4th-6th Grade Choice Paintings

I'm starting to see some really cool ideas and deep thinking in my intermediate students' paintings. Some are doing simple paintings, but wow, some are really pushing themselves. The first painting in this post really impressed me. I need to find her artist statement and read how she came up with the idea. Obviously the reflection in the tear drop shows why the girl is crying. The student worked really hard on getting her skin and nose painted correctly. I also really love her composition. It's nice to see something zoomed in when it's usually so hard to get students to fill the space. Just ignore the anatomical error of the tear coming out of the iris instead of the tear duct. :)

I'll admit it. When I walked by and caught a glimpse of the painting above, and the student who was painting it, I thought he was just being sloppy. I didn't say anything and instead decided to wait and see what happened. I came back by later and totally changed my perception of the artwork. Look at the energy! I think the colors and the way in which they were applied really match the subject of the painting- someone jumping to shoot a basketball.

An experiment in mixing colors. 

Oil Pastel wax resist is a fun technique. I really like the expressive lines.

Junky Watercolors and Jasper Johns

Prang watercolor trays are about the only watercolors I use at school. They are easy to pass out and a tray can usually be shared between at least 2 or 3 students. Buuuut, some colors run out faster than others, and some just start looking really dingy when you get a student who is maybe not paying as much attention as they should be. When it comes time to replace the strip with new paint, I pop out any wells that still have color in them and store them in a tub. Later on if a color runs out in a new strip, I may have a replacement. I've also found it useful to make custom trays for the student who for lack of coordination, attention, or any other reason, just cannot handle sharing paint or following directions.

During a recent Kindergarten lesson, the students were working on wax resist paintings inspired by Jasper Johns' work. In the first class period, they used oil pastels to draw letters and numbers in a composition on their paper. In the second class period, the students painted over with watercolors. Since the K-6 Art SMART goal this year was to focus on learning primary and secondary colors with Kindergarten students, I asked the students to only use primary paint colors.

Most students did a good job taking care of our new paints and cleaning brushes before switching colors, as seen below.

Some students, usually about one in each class, struggled. I had one little guy who never really seemed to understand directions on any project. He struggled with keeping the shared paint neat. After more demonstration and several reminders, the students he was sharing with were still complaining of him messing up all the other paints. I pulled down an old empty tray and filled it with just the primary colors and it went more smoothly the rest of class. He was still messy, but the other students were not suffering from messy supplies that were not their fault.

I also have a couple students who just don't want to follow directions out of defiance or stubbornness, and they ended up with the limited palette since they couldn't handle the temptation of the other colors.*

*Typing "the temptation of the other colors" kind of makes me feel bad! I've felt a pull toward TAB the last couple of years but can't quite figure out how to pull it off in my school environment with the expectations we have on us. If I had my own independently run studio for teaching Art, I would totally take a TAB approach.

Here are a few of the finished paintings. It wasn't my favorite lesson of all time, but it hit on Art History, color theory, and painting. It also helped work on my SMART goal and tied in skills that are emphasized in the Kindergarten curriculum with letter recognition and printing.

 Inspiration from Zilker Elementary Art Class and Lessons from the K-12 Art Room.

1st Grade "Value" Money Lesson

Last fall when our district Art department was learning about African cultures, a middle school teacher who had visited South Africa spoke to us about her trip. She shared a lot of interesting/inspiring information, but what stuck out most to me to inspire an Art lesson was a comment she made about their money. She showed a photo of bills from South Africa and said (I'm paraphrasing here) "We have dead presidents (and Ben Franklin) on our money, they put animals because that's what is valued." The idea of money not just being valued, but showing what is valued stuck with me. 

We spent time looking at money- REAL money when I passed out $1 bills for observation and images of currency from the US and other countries. We watched a video about how US bills are designed and printed (careers in Art, people!), compared US bills to South African bills, and came up with features that are common in most printed money before the students designed their own bills showcasing what they value. 

I've decided to embed the complete lesson and post some of the resources we used below, as well as student work.

1st Grade Currency Design Katie Morris

Via

Source: google.com via Katie on Pinterest

The video above is Field Trip to the Money Factory- it was created by Kids.gov and shows interviews with a banknote designer (talks about symbolism) and a script engraver.

These were the required elements of the students' designs.

I think if I teach this again, I may try using colored permanent markers for the details instead of crayon. A lot of the first graders struggled with wax-resist. Some didn't press hard enough with the crayon and some scrubbed when painting and practically dissolved their paper. They were very proud of their money and couldn't wait to take them home to show their parents. I would also like to try this with older students sometime. I bet 5th and 6th graders could make some awesome designs.

I let the students pick whatever amount they wanted their bill to be worth. If I had realized sooner that 1st grade works on number recognition to 100, I would have asked that they choose a number 1-100 to integrate some of their math curriculum.

1st Grade African Penguins

If you live in Northeast Kansas, you may have heard about the Topeka Zoo's Penguin Plunge. 6 African penguins are spending the summer in a temporary exhibit (visiting from Omaha) in an effort to educate visitors about penguins, conservation, and all that other good zoo stuff. :) That seemed like a pretty good reason to do a penguin project to me!

We started by learning the American Sign Language signs for "True" and "False" then using our new signs to answer questions about penguins. I read the questions first and saw the students' answers, then we went back through to find out what was really true and false. By signing the words, we added a kinesthetic action and I was able to find out preconceived ideas without shouting! It was so quiet and the students were so excited to answer that I want to (learn and) teach more signs in the future.

Questions

Penguins eat fish. (True)

All penguins live where it is very cold. (False)

Penguins live at the North Pole. (False)

Penguins live in Antarctica. (True)

Penguins live in Africa. (True)

Penguins can fly. (False)

 Next, I showed a short video clip of African penguins swimming and we looked at some photos to discuss the special features of the African penguins. I mainly pointed out the "rainbow" shape on the chest and where the black and white sections connect. The students also noticed that some have "freckles". 

The inspiration for how the penguins would look came from Mary Making's Pop Art Chimps. In her lesson, the students made paintings then drew chimps on top with charcoal. I liked the look but the process wouldn't have worked well with my 1st graders. I printed out reference photos of penguins to put at each table so the students would have choices. I asked them to draw one penguin as big as they could fit it on their paper. Next, they traced all their lines with black crayon then we decided to color in the black areas as well. In the 2nd class period when the tracing and coloring was done, the students used watercolor paint to create shapes and patterns. The black of the penguins showed through in a wax-resist.

*I LOVE the 16 color set of Prang watercolors. The extra 8 are really vibrant and the students like being able to mix more colors.

 

 On Monday I took my mother-in-law and my son to the zoo. The penguins were just sort of hanging out on top of the rocks so they were harder to see than if they had been in the water. We still had fun checking out the other animals. Here is a picture of my MIL and my son by a life size display. (The penguin species on the far right is extinct in case you wondered!)

K- The Very Hungry Caterpillar's Fruit

 These Eric Carle inspired fruit collages were one of the last assignments my Kindergarteners completed this school year. We spent 3 class periods on the project but covered a lot of concepts!

Concepts covered

Illustrations

Color- Complementary, Analogous

Texture

Painting- Wax Resist, Tempera

Drawing

Shape

Collage- Cutting, Gluing

Space- Positive and Negative

In the first class period, I showed an animated video of The Very Hungry Caterpillar that I found on YouTube. I wish I had noticed that it is the story this month on Barnes & Noble's Online Storytime so we could have had Eric Carle read it to us! After the video, we talked about how the illustrations were made and watched a video clip of Eric Carle painting papers in his studio. I gave each student a 6x9 inch piece of paper on which they used crayons to create texture. I explained that the students would be making fruit collages and we talked about the colors of different kinds of fruit. The students chose the appropriate color of watercolor paint and used it to create a wax-resist painting.

In the second class period, I introduced the concept of complementary colors since the background would be the complement to the fruit's color. I explained that complementary colors are like best friends- they are opposite on the color wheel but make each other look brighter when they are side by side. I quizzed the students to make sure they got it. (If you painted a red apple, what color will your background be? If you painted a yellow banana, what color will you use?) Next, I demonstrated painting with tempera and adding texture using a texture comb or the wrong end of the paintbrush. For the first class I taught this lesson to, I gave every student a piece of gray construction paper since I figured it would be covered up anyway. These ended up being a little dull. In the next classes, I gave the students a piece of construction paper analogous to the color of paint they would be using on their background. (Ex: If their background would be painted purple, I either gave them blue or red paper to paint on top of.) This made things a lot more colorful and interesting when hints of it show through. This did add considerably more time to set up but I think it was worth it.

On the third day, I asked the students to draw the outline of their fruit on the BACK of their wax-resist paper. I checked each one to make sure it was big enough (touching at least 2 sides of the paper) before  cutting. After the students cut, I came around and punched a 1 inch hole in their fruit somewhere to show where the caterpillar munched through like in the book. This allowed us to talk about positive and negative space. The students glued their shapes down and we shared scraps to make stems and leaves if needed.

*I bought a Martha Stewart 1 inch punch at Michaels for this project and I really like it! It was on sale so the price was reasonable and it seems really sturdy. I saved the painted paper circles that were punched out and used them on my hallway signs. I may get really ambitious next year and use the circles to make a bulletin board border.

Students who missed one of the painting days were given a regular piece of construction paper and crayons to create texture. For fruit that needed more than one color, like watermelon, they used solid colored construction paper for the accent.

Kindergarten Wax-Resist Kandinskys

 My original idea for this Kindergarten project was to make wax-resist concentric circles inspired by Wassily Kandinsky, then use the circles as the center of sunflowers. After the students finished painting their circles (on 6 inch square paper), we liked them so much that we didn't want to cut them! 

  Instead, I decided to display them side by side to make a gigantic Kandinsky-inspired bulletin board.

This is just about the longest bulletin board I've ever seen! I had to use some of my examples and make a couple more signs to fill the space.

We've gotten tons of compliments on this project! The artwork really brightened up the hallway. I took the artwork down on Tuesday. Tomorrow is a work day so I'll be finishing up the YAM display.

Kindergarten Line Fish

Paul Klee's The Golden Fish was the inspiration for this project.  I like starting off the year talking about lines with Kindergarten and since we had a fish theme school-wide, Klee's painting was a very appropriate starting point!

Source: dl.ket.org via Katie on Pinterest

When introducing or reviewing lines, my favorite thing to do is draw a line on the chalkboard then we draw the same line in the air with our fingers.  I haven't read a whole lot about "whole brain" teaching, but I've been told that incorporating actions activates a different part of the brain.  If nothing else, I figure it helps students with different learning styles. (And it's kinda fun.)

This was a two class period project.  I always forget how long it takes just to get names on papers at the beginning of the school year with Kindergarten.  So half of the first class was labeling papers and introducing lines.  We looked at Klee's fish paintings and pointed out all the cool lines we could find before the students drew their own fish.  I asked them to only draw lines and shapes, not to color anything in with their pencils.  I did not show students how they had to draw a fish.  When the "I-can't-ers" and the "I-don't-know-how-ers" acted helpless, I pointed out how Klee used simple shapes to make his fish.  Next, I showed the students how to trace over their pencil lines with crayon trying to press really hard.

In the second class, we reviewed lines again and the students used blue crayons to draw lots of different kinds of lines around their fish to represent water and mimic Klee's painting.  I also showed them a couple different ways to draw "ocean plants" at the bottom of their papers.  To create the resist, students painted their papers with large brushes and watered down tempera paint.  I wish I had been brave enough to give them black instead of blue because I love the contrast in Klee's paintings.  I was afraid that their lines would totally disappear since most of the Kinders don't quite have the hand strength to press hard enough with crayon and had to really be encouraged to go back over their lines.  This is a project that I thought was just turing out awful until I came back after a couple days at my other school and looked again.  I think it has potential, but if I do it again, I will probably wait until later in the school year and let the students use whatever paint colors they want with watercolor.

My Monday classes once again had to do a shorter version of the project so they just had crayon drawings with no paint.

 

Check out the rest of the artwork in our Artsonia gallery!