5th Grade Ndebele-Inspired Paintings

My 5th grade African-inspired Art lesson was based on painted houses in South Africa created by the Ndebele tribe. (I had to look up how to pronounce it!) The designs on the houses are so cool- definitely the most inspiring thing I came across when researching Art from Southern Africa. The houses are painted by women in the tribe and usually feature geometric shapes, bright colors, and symmetrical designs.

Source: ndebelevillage.co.za via Katie on Pinterest

I decided that the project would be creating a painting that was inspired by the house paintings. The students were to make a symmetrical design with geometric shapes and then to tie in color theory, they had to mix each secondary color and at least one tint.

Source: academic.evergreen.edu via Katie on Pinterest

THIS was the best resource I found to explain the significance and process of the traditional Ndebele house paintings. The first step in creating the designs is to divide the wall into sections by creating diagonal lines. I let the students use the straight edge of a ruler to make diagonal lines (a big "X") from corner to corner and the rest of their designs were created with black tempera paint directly on the paper. Some acted nervous about not using pencils first but once they got started, everybody just relaxed into the process.

I originally planned for this to take 2 classes (I'm always optimistic) but I had to add a 3rd. The first day was for the introduction and using black tempera paint to plan out the symmetrical geometric design. In the 2nd class, the students were given tempera paint in the primary colors and white. In the 3rd class, the students finished painting with color and then did touchups with more black tempera paint. Several finished early and had time to write artist statements about their projects:

Cole1264 says this about his/her art... I made a painting related to the Ndeble tribe with many colors. I used regular paints and geometric shapes. my art teacher told us to make them and make them imaginative. I learned how to say the name and I learned that mostly women do the painting. I think my painting is colorful and artistic. but, I think I could have used a bit more designs. I think the best part of my painting was the colors and the shapes.

Destiny2778 says this about his/her art...

I made a painting that is inspired by the people of the Ndebele tribe. my painting is a mixture of shapes, colors, and crazy designs, but I wish I didn't make so many shapes, that ws really confusing! Well... thanks for choosing my art to look at! :)

Kaelan34 says this about his/her art...

This is a painting that uses primary colors, secondary colors, and a tint color. People in the Ndebele tribe draw designs on their houses. Then they paint in the designs. Then they have a colorful house. it's pretty much what I did except on paper. This was a fun project.

I really loved this project and I think the students enjoyed it just as much as me! I'm calling it a keeper! I think it worked because the inspiration caught their attention and they were able to make personal choices within a structure. You can see more in our Artsonia exhibit.

1st Grade Tornado Safety

When I was standing in the hallway during a tornado drill (very important here in Kansas) thinking about how my students are fascinated by tornadoes, I decided to try my tornado safety lesson from last spring again, only reworked.  Last year the lesson was strictly collage, this year I went with a mixed media approach.

Day 1: Review tornado safety, read the tips I compiled after viewing kids' weather websites (two good ones: Weather WizKids and FEMA for Kids), tell the students they are going to be making artwork with tornadoes in it, quiet the cheers, continue with the lesson!  On the first day, after reviewing geometric shapes, I remind the students that shapes can be combined to make pictures of other things.  I ask the students to paint squares or rectangles touching the bottom of their gray construction paper and then cut and glue newspaper triangles to make roofs.  

I can't remember where I saw this idea, but we used magazine papers as palettes.  I was able to give each student their own squirt of paint in each of the primary colors so they could mix their own colors to make the houses.  This worked great and I will definitely use the idea again!  I gave everybody a squirt of one color at a time before I started a rotation with the next color.  When they were done, magazine pages were folded in half and thrown away!

Day 2: I reviewed organic shapes and told the students that tornadoes have organic shapes.  I gave each student a 9x6 inch piece of black construction paper and showed them how to tear a tornado shape.  I pointed out that tornadoes are usually wider at the top and skinnier at the bottom.  I tore my tornado and then messed it up on purpose so I could show the students how to fix it if they made a mistake.  I told them not to be afraid of trying something new.  Nobody got a new piece of paper because it was impossible to mess it up!  Lots of chanting (by me and other students) of "If you make a mistake, make it great!)  After the tornado shapes were glued down, I gave each student a preprinted sentence that said one of the safety tips we covered on the first day.  Students cut the words apart and glued down on their tornadoes.  I stressed the importance of reading the sentence before they cut the words apart so it was easy to keep them in the right order.

I didn't have the students write their own tips honestly because I was afraid of them writing safety tips that would not really be good things to do during a tornado.  Next year I will ask the first grade teachers if/when they cover weather in science to see if they could have the kids write a safety tip in the classroom to incorporate in their art projects.  I gave the longer sentences to the students who I thought could handle more words.  After the words were glued down, the students added storm details with crayon.

Our Tornado Safety Tips

• Stay alert about dangerous weather.
• Have a plan for what to do in a tornado.
• Stay away from windows.
• Go to a basement or interior room.
• If you are in a car, get out and seek shelter.
• If you can't get inside, find a ditch, lie down, and cover your head.

4th Grade Shape Paintings

Last year I had all my 4-6th grade students vote on their favorite projects to help me decide which ones were "keepers".  My 4th grade students voted for Geometric Shape Op Art (click on the link to see last year's projects) and landscape paintings that blended watercolors and had salt sprinkled on it to make bright colors with cool texture.  I wasn't totally satisfied with either project.  The landscape idea came from my cooperating teacher during student teaching and though I changed it a little bit and loved the bright, finished paintings, I thought it was lacking.  The Op Art project was very frustrating and didn't turn out the best even though I felt I had good intentions of covering lots of material- shape, complementary colors, math tie in, etc.  I decided to combine the two projects and I am much happier with it!

I got a list of the geometric shapes that are on the 4th grade math assessment to start.  I printed the shapes off on colored card stock, laminated, and cut so that each table would have a set of tracers.  I also had compasses available to make larger circles.  At the beginning of the first class, we reviewed organic and geometric shapes and the students named the geometric shapes as I held them up in the air.  I explained the first step: trace geometric shapes on your paper to create an interesting composition with overlapping.  The students traced with pencil then traced the pencil with fine point sharpies.  I was looking at the drawings and saw something that would become a problem with the next step- the negative space was one giant shape!  I had the students get rulers and use the straight edge to make 3 or 4 lines at different angles go clear across their paper.

On day 2, I introduced analagous colors.  I showed the students the colors that are next to each other on the color wheel are also next to each other in the watercolor paint trays.  I spent a couple minutes quizzing them to check for understanding.

Iif you are only using analgous colors would you ever use red and green?

If you are using orange, what two colors could you combine with it?

Etc.

I pointed out how new shapes are created when the geometric shapes or lines overlapped.  I told the students that each shape should have two analagous colors in it.  I demonstrated carefully painting in half of a shape and then while the paint was still wet, painting the other half with an analagous color so that they would blend in the middle.  I showed the students how to sprinkle a TINY bit of salt on the wet paint to create a texture.  They always think it's like magic to see the salt soak up the paint.  I suggested that the students skip around their paper instead of painting shapes that were touching for two reasons.  1- That gives the paint a chance to dry so colors don't bleed into other shapes.  2- It's one of my "artist tricks".  If you run out of time and things are balanced, it looks like it's on purpose.  If you run out of time and one half is painted and the other half is empty, it's obvious that you ran out of time!

I was only planning on 2 classes for this project but had to add another one.  Some students achieved a nice balance between the colored and white spaces but most did not and they looked unfinished.  About 2/3 of the students were able to get every shape painted in the 2nd class.  Learned helplessness is a big problem at my school.  We have discussed it as a staff and try things like encouraging the students to see what others are doing bore they ask the teacher for help.  I had lots and lots of students coming up to ask me if two colors were ok to use together after we spent a good amount of time on it.  I didn't want to just say yes or no, I wanted the studnets to figure it out!  I started asking them "Are they next to each other on the color wheel?"  Then they would go look and get to work.

I have one 4th grader who is quite a character. He LOVES Art (last year he asked me every single time he came to class if we were going to do an Art contest!) but is not the best at following directions or using good craftsmanship. Needless to say, he kind of struggled with this project.  I also had a student turn his wet painting totally sideways up in the air to show me.  He learned cause and effect as his paint blurred together and dripped down his paper!



2nd Grade Painting with Scissors

2nd grade students learned about Matisse and created cut paper collages.  The project was pretty much the same as last year, you can read more details on that post.  

My "rules" for this project:

• Use both organic and geometric shapes
• Use a variety of colors
• "Draw" with the scissors, cut shapes directly from paper without drawing in pencil first

When students finished their individual collages, I had them cut a shape and add it to the giant collage.  I cut a big piece of butcher paper and glued some whole construction paper pieces to it.  When it was finished and every student had had a chance to add their shape, I hung it in the hallway with lots of tape on the background and a border of tape around it.  It was a lot easier for me to hang one big piece of art than 100+ to show the project since I was 37 weeks pregnant at the time!  I know that it stayed on the wall for at least the next week and I was on maternity leave after that so I don't know it it's still up or not...  Guess I'll find out in a few weeks!

1st Grade Geometric Shape Drawings

This was a good one class period project.  I got the idea from a drawing given to me by a student last year.  The student had filled her whole piece of paper with overlapping rectangles in different colors and I loved how it looked.  Since 1st grade had been covering shapes, it seemed like a good time to do the project.  We reviewed the 5 basic geometric shapes and I asked the students to choose just one to use in their artwork.  The students were encouraged to use lots of colors and also needed to have overlapping shapes.  I tried to get them to use the yellow marker first if they were going to include yellow, to try to keep the markers the original color.  A couple of students tried to use a rhombus but had a hard time drawing the shape.  Circles were the most popular shape chosen but the students could also use an ellipse, rectangle, square, or triangle.

1st Grade Circle Prints

 This idea was inspired by the circle printing lesson on Art is the Best Part of the Day.  This was a two class period project.  On the first day, we reviewed organic and geometric shapes (that seems to be my "thing" this year) and talked about how overlapping creates new shapes.  We used styrofoam cups like I saw on Art is the Best Part of the Day but we also added cardboard tubes for variety in size paint.  I put black tempera paint out in little trays and showed the students how to stick the cups and tubes in the paint, then print on their papers.  I asked the students to have overlapping and to fill the space.  

On day 2, I showed the students how to find the new shapes that were created by overlapping and asked them to not have two shapes of the same color that touched.  I also reminded them to trace the outline of the shape with crayon first before carefully coloring the inside.

Some students got a little carried away with printing and had LOTS of little shapes to try to color in.  I encouraged the students to take their time and think about where they were putting each circle but some just couldn't resist! :)

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