The Art of Reggie Laurent

Reggie Laurent's art is a great way to talk about line, color and unity with elementary school students. The site "Art is Fun" has photos, links and a wonderful interview with the artist. (click here) First graders will be focusing on the part of the interview where Laurent describes how he makes his art.

Instead of acrylics, students will create their art with collage, markers, white paint and white chalk. Step one will be cutting a few organic shapes out of white drawing paper.

Next, they will color the inside of the shape, using primary colors first, and leaving a white border.

That border will be used to draw patterns with crayons or markers. I kind of like the idea of using complementary colors or black, but that might be a bit much for first graders given our time constrictions.

When gluing the shapes on our black illustration board, we'll think about placement of colors.

The final step will be to make our white line to thread between and around the shapes, tying everything together.

In this sample the color inside the shapes was cake tempera with crayon borders. The white line was painted white tempera with white chalk drawn over it.

I first heard about Reggie Laurent from Joanna at We Heart Art. See her kids' version of his work here.
I love the contrast created in this art!! I'll post kids' results when they are finished.

Wildflowers Drying in the Breeze

Here are a few of the results from this week's wildflower lesson. I haven't gotten them up on a bulletin board yet, but that will come ...

The lesson for these is here.

Our Newest Wildflowers

   

     The hills of Southern California are blooming with all kinds of wildflowers right now, so 1st graders are painting their own this week. I'm starting with a short lesson on Impressionism through the book, Ish, by Peter Reynolds and a peek at artist, Yvonne Coomber's beautiful wildflowers (see HERE). Then it is on to a wet-on-wet watercolor wash followed by Q-tip and fingerprint flowers.

      This first step is blue liquid watercolor with a circle blotted out white with paper towel (for the sun, later). If kids want clouds, they will have to leave portions of their paper white.

      Next, comes more wash, with pan watercolors in yellows, reds and a mixture to make green near the bottom. After finishing the wash, students go back and lay in yellow in that empty white circle for the sun. It's fun to watch the colors run!!

      Part of this lesson is to have smaller dots for flowers near the horizon line, the ones that are far away, and larger dots near the bottom. We are using tempera (red, yellow and blue) for the flowers, applied with Q-tips. The larger flowers in the foreground can be made with fingerprints.

     Final steps are to add smaller dabs of color to the centers of the larger flowers (using a mixture of regular and florescent tempera. The photo below shows how kids use a watercolor brush dipped in color and struck against a small toothpick to spatter on small dots and give the piece a more spontaneous look. I find this method a bit less messy than to just let them fling away with the brush!!

     It seems that we always end up with some version of wildflowers in the Spring. Past years we have done these ( click here and here).

     I am anxious to see these latest wildflowers all displayed and will be sure to share when we are finished:))

Experimenting with Lines and Buttons

Last week I mentioned the question of where art ideas come from, but I forgot one really important place for me. Often ideas grow from what materials I have on hand. You have probably all seen the Op Art Lesson on Mr. E's blog (here). I have tried it a couple of times and love the results, but I was looking for a way to shorten the project.

I also was given 2 large boxes of buttons some time ago to use in the classroom. So, starting with Mr. E's idea, instead of making a line with many dots, I just glued 3 buttons down for my dots. (One could, of course, do this with plain dots.) I used 6" X 6" illustration board (also donated!!).

Then,  I made the arced lines with a Sharpie marker until they bumped into each other.

Next, I applied 3 neighboring colors (on the color wheel) of watercolor to each space. I did try to intensify the colors where the pen lines met, but that was harder to do than I thought it would be, as I wasn't using watercolor paper and the board just sopped up the paint very quickly!!

 The top picture above shows what it looked like when I painted the entire background with black. I actually like the white background better, I think. I was originally thinking of doing this with first graders, but now, after auditioning it, I think it would be better for 3rd or 4th grade. This another one of those projects that I can imagine displaying altogether with the sides of each artwork next to the sides of others' works. Will be fun to try!!! But, this is testament to the importance of always trying out projects before asking kids to do them!!

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!!!!!!!!!