Over and Above Portraits

 In a search for a lesson for fifth grade that involved an American artist, portraits, and personal voice I found this one about the artist Clarence Carter (1904-2000). http://learn.michenerartmuseum.org/2011/02/an-over-and-above-lesson-for-students/

I had never heard of Clarence Carter (the watercolor artist) and thought his over and above paintings where interesting.

Over and Above by Clarence Carter

 I used the lesson from the above website and changed it a bit. We first looked at a few of his Over and Above paintings on the smart board and discussed. I later revealed his inspiration for these.  More info about Carter look here, http://clevelandartsprize.org/awardees/clarence_carter.html

 Each student was to draw a self portrait of themselves peering over a wall. We used mirrors, pencils and sharpies. For the color I gave them a choice, oil pastel, marker, color pencils, watercolor, crayons or a combination of several. 

First however we discussed the pro and cons of each. I wrote those on the board. 

• Ex, oil pastels are bright and colorful and resist water color. However not a lot of color choices with those and they smear. 
• Markers are also bright and colorful, but they bleed when used with watercolor. 
• Color pencils can be used different ways, light or dark. However they involve a lot of sharpening. 

So with this they made there own choices for color. They loved this!

On a separate day we looked quickly at the work of Fred Babb and how he uses words for inspiration and his own voice in his work. Student were to use their own personal voice and write a quote about art, music, life, etc. I had a sheet with several examples of my favorite quotes, and of course they could write their own (which several did) 

 This lesson was a total success and involved so many objectives from my fifth grade art curriculum.
Next time I will encourage them to draw their heads bigger, write bigger and bolder, and keep the bottom of the paper cleaner. However it was hard to do with pastels and water color.

 I love her background!

Second grade Impressionistic Painting

 Second Graders had fun learning about the life and work of Claude Monet and looked at several of "Japanese Bridge" paintings. We discussed En Plein Air, and how to paint like an impressionistic artists. Student's looked one of his paintings on the smart board, and mixed and used similar colors (blue, green, light blue,yellow) by quickly dabbing the colors. Bridges were made first with painters tape. See pics below.

 The next class time tape came off and we studied what water lilies looked like in real life and how differently Monet painted them. They were carefully painted with a palette of red, purple, pink and green. The last thing was to add a shadow on bridge with gray paint.

Color Wheel Cows

Third Grade lesson where student's learned about the life and art of Peter Diem. We discusses how he experimented with  his paintings and student's watched a short video clip of Diem painting.

We experimented with color by using the primarys to create the secondarys and intermediates.

This lesson for me was inspired by other art teacher bloggers, such as Kids Artists,http://kidsartists.blogspot.com/2011/01/colourful-cows-like-peter-diem.html and Panther's Palhttp://pantherspalette.blogspot.com/2011/04/3rd-grade-peter-diem-cow-paintings.htmlette   . Great lesson color mixing and abstract art!! I have tons to great student examples I need to post as well. Total success!

Tree of Life-Second Grade Art Lessons

 In Second grade I have always taught a lesson inspired by Gustav Klimt's work. Students learn about the life and work of the artists. We discuss his works, such as The Baby, Tree of Life, The Kiss, Adele Bloch Bower (compare and contrast both of her paintings. Usually we do a lesson on The Baby. However this year I wanted to tackle the painting Tree of Life. 

Because I have two schedules of second grade, one group first nine weeks and the other second nine weeks, I did two different lessons.

The above lesson was inspired for me by another blogger. www.marymaking.blogspot.com. Her examples were beautiful. I just couldn't resist trying it out.

The other lesson below was an idea I put together myself. The background was created with watercolor. 

1. Mixing and making all color families. 2. Black tempera tree with famous Klimt swirls. 3. tropical birds and repeated gold and shiny sequins.

I'm not sure which I like the best. Both really. However I do feel that all students were successful with second lesson. It was simple and didn't require the painting of shapes and dots. 

Which do you think?

Wow what a colorful perched bird.

Jim Dine's Valentines

I have to say I am loving these Jim Dine projects! I totally love everything and anything about February because of Valentine's Day and Jim Dine. Who wouldn't want to create something totally fun and colorful out of hearts! These three lessons were done by second graders and first graders.

Second Grade- Heart Collage

The Heart Collage idea came from Artolazzi blog, http://artolazzi.blogspot.com/2012/01/jim-dine-heart-collage.html. I changed my a lesson just a tad and tried black and white paper for the the background. I am running out of construction paper!!

This lesson took a total of three days.

The first day we painted on colored construction paper. They were to paint one painting of lines as a pattern and the other painting they printed shapes with found objects in the art room.

Next day I had cut their paintings into fours and we all shared. They were to cut four symmetrical hearts and paste them on four rectangles. If there was time we pasted four valentines on a 12x18 sheet of paper.

Next day students added the border with torn scraps. They could add some sequins on top of some of these to make art shiney.

I taped yarn on the back of these I hung up in the hallway.

First Grade Jim Dine Paintings and Heart Clay Medallions

This art lesson I saw in a School Arts Magazine a couple of years ago. These below are bone dry and waiting to get fired in kiln. Next week students will use glaze and I will hang raffia through hole. I did this lesson two years ago and they are beautiful when finished. I will post the entire lesson with finished heart photos.