Art History Snowmen Bulletin Board

This is the only snow we've seen in my part of Kansas since we got maybe an inch back in December. I'm not particularly a fan of being cold, but it would be nice to have one nice, pretty snow this winter!

If I had unlimited time with my students, I would have had the older kids research an artist or movement, then create a snowman (snowperson) inspired by the Art History they learned about. Because I only see my older students for 40 minutes, every other week, when they don't miss due to holidays, conferences, breaks, etc., I knew they would not have time to do the project the way I would want. So, I changed the idea from a student project into a bulletin board. I spent a bit of time brainstorming artists whose paintings gave me ideas for snow people. Some flopped, some turned out ok and made it onto the bulletin board.

I didn't talk to the students about the bulletin board, or even really encourage them to guess. I just thought it might spark interest. It would have been more successful as a learning tool if we had covered the artists who inspired the snowmen. I heard some students saying it was "cool" as I was hanging the bulletin board but I don't know if they ever had a chance to stop and read it. I did have several teachers trying to guess, so that was fun! One told me she saw an art reproduction puzzle at a toy store and it helped her figure out a snowman. Another said she should see if her daughter could put her experience in Art History classes to use to figure it out.

By the way, it's harder than you might think to design somewhat recognizable Art History snowmen! 

Some, I thought of right away. Like this guy, inspired by Magritte's The Son of Man (though the "Man" has a face in his painting). 

 The Mondrian snowman was an early idea as well.

 My Picasso snowman started to get a little tricky. Why? Cubism doesn't usually keep clearly defined edges of painted objects and I needed to be able to cut out my snowman. So this painting was my inspiration. I tried showing the nose from two different angles and incorporating patterns like in Picasso's painting.

My Keith Haring snowman was pretty easy. You can kind of tell from the photo that I used clear tape to hold the lines next to the snowman without being attached by paper.

 And this guy is inspired by Matisse's cut paper artwork. It was hard because I figured the snow should probably still be white! I tried to layer organic shapes but nobody really "got" this one.

I have little notes written to myself with ideas for next year. I may try it at my other school where we have Art twice as often and have more time for Art History.

2nd and 3rd Grade Snowpeople

Here are a couple snowpeople projects my 2nd and 3rd grade students completed in December. I have to say snow"people" because you know, it's an inclusive term and doesn't leave out the lovely snowladies.

2nd grade students learned how to overlap circles and create the look of spheres by adding VALUE with oil pastels. We've been on a value/shading kick in 2nd grade. My Tuesday classes who had an extra day practiced drawing and shading spheres in graphite in the first class then finished drawing their snowpeople scenes in the second class. Some still don't quite get that the shadows would always be on the same side but at least they are starting to understand shading. I'm hoping it will help when they start working on their duck stamp drawings in a few weeks. I left this lesson last year when I was on maternity leave and I think it went pretty well this year. I wasn't super excited about it, probably because it's a lesson you see all the time, but I suppose there's a reason it's tried and true! One little boy put his snowman in a leather jacket, which was super cute, but then he colored his sky in black behind it and it sort of disappeared. We're working on contrast...

 I had intended for 3rd graders to make snowpeople prints. but we made some changes.. 

I demonstrated overlapping the circles to make them look like stacked spheres on a snowperson, both as if you were looking straight at it and as if you were looking up to give them more options, then reviewed horizon lines. The students had a lot of freedom- their only requirements were to make a snowperson with overlapping and a horizon line. Any other features and details were up to them. They drew on these dense fiber board things, I really have no idea what they were used for but they are awesome, then traced with glue. *Of course when you trace a drawing with glue, you have to remind the students not to draw anything too small and to leave space between things so the glue lines don't run together or turn into big blobs. This started as another lesson I left during maternity leave.

 Last year the students used rainbow crayons made from recycled crayon stubs to rub over paper and make their drawings show through. I thought it would work to print the glue lines but when I tested mine, the glue was so bumpy that it was hard to make out the picture. I knew the students' lines were even bumpier so we changed the plan. I used it as an opportunity to talk to the students about problem solving and things not always going how we plan. I wanted to show them that even though my first idea didn't work very well, I didn't give up, just came up with something that would work better.

I haven't decided if covering the tables with vinyl cloths save time or not when cleaning up from painting...

In the second class period, I gave each table the primary colors, white, and just a tiny bit of black tempera paint to use. *It's amazing how many students will tell me I forgot green paint, for example, immediately after we review mixing primary colors to make the other colors they need! I showed them how they could use blue to add some shading (VALUE!) to their snowpeople. They were excited about making tints just like in their Polar Bear paintings. I gave them two brush sizes to use and suggested that they use the tiny brush to paint over the glue outlines of really important things. I actually don't mind the effect of the super-cheap-tempera-paint-I-wish-I-wouldn't-have-ordered here. It acted as almost a glaze and looked pretty cool with the glue showing through for snowflakes.

No fashionable snowlady would be seen in public without her makeup and best jewelry.

Students who missed the glue day drew with crayon then painted.