Dot Day Audition

A short walk from school we have a wonderful park overlooking the Pacific Ocean. In that park is a bush I think of as "the polka-dot bush" just waiting to be the inspiration for a piece of art to celebrate  International Dot Day (Sept. 15, 2017). This day celebrates Peter Reynold's book, The Dot. It is kind of hard to see the blossoms in this photo, but up close they really do look like polka dots!! Also, beyond the fence in the background is the ocean.

I like to ask students to imagine what this landscape would look like if we removed all the bushes, the trees and the fence. We might have something that looked like this:

This first layer was done with pastels, softened by smearing them with a tissue. Then we start adding the trees, bushes, walkways, etc. using water soluble crayons(that can be painted over with water if desired) for everything except the front bush. That is done with cake tempera, sponge painted on ( although regular tempera or acrylics would work, too). This is a good opportunity to use art vocabulary: background, mid-ground and foreground.

Meanwhile, the paper for the dots is painted, using warm colors and allowing the colors to run together a bit. This was also done with cake tempera. Branches are added with crayons.

Students are asked to cut circles of different sizes, trying to include a variety of colors. They can use lids to trace the circles, but they can also cut freehand.

The last step is gluing on the circles to complete the polka-dot bush.

An option would be to outline the dots with a marker as seen in the example on the right below.

I'm not sure which Dot Day projects I'll use this year. I have some other options here, and here, and here.

Hope everyone is off to a great new school year!!!!

Pastel Snow People Mural

Here in California we are having our version of a cold weather winter (rainy and in the 50°s). So it seemed a good time to work with 2nd graders on shading spheres to make snowmen!!

You can see how students used pastels to shade the spheres of the their snow people.

After cutting out their people, kids colored and cut out details ( hats, arms, scarves, etc) to glue onto them.

Some students made larger snowmen/women and others made smaller ones. As they went out in the hallway to add their people to the mural, the smaller people were placed to appear further back, giving the landscape the appearance of distance.

The last step was to add snow, which they did by stamping small circles using the handle of a paintbrush and white tempera paint. Of course, we did this on our coldest day of year so far!!
This lesson, like the last one I posted, was based on the book, Snowmen at Night.

As an aside, when I left school after finishing up the mural I went for a quick walk between the thunder showers to share with you. We had a bit of wind the night before, thus the fallen palm fronds.

Winter Pastel Landscapes

For this 2-day project, 3rd Graders started by observing the snowmen in the book, Snowmen in the Night, noticing how the light shining on the spheres of the snowmen created a 3D impression. We also noticed how the snow was shaded in various places. There are many scenes in the book to observe how large snowmen appear closer and are placed near the bottom of the page, and smaller snowmen placed higher on the page give the appearance of distance. We discussed foreground, mid-ground and background in landscapes.

I demonstrated how students could cut a  9" X 12" piece of white drawing paper to create 2 pieces that would be their snow and a center piece that we would use for one of the snowmen. I had some extra smaller pieces of white paper for those who wanted to make a smaller snowman.

Students positioned one of the side pieces above along the bottom of their landscape paper and the other one overlapping it on the other side to create two hills of snow, one behind the other. A few kids had trouble with how to do this spatially. 

They shaded the back hill where it met the front hill. (See examples further down.)

Next we used the center piece of drawing paper to make a snowman, shading one side where the moonlight would not be hitting it. The only tip here is to ask kids to use the side of their pastel and not to press too hard. They blended the pastel with their finger. I had an assortment of blues, purples and grays for them to choose from.

Students used their scraps to color accessories, using plain crayons. I had them use glue stick to affix the snow and snowmen before they started the caps, scarves, etc. They colored and added those as they went. They used pastels to make a moon in the sky.

On Day 2 students used white tempera and pastels to create trees in the distance. They dip the pastel in the paint and, starting at the bottom of the tree, zig zag up and down from left to right. When they no longer see white, it is time to re-dip. They move up the tree making each layer a bit shorter, until they reach the top of the tree. This is a fun technique that can actually be used to make a whole snow scene, people and all!

Of course, kids invariably found their own way to make trees, which is just fine!

The final step was to add snow. We used the white tempera and applied it by stamping with a cotton swab. I cut those in half, since they really only need one side. Might as well conserve when we can!!

Can you find the little guy wearing a sombrero? LOVE IT!!!!

Art Audition - Footprints in the Sand (or Tea Bag Art)

I think one of the most fun parts of teaching anything (but art in particular) is trying out new ideas with students and seeing the results. For me, these don't have to be original ideas (but it's fun when they are) just new to me or the first time I have tried them with kids. And I ALWAYS want to "audition" them first at home before introducing them to the classroom. It seems that this is the time of year (2 weeks before school starts) when a lot of these ideas start percolating. I thought it would be fun this year to share with you some of these "art auditions!"

Here we go with the first one:
Footprints in the Sand or Tea Bag Art!!

Last January, following joint replacement surgery, I was told to walk EVERY day, and I have been pretty consistent in following through. While walking in my local park, on the sand and gravel pathway, I noticed the variety of footprints imprinted in the path and thought, "Wouldn't kids have fun with this!"

Step one is to create the sand. Great use for all those used teabags after making ice tea!! Coffee would work, too. Pressing lightly on the bag creates a light beige, leaving the bag a few seconds before lifting up results in a darker tone. Good time to talk about value.

Overlapping the tea bag prints is pretty important for an over all sandy look.

I didn't even wait for the background to dry before printing the soles of a few shoes. In the classroom, kids can trade shoes to make a variety of sole designs. I used pastels that I dragged across the sole and then just printed it on the damp background. If you want to get a little messier you could try this with paint!! I didn't think I wanted to try cleaning paint out of all the grooves, though. **Have plenty of water and paper towels for kids to clean their shoes after printing.

For younger students I would probably stop after they had covered their "sand" with footprints. Older kids could use black Sharpies to outline the patterns on the shoes, as in the example below.

In my last post I had this photo of a local mural where a boy is looking towards the beach through his binoculars. 

I think I would probably have kids discuss this mural, which is on a wall that is walking distance from school, as well as Dr. Seuss', Oh the Places You'll Go! , as a part of this lesson.

Sounds like fun, huh??!!
Hope you are all having fun thinking about getting back into the swing of things!!

Stars and Stripes 2016

Whether it is Memorial Day, Veteran's Day or the 4th of July, it is fun to  celebrate the red, white and blue. This is a quick project requiring pastels, paper, paint and a few pieces of cardboard.

Artists use one triangle and chalk to create a five-pointed star. This is good for talk about, not only how you go about positioning the triangle five times to create the star, but also for the starting point of the chalk marks (on the triangle, brushing out) and conversation about the direction you "swipe" the chalk (from the triangle straight out as you work your way around the point of the triangle). It is a good idea to practice this on newspaper first! If you think the triangle method is too hard for you group, this can be done with a full star pattern instead.

After making the initial chalk mark, students swipe the mark again with their finger, smearing the chalk outward, so the star looks like it is shining.

Once the stars are done (I like the kids to make various sizes using small and large triangles), it is time for some stripes.

These were done by dipping the edge of a piece of cardboard (we use scraps of illustration board) in tempera (acrylic works, too) and "printing the stripes". I emphasize, "straight down, straight up" to avoid sideways smears!!

 You can decide whether to have your kids stick with vertical/horizontal stripes like the one above, or let them print however they like, as in the example below.

The motivation for all of this was our local National Veteran's Cemetery (seen across the street from the Federal Building), which is adorned right now with thousands of American flags at the gravesites and along the inner roads. I love driving by this time of year. Hope you all have a meaningful holiday as summer nears!

 

Happy Spring (flowers)!

Spring is such a cheery season for students to try to recreate. We have so many early blossoms in our little beach town that inspiration is around every corner!!

 

And then there was last week when we had gusty winds whipping the palm trees into a frenzy!!

Think I will need to work on a lesson to exemplify the wind, but for those looking for quick (or semi-quick) spring flower lessons, I do have these former flower lessons here,  here , here , here and here!! 
The flowers below take a bit longer, but the lesson can be found here. 

Hope you all are enjoying your Spring Break!

More Picasso Fractured Faces for Winter

After we did our Frankenstein lesson (see here) I started thinking of other options for this lesson. I did a quick Google search for Picasso Snowmen and found some full body examples, but no portraits. Thinking that kids would have fun with that variation I gave it a try. 

Instead of cutting out the face, I tried painting the 2 halves, shading for a bit of dimension. The background is pastel in the complementary color to the blue in the face. The pastels could be left like this, or smoothed over with a bit of paper towel for a blended look.

All the details were drawn on a separate piece of paper and colored with marker or crayon.

The last step is to cut them out, arrange them in a fractured (or Cubist) form and glue.

I like the idea of backing the whole piece in a color to complement the colors used in the collage/drawing.

The whole purpose of this exercise was to play around with breaking apart faces/profiles and gaining some understanding of what Picasso was experimenting with. I guess you can see that the possibilities are unlimited. I hope some of you give it a try with your students trying some other options!!