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:))

Art Teacher Challenge

I'll bet a lot of school auditoriums or meeting rooms look something like this before the school year starts. This is our auditorium--two very long bulletin boards extending down both sides of the length of the room.

Who gets to transform this room with a little art magic?? People like you and I. Luckily I got a couple of good friends (newly retired) to come and help me with the transformation this year.

Last week I was painting captions and spattering them in my bathtub with primary colored paints.

Today it all came together with design backgrounds, lettering and most important, children's art that I had saved from last Spring to post now. Here are all the creations with links to their lessons: (regular readers will recognize most of these lessons from prior postings)

Link to Dot lesson: http://kids-finelines.blogspot.com/2015/05/lots-of-dots-in-kindergarten.html

Collage Kitties

Link to lesson: http://kids-finelines.blogspot.com/2012/11/collage-cats.html

Collage Fish: http://kids-finelines.blogspot.com/2015/03/im-pretty-sure-i-could-be-happy-doing.html

Crooked Buildings, Crooked City: http://kids-finelines.blogspot.com/2015/06/art-and-math-everywhere.html

Intersecting Lines in a Ring: http://kids-finelines.blogspot.com/2015/03/lines-in-ring.html

Circles in a Circle: http://kids-finelines.blogspot.com/2015/05/kindergarteners-and-kandinsky.html

So what to do now while I wait another week for school to start?? Think I'll kick back with an iced mocha and read. I seem to be on a mystery tangent lately and have this whole stack lined up to entertain me as summer creeps to an end.

For those of you who have already started school, I hope you are off to a great start!!

Cakes Revisited

I was recently asked by a reader how to draw cakes like the oil pastel ones below (which I did with 5th graders a few years ago during a study of Wayne Thiebaud).

I thought maybe I had directions somewhere on the blog showing the steps I used that I could refer her to, but I couldn't find any. So, here is a quick step-by-step. Hope it helps!!

Of course, you could just bake up (or buy) a luscious cake, cut out a slice or 2 (which you could eat as a snack at recess time), project the cake onto a screen with your document camera (if you have one) and let the kids do an observational drawing. Just sayin' -- it's an option:))

Here is what a whole bunch of cakes look like. You may notice that kids made their cakes whatever number of layers and flavors they wanted and decorated however they liked. We also talked a LOT about "light source" and where the shadows would be. The platters were sandwich foil that I got at our local Smart & Final and they were glued first, before the cut out cakes were glued on.

Tints, Shades and Big Sky Country

Clouds, clouds and more clouds . . .

Montana is such a great place to appreciate the sky and clouds. When you need a picture of clouds and the sky is clear, you just wait a little while and then go outside and there they are, rolling in and bringing some thunder and lightning with them. 

Notice how the sun back lights the clouds. This is what I like to focus on in this lesson. It works with the moon, too!

I LOVE giving kids pictures like this to use for value/color experiments.

First, they create a sky background -- either dark to light like the photo below, or concentric circles around a moon or sun (like the first photo above).

Then come the clouds, also dark to light. I like to provide students with lots of photos to use as reference because the light is different in each setting.

When everything is dry, they cut out the clouds, leaving a border of white paper around part of the clouds for the back light, and arrange them on their sky, as in the first photo above.

Pretty soon we have LOTS of storm clouds brewing!!

What else does Montana scenery provide for the art room? Well, how about these:

1. I like this for foreground, mid-ground and background with strong colors in the front and pale colors in the back. It also illustrates large items up close, smaller items in back.

 2. Here is another example of larger trees up close, smaller trees in the distance. 

 3. I do love river rocks and find that they are a good way for kids to practice shading and shadows either with "real-life" colors or Fauve-like hues. More on that later:))

Hope everyone is enjoying the last few weeks of summer vacation before it is time to start thinking of re-booting for school:))

Apricot Art - Sweeter than Ever!!

July around here means that the Blenheim Apricots are at the See Canyon stand at our Farmer's Market for 3 weeks. So each week I buy a new crate and the jam making begins in earnest!! When I get really motivated, I top the jars with these luscious colored cupcake liners and paint apricot gift tags to put on each jar. Such a labor of love!!

I wish you could smell the aroma permeating through my kitchen right now!!!!!

When the jam is done, I take the remaining apricots, split them in half and flash freeze them for a couple of hours on a cookie sheet. Then I dump them all in a 2 gallon bag and pop them in the freezer. That way, if I get hungry for an apricot pie a month or two from now, I still have them available. I tried this last year and used apricots right up until May to make pies and crisps!!

A friend of mine tells me that she eats the apricot jam I give her by the spoonful, right out of the jar. That got me thinking. I often drizzle honey on Greek yogurt for my breakfast, so this morning I tried a spoonful of apricot jam instead of the honey. YUM!!!

OK -- all this apricot talk is making me hungry. I am off to bake a pie:))

It Started With Foam Core

Once upon a time an art teacher had a bunch of left over foam core (yes, that would be me:)). What to do with it?? How about some simple sculptures with a little design thrown in. That is how this all started. All well and fine, but I didn't like it and decided not to use it with kids. That seems to happen a lot when I'm trying to design lessons that will teach something of substance. So I set it aside.

One night I was looking over at it and noticed the shadows created by the raised edges and decided to do a quick sketch.

That made me think of when little kids draw things like tables they often draw the 2 front legs vertically and the back 2 legs protruding out diagonally (instead of leaving them out altogether or just drawing the part they can actually see). I'm not talking about an intentionally abstract rendition, but when kids are trying to represent something realistically and then get frustrated when their drawing doesn't "look real" to them or match what they see. Here we are at the crux of the matter -- what are you really seeing vs. what you think you see. I think little exercises in seeing are FUN and sometimes produce little exploratory gems.

So, curious about how washable watercolor marker shadows would look, using a black Crayola marker, I drew some shadows.

Then, I painted the marker lightly with plain water. (Now, this I like!!)

That was pretty fun!! But, it got me thinking about Holton Rower's drip paintings on plywood art. They truly fascinate me!! 

If you haven't seen this video of the process, it is a good one to check out (HERE).

Anyway, that got me experimenting drawing boxes with dripping paint. Hmm. Drawing the paint dripping is harder than it looks. This would really get kids to focus on changing line direction as the paint moves from a horizontal plane to a vertical drop!!!

This could tie into a Geometry unit. 
A little shading might be a good idea, too.

I think this would be fun to do with older kids.

The final question that came to mind was, "What would it look like to draw a tower looking at it from above?" Instead of using regular blocks, I tried it with organic shapes, using the same watercolor marker and water brushstrokes technique to create the shadows.

Younger students could have a blast with this!!

And just think, all this started with a bunch of left over foam core (which, it seems, I still haven't figured out what to do with)!!!

Hope everyone is enjoying a relaxing summer!