy class this morning. The monsters all received a very colorful array of glazes. Getting this class to clean up as good as the first two was a bit of a challenge. I was left with a container full of glaze-coated brushes, a few splats of glaze here and there, and a few monster bottoms to wipe clean before they could be fired.

After cleaning up all that creative mess I had 15 minutes left to eat lunch before my afternoon classes began. Yay!

2nd Grade Clay Monsters

I try to allow all my students Kindergarten through 6th grade the chance to work with clay at least once every year. Some years it's harder than others because of time or lack of supplies. So far this year I have done a clay project with most of my students - still have a few grade levels to go.

I decided to do clay monsters with my Second Grade classes. The monster is based on a pinch pot - and most of my students by 2nd grade have created a pinch pot before - so it seemed like a good idea. They responded to the project very enthusiastically.

On clay construction day we quickly reviewed how to create a simple pinch pot. Then turned it on it's side so that the opening became a mouth. I showed students how to change the shape to reflect what they wanted their monster's mouth to look like. Then the additions of other details began to happen. We reviewed needing to slip and score to attach clay to clay. We used a toothbrush dipped in water to accomplish this.



After the first firing, we glazed our monsters with lots of color. Students we loving being able to add color to their creations. As they worked on glazing I encouraged them to come up with a story about their monster. What was the monster's name? Where did it live? What did it like to do?
When monsters were glazed fired we created a paper diorama to give our monsters an environment to reside in.
I think this project was a success and will definitely do it again!