Glub, Glub, Glub...Little Fishy

Our sweet little kinder friends made these cute one day fish.  The details are done by practicing their  line skills.  They sharpied their fish and painted with watercolor (yes, we sometimes loose our minds and give kindergarteners black sharpie!!).  We cut them out and mounted them on a colored background paper.   

 

Wolf Kahn Landscapes

Wolf Kahn is a German born American who studied under Hans Hofmann. He is known for his colorful landscapes that combine the color field movement into his realistic landscape paintings.  His use of magentas, pinks, and vibrant oranges are breathtaking.  These second graders mimicked Kahns landscapes with brightly painted trees, skies and foreground.  This lesson actually took a couple of turns as we started the lesson more as a batik.  After a couple classes, and not exactly the results we were looking for, we simply did a crayon resist art piece with much better success.  That is what I love about the this job.  Not only is it a learning process for them, but for me as well.  In this line of work, flexibility is key!! 

Happy Monday!!

Sometimes it is good to laugh!  "It's a little bit awesome, but it's a little bit ruined!!"  I feel that way all the time.  (click the link below to have a little laugh)


Kid Snippets- Art Class

Banyan Tree

This is the Banyan Tree project from Crystal Productions, Dynamic Art Projects for Children.  I would say that this book is a must have for the art room, and more than likely, you have it or have at least seen it.  There are great instructions, visual steps and great color examples of finished products from kids, plus list of materials.  Sometimes the art room can be a bit overwhelming and we just need to give ourselves a break, 'cause teaching 650 kids in a week can be exhausting!!  That is just what we did, we gave ourselves a little break and had a very successful art lesson with the help of this book.  What I like from this particular lesson is how differently they all turn out.  You know, we teach some amazingly talented kiddos!!

Overlapping Vases

This is a project my job share partner has done for a long time.  The vase project is done with 2nd grade to discern separate spaces.  These areas are filled with unique patterns using only sharpie.  We encouraged directional line changes, as well as thicknesses.  She has patterns that the kids trace from, so tracing and cutting usually take up day one.  Day two, arrange vases and outline the overlapped spaces.  Day 3 (and possibly day 4) filling each space with line design.  

Black Glue Portraits

These black glue portraits were done by 4th graders.  We did very simple self portrait drawings.  This is actually hard for some of the kids.  They really want to add in lots of details, so getting them to hold back was a challenge.  The details are discouraged for this particular project because of the thickness of the black glue lines, too many details and the glue puddles.  On the color portion the students were encouraged to use bold colors, even on the skin and hair, but not required.  Day one, everyone drew their portraits. Day 2, we finished any drawing that was left and started outlining with the black glue.  On day 3, kids are at various stages, so this is the tricky part.  If kids start off the class period with the black glue, which only takes 15-20 minutes at most, then they have half a class left and are unable to continue because the glue is wet.  So, I go ahead and start everyone with the painting.  If some of the students only have a small amount of black glue left to finish up with, I let them do this at about the last 15 minutes of art.  One important thing to note is that if the black glue is done first, the students need to be careful about painting on top of the black glue lines.  If the glue lines gets too wet, they start to bleed into the color and then the colors get muddy.  

Painted Puzzle

These paintings were done by my kindergarten kiddos.  They were given 4 colors, including one metallic.  I started one color on each of the tables and they rotated. This helped me monitor how they were using the paints. With each color I would give them a few simple instructions, like draw a spiral and two straight lines.  They could arrange these any way they wanted on the paper.  With each rotation of the paints they were given different instructions, until their papers were full of color. Before they came to me the next class, I folded each of their papers (see below).  They used these lines to do their cutting.  Once they were done, they mixed up their pieces and made a new arrangement.  These pieces were then glued to the black background paper. This was a two day project for the students.

It is hard to see the folds on the painted side, so I have them turn to the back.  

Folding is much faster than ruling out all these lines for almost 30 kids in a class.  It took me about 10-12 minutes to fold one class.

Art work after painting.  

Dream Snow by Eric Carle

This is another Christmas favorite of my girls.  You can never go wrong with Eric Carle.  This was given as a present to us 5 or 6 years ago.  The girls would look at the book over and over.  The story line is simple, and the little ones have fun predicting the animals.  The farmer in the book looks very familiar, Carle himself maybe?  The girls love the button at the end that gives the tree a special, magical touch!  Ours is worn out and doesn't work any longer, but it was probably pushed hundreds of times.  This book is perfect for the younger preschool aged children.