Contour Lines Collage

People frequently ask, "Where do you come up with ideas for art projects for kids?" There isn't really one answer. Like many of us, I will see a blog or Pinterest post that appeals to me, or more often, triggers a thought for a "spin-off lesson." More and more, I find inspiration as I am driving and just looking around. Now that I am walking more for exercise, I find my thinking veering towards art ideas then, too. Even yesterday as my dentist was drilling for a filling and I wasn't enjoying it, my thoughts were re-directed towards the next art project as a means of escape!!

At any rate, Spring Break always seems to find me in the mood to experiment with some of these ideas that have been "percolating" for a while.

I found this idea on Pinterest. The original post doesn't seem to be available, but here is the link to the pin I saw (here). I liked the abstract shapes in this original post a LOT, but wanted to try the idea using a real object instead of the organic shapes.

First, I tore a piece of copier paper and glued half of it onto a black board (you could use regular black construction paper or cardstock instead.) Then I cut out a stem and leaves to collage onto the background. I used an old catalogue for my collage pieces, but again, construction paper would work fine.

The next step was to cut and glue the petals and center of a flower. I think I will encourage the kids to use one piece of white in the black area (as I did for the center of the flower) to help balance the white side of their background.

The final step is to draw the black lines contouring the colored shapes that are on the white part of the background. I used a black Sharpie for this.

My next teacher step will be to think of some other representative objects that would be good for this project. I think the objects should be interesting shapes (not too thick or clunky) with parts that would extend into the white area. Things like scissors, kitchen gadgets, maybe a sports car, etc. For younger kids something like the flower or even balloons might be better to keep the cutting manageable. Hmmmm. More to think about before I actually teach this:))

Art Room Tools

We are on vacation now and I am contemplating what to order for next year. First, of course, I'll need at least a gallon of Elmer's Glue-All -- the BEST glue for what we do. I hang art in an outside hallway that is exposed to damp air here near the beach. This stuff REALLY holds.

Then, I need a few more bottles of Crayola glue, because I LOVE these bottles. I have one set that I bet I have had for 10 or more years and it is time for some fresh replacements!!!

I just use my handy wrench that a parent gave me as a gift years ago. It was in a little red tool kit along with some other classroom necessities -- what a terrific teacher gift that was!!! I unscrew the tops, fill these bottles with my Glue-All and we are ready to go.

As I have mentioned before, the kids don't actually use these glue bottles. I squirt about a tablespoon in a small plastic portion cup and students scoop their glue from these with a wooden sandwich pick. I get those 2 items at our local Smart & Final. I just let the glue dry in the cup and add more glue the next time we need it. At the end of the year I pop out the dried glue and have a fresh cup ready to go for the next year!

Well, that's enough thinking about school for right now. I'm back to the book I've been reading!!

Lines Like LeWitt's (sort of!!)

Two years ago, inspired by another blogger, I had Kindergarteners explore the "Bold Lines" of artist, Sol LeWitt (here). Last May I was reminded of LeWitt's work by Rachel over at Color, Collage and Much More (here). Our former kindergarteners are now 2nd graders, so I decided to re-visit LeWitt with a variation of Rachel's more complicated version of assembling and then extending their line. As they worked, I heard a lot of kids saying, "This is REALLY fun!!"

Our first step was to make 2 or 3 small (4 1/2 inch square) line drawings using complementary colors and crayon. I asked students to vary the direction of the line and to start and end at an edge, like these:

These boys started combining their lines right away!!

Today we glued the squares on a larger board (8" X 10"), knowing that we would be extending the line with paint.

Children had a lot of choices to make: where to glue their squares to direct their lines where they wanted them; colors to use to expand the line's width; whether to continue with stripes or have a solid background. This was a great opportunity to focus on laying the brush flat to make a smooth, controlled line.

Sorry for the blurriness of my photo, but you can see how this art lends itself to some dramatic presentation options. One little boy stopped on his way up the hallway as I was putting this up (turning each piece this way and that, trying to decide how to match up the lines) and said, "You know the best thing about art?"
  "What is that?" I replied.
   "There is no way to do it wrong. It is always right!!" he said, smiling.
                             THAT IS WHY I LOVE TEACHING ART!!!!!!!!!

2nd Grade Gyotaku/Collage Results

Here are a few of this week's gyotaku results from 2nd graders. As children cut out their fish, colored the eye (trying to pick up one color from their background) and glued the fish, meaningful conversation included words like: overlap, diagonal, horizontal, and balance.

New Gyotaku Lesson

2nd graders are in the midst of making Gyotaku (Japanese fish prints) and multi-media collaged ocean backgrounds. 5th graders made Gyotaku a few weeks back and the printing process was the same for both grade levels, so you can check it out HERE.

Even though I told each group that our fish were not real, but made from rubber, I got a lot of suspicious looks as kids approached the "fish table." I heard several students asking their neighbor, "Are these REAL fish?"

I loved when one little girl, who was rubbing her fish print paper, looked up and said,"This is like giving the fish a massage!!" I'm still chuckling at the image!!

We started with a short Smartboard introduction and then kids had some images of underwater plants to refer to as they collaged their ocean scene.

They cut grasses, coral and kelp first, gluing it all on with dots of Elmer's Glue All. Taught students to use little dots instead of spreading on the glue like peanut butter!

The last step was to add fingerprint texturing to the coral and fingerprints for the round parts of their kelp. **In the lower corner of the above photo you can see the glue cups and sticks we use for almost all gluing in the art room. The board is white foam core with layers of wax paper glued or stapled on. (When the top layer gets too yucky I just peel it off and the underneath layer is already there and ready to go.) We let the glue dry in the portion cups and just add more glue on top of the dried stuff until the cup is pretty full. Then you can just pop the dried glue out and start all over again! The sticks are sandwich sticks from Smart & Final and we reuse them for quite awhile, too. I find that this method encourages using the glue very sparingly, dot by dot.

 They painted bubble wrap and printed bubbles, experimenting with color.

The illustration boards that students were using were a variety of light and dark blues and greens. We talked about which paint colors were more likely to produce contrast on the light or dark backgrounds. I heard kids talking a lot about which colors would "show up" best -- LOVE those purposeful conversations!!  There was also talk about line directions, overlapping and texture. When we cut out the fish prints and glue them I'll post the results.

CLEAN Brushes = CLEAN Paints!!!

Clean brushes definitely translate to CLEAN paints.

You may remember that last week I referred to a blogger who posted about having her students show that their brushes were clean at the end of class by testing the cleanliness on her own arm before they left class. At the time I couldn't find that "heaven sent" blogger's post. I finally found it, right there on my Blog List with a picture of brushes to guide me -- "How could I have missed it?" I asked myself. Anyway, click here for the link to Mrs. Picasso's Art Room and the complete article on clean brushes.

We have implemented her idea during the painting process to keep the paints from looking "muddy." For the last 2 weeks I have had 2nd graders use the trick of testing their brushes for cleanliness after their "swishing and wiping" in water by touching the brush to the top of their hands before getting a new color. The kids get a kick out of doing it, and it has worked beautifully for cleaning the brushes AND keeping the cake temperas looking, if not pristine, pretty close to it!!!! Thank you, Denise!!

Pattern Pathways & Mixing Browns

2nd graders, using an ant farm photo as inspiration, created black crayon patterned pathways this week. That was the first part of the lesson. Next, using cake tempera, they mixed complementary colors from the color wheel to experiment with different brown tones for the background areas. My final focus was use of the paint brush, including brush control and, of course, how to clean it well.

There was a lot of changing colors, so kids had ample opportunity to clean their brushes. I asked them to "Swish, swish, wipe and check." The checking part was new for me. I read about it on somebody's blog recently (I can't remember which blog and, unfortunately forgot to pin it -- sorry!). Anyway, this clever teacher (whoever you are) has the kids check if their brush is clean at the end of class by painting the "clean" brush on her arm. Loved it so much, I asked the kids to paint their "clean" brush on their hand each time they cleaned it before dipping into a new color. Worked like a charm!!! If you were the one who wrote about this recently, let us all know, and THANK YOU!

Some students did step 3 and others ran out of time or chose to leave their pathways black and white.

This was the ant farm photo that we used as a model for how ants dig their curvy tunnels:

And, finally, here is some of the students' work:

 I was so pleased to watch students work so conscientiously to experiment with how much of each color to add to their mix to achieve the brown they wanted!! We used recycled white, plastic lids (which they easily cleaned themselves at the end of class) for palettes.

For some of the classes I mounted their 6" X 6" abstracts on a colored matte:

Instead of mounting these, I had the kids assemble them on the rug, trying to connect their pathways in a pleasing composition. This was really fun to watch! There were a LOT of directors in this part of the collaborative process!!!!

This was a portion of one group's work: