Why Doughnut Art??

Well, I could say that the reason for making doughnut art is to practice tinting and shading to create the illusion of depth; 

or I could say it is to reinforce the study of shapes; or I could say it is to experiment with color or different media; or learn about Wayne Thiebaud's art . . .  One could go on and on. 

One could also say that I wanted a good excuse to visit my favorite donut shop in Costa Mesa, California (right next to Newport Beach) and buy a bunch of their cinnamon crumb cake donuts -- YUM!! 

After using these as inspiration for art I would, of course, have to eat them. I actually make the trek to this shop (one hour drive each way) often, just to buy the donuts. I eat a few and then wrap the rest singly and freeze them for when the craving strikes. Seriously, these are JUST THE BEST!!!!

But I am digressing -- back to the ART.

This project starts by having students use a ruler to divide a square paper into fourths. That is a whole lesson in itself for some. (How to start measuring at the end of the ruler - or where the zero would be if we considered the ruler as a number line -, how to hold the ruler in 2 places so it doesn't wobble, how to measure and mark in two places so the lines are equal distances apart, etc).

(For younger students, or to accommodate time constraints, you could have each student draw just one donut instead of four.)

Then, using photos of donuts (or the real thing), kids sketch and shade their 4 donuts. Notice that each donut just about touches the edges so that the donut "fills the space." Sometimes I have students use a little photo icon of a light to remind them where the light source is and where the shadows will be as they are shading. (see here for example: http://kids-finelines.blogspot.com/2010/10/sunny-day-great-shadows.html)

Then comes the color. Instead of using just one media I like to put out crayons, oil pastels, colored pencils and paint so that students can experiment with each. This is a good way to introduce use of materials at the beginning of the year and it is a good way for students to discover for themselves the variations that can be achieved with different media. Oil pastels definitely work best for making the "sprinkles" because of their strong color!

 Once these are done, they can be framed as individual pieces of art . . .

. . . or they can be combined into arrays as collaborative works. I actually like this because it opens up lots of possibilities for integrating with math!!

Here we have 4 X 4 = 16.

And here is 4 X 6 = 24 or 6 X 4 = 24 or "What fraction of the group is Jelly Donuts?" or "If you eat half of this box of donuts, how many are left?"  You get the idea:))

A great Literature Connection for this lesson would be to read Homer Price by Robert McCloskey.

 Just think of all the great math questions one could generate with this illustration!! I can remember hearing this story as a read aloud in, I think, my own 4th grade classroom decades ago!!!

On that note, I think it is time for me to go eat a doughnut or two:))

Great Book for the Art Room

Time for some animal fun!

Reindeer with Jingle Bell

I think it is impossible for me to walk through a Book Fair without buying something and our school's recent sale was no exception! I often think, "so many books to read and so little time." One of my "finds" for the art cart was Creature Features by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. They take a close up look at 25 animals and comment about why they have certain unusual features.

I noticed that the illustrator made a point of having white highlights in all the animals' eyes and that that added a spark of life to each illustration. So, with that in mind, the animal drawings began. I always like to try out any lesson before doing it with kids, so this was an experiment in using different media, but I sort of got carried away and did more than one!!

The bearded seal (from the book) makes a good starting point for practice:

 The seal's body is done with cake tempera.

The eyes and nose are crayon (note the white highlights). I think it helps to make the eyes and nose separately and glue them onto the body. It is easier to make the eyes the same size this way.

 It helps to plan this part holding up the paper to the painting.

 I thought this was finished . . .

But decided to add cut string to add some dimension to the whiskers.

This project is a nice way to integrate art and science and technology as kids choose different animals and research an unusual fact about their animal. With Google images to capture pictures of animals, the possibilities are endless:))

 The red-eyed tree frog shows its red eyes when it is startled.

This is crayon with water color resist.

This little chipmunk was at my brother's Montana house, gathering seeds for winter. The top example is marker eyes and nose with pencil sketch. The bottom example has colored pencil added.

This turkey is a marker sketch with watercolor and acrylic.

And finally, this reindeer is marker eyes and nose with oil pastel and baby oil for the rest. 

Did you know that, according to Smithsonian.com some reindeer, native to Arctic regions (scientific name of Rangifer tarandus), actually do have red noses due to a "dense array of blood vessels" located around the nose to regulate their body temperature in their extremely cold habitat?

Soaring Watercolor Balloons

As the school year winds down, I am already thinking about how to decorate our Auditorium bulletin boards in August, when our new year starts. What better way than with some Kindergarten art?!

First, I read the story, Emily's Balloon to get us all in the mood. Then we looked at some "balloon" images by Jeff Koons and after discussing a few paintings of patterned and colorful hot air balloons kiddos were ready to start their own balloons.

Using a Stayonal crayon they outlined their balloon, "bumping" the edges of their paper. Then they chose interesting lines (4 or 5) to draw from one side of the balloon to the other. Pressing hard with the crayon was key to getting thick, black lines -- our goal!

Last week we talked about how to use and take care of a watercolor brush, so this was a perfect opportunity to review and practice those skills. I was actually surprised that so many of the kids could tell me the important things to remember about brush care!!

 As colors accidentally ran together, we talked about "happy accidents" that can actually make watercolor paintings more interesting. Kids really got into that idea, and I heard a lot of "oohs and aahs" and "Look, I made orange!" comments as I walked around.

After cutting out the balloons I tucked them away until August when they will appear in large bunches (about 150 of them) floating on our Welcome Back bulletin boards. I'll be sure to share with you then:))

Mini-Hearts

Here are a couple of mini-hearts (the short version of the last lesson I posted here) that second graders did in 45 minutes today. They will be headed to our Auditorium as soon as they are dry. Happy Valentine's Day (again)!!

Thinkin' About Hearts for Valentine's Day

I'm thinking about using the cover of Eric Telchin's book, See a Heart Share a Heart as motivation for this heart project for one 2nd grade class this week. This is actually one of those little ideas that started out in my own sketchbook and I was having so much fun doing it that I started thinking about it for the classroom, too (with an added mention of Jim Dine).

The objectives will be centered on warm/cool colors and contrast.

Kids will be using a 9" X 12" illustration board. They'll have a 4" square to define the space for their heart. I'm thinking of having them use pastels for the background so they can have experience rubbing the pastels together for a soft look.

I plan to teach them how to cut out a heart thinking about the numeral "2" as their mental model.

After cutting out their heart, they will use it as a stencil to draw a heart shape inside their square, pressing VERY lightly on the pencil. Then students will draw long ovals to create the shape of the heart.

Next comes the coloring. Using crayons and/or oil pastels, we'll use warm colors to shade the oblong shapes. Some might want to add dimension to their shapes by shading one side of the oblongs darker and then blending the colors.

The last steps will be to outline using black crayon and adding a watercolor resist wash to the square.

                                    Happy Valentine's Day

Ornamental Corn & Crayon Resist

4th graders had one 50 minute session to create these subtly colored ornamental corn pieces. They had real corn to look at as they sketched and colored enlarged ovals to represent the kernels. (We talked about how Georgia O'Keeffe magnified flowers in her art.) Their goal was to have just 2 or 3 lines of magnified kernels.

Students sketched their large ovals first, then made a white oval in the center of each oval where the light was hitting the kernel. Next, using crayons, they shaded from light to dark to get the illusion of depth in each kernel. They left the background white because they were going to paint over the whole thing with black watercolor for all the deep shadows. 

I find that getting kids to really enlarge can be challenging. This time I had an ear of ornamental corn displayed on the big screen with the document camera. I placed a 1 inch view finder on a section of the kernels so the students could see what they were trying to replicate on their 4" squares. That helped most of them to think "MAGNIFY".

This student really got into mixing and blending his crayon colors to achieve the subtlety of the real ornamental corn colors!!

It makes me happy to walk down this corridor of the school and see these greeting me!!