Kindergarten Value Flowers

In Kindergarten, we looked at the artwork of Georgia O'Keeffe and saw how she used her colors and value to create beautiful flowers.  We then created our own colorful flowers using chalk to get our values.  The kindergarteners had a great time making their flowers and seeing how vibrant the colors were against the black paper.

This was a really fun project for the kids, a little messy but they did great!

Fourth Grade Picasso Portrait

   In fourth grade, we looked at the many portraits of Pablo Picasso and discussed his technique used to create them.  We also discussed personal symbols that sometimes artists put in to portraits to give a hint of themselves being in the image. 

    Students created an outline of a head, they were instructed to create an organic shape so both sides were not equal.  They then drew a line down the center and created a face, different on each side.  The students then filled in their portrait with watercolor pencils and painted over with a wet brush so the colors blended together.  Once dry, the portraits were outlined with sharpie so the pencil could be seen through the paint.  Students also added symbols into their artwork that represented themselves as an individual.

Kindergarten Cubist Heart

     In Kindergarten, we looked at the artwork of Pablo Picasso the famous cubist artist.  We discussed how in his artwork, the viewer can see many different shapes.  We also discussed value and how artists use it within their artwork to create light and shadow.  Students created a drawing of a heart and then divided it up to create a cubist heart, so their goal was to have many shapes inside but not too small.

     Inside of the shapes, the students used crayons of any color to create value.  The goal for the value was to go from dark to light.  They really enjoyed seeing that they could create a darker value with the crayon as well as a lighter value.  The end result looks great!

Second Grade Cave Art

  One of the last projects we did in Second Grade for the 2013-14 year was look at Cave Art.  We talked about how the cave people were using their world around them to communicate with one another through pictures.  The second graders loved looking at some cave videos from around the world, showing the elaborate cave drawings deep inside.
      We also read the book The First Drawing, where a young cave boy creates the very first drawing. Students created their own animal stencil inspired by the various creatures we looked at in the cave drawings.  We focused on the fact that cave people created their own paints to work with, so with our stencil we used neutral colored paints and filled in multiple copies of the animals.  We layered and overlapped as well as created motion.  The students had a great time painting their animals and seeing the end result!

Third Grade Georgia O'Keeffe Flowers

One of the last projects of the year for third grade was inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe.  We read a book about her life and journey as an artist and we discussed how she used her surroundings to create her art.  We talked about how her some of her art is abstracted, larger than real life or slightly altered.  We then began creating our very own flowers.  First, students created a stencil to use for their flower's petals.  The stencil could be whatever shape they wanted, just as long as it was fairly large.  Then, students were instructed to overlap the stencil and trace it around an already pre-cut flower center stencil.  This created their basic flower outline. 

     Once the flower was on paper, students filled the interior with multiple colors of watercolor.  We referenced Georgia's works and how she really looked and identified/amplified the colors within her subjects.  The students then selected a color to fill the background space that was showing.  The petals were outlined with oil pastel to help them stand out.  Third grade really enjoyed working on this project, the freedom they had with the shapes and the design really allowed them to take ownership of their creativity.

First Grade Cave Art

     One of the last projects we did in first grade for the 2013-14 year was look at Cave Art.  We talked about how the cave people were using their world around them to communicate with one another through pictures.  The first graders loved looking at some cave videos from around the world, showing the elaborate cave drawings deep inside.

      We also read the book The First Drawing, where a young cave boy creates the very first drawing.  Using inspiration from the cave animals we saw in the videos and images, the students created their own rock wall drawing.  After completing their animal depiction, we created symbols often found in the caves behind our animals.  The students were then instructed to crumple up their paper, carefully, to give their artwork the feel and appearance of a rock wall.  Most of the kiddos had a difficult time doing this because they were worried about ruining their artwork, some really liked being able to do it and ended up ripping their paper because they went too fast.  In the end, the results from everyone were great!

Fifth Grade Sports Sphere

In Fifth Grade, we finished taking the idea of value to the next level.  With our Cubist drawings, we began investigating the idea of a Value Scale and how artists use it to create light and dark areas within their artwork.  Within the Sports Sphere project, students were given the opportunity to create values in paint using Tints and Shades as well as using their values to create the illusion of a three dimensional object.

We first practiced combining the idea of a value scale to a sphere using charcoal.  The students enjoyed getting to use this tool, not only do you get pretty messy with charcoal the tool allows for an easier creation of values.  They enjoyed both of these things.

On the second day, we talked about Tints (adding white to make a color lighter) and Shades (adding black to make a color darker) and how they relate to the value scales.  We then created both a value scale and a sphere with values with paint.  The students did a great job with this step of the process!

For the final step of the project, the students selected a sports ball to create.  They placed their circle onto their final paper and created a design in the background.  Some chose to make an illustration and others created pretty amazing geometric designs.  The students then selected a color to paint their sphere with using Tints and Shades, I allowed them the opportunity to chose a color that might be different than what the ball is in real life.  We then used oil pastels to add the threads or patches onto the sports ball and then used colored pencils or crayons to fill in the background. 

Second Grade Paper Mache Bugs

In Second Grade, we just finished looking at a sculptural technique called paper mache.  The students were shown various paper mache artworks, some by artists who created their sculptures in life size scale and others who created more smaller scaled works.  The students enjoyed seeing the variety of possibilities that paper mache allowed the artist to create.  We started off the project by brainstorming a bug to create, then sketches were made.  Students worked off of these sketches, treating them like building plans... which, when most artists work with sculpture they have some type of plan to guide their work.  In total, the project lasted about 6 days.

Students first created the Armature of their sculpture, this is a lot like the skeleton of the paper mache.  It is what provides the shape of the end result.  Upon completion of the Armature, students then began adding paper mache layers onto their sculptures.  I was worried they would not like the feeling of the paste, which is quite slimy and gooey, but they enjoyed the process of adding their papers onto the Armature.  After the projects dried, students then painted their bugs according to their sketch.  Some chose to get creative with their bug's coloring while others stayed true to their bug's realistic appearance.