Second Grade Value Night Scene

   In Second Grade, we finished discussing two things that can be seen in many artworks, value and silhouettes.  We learned about silhouettes, shadows of objects without any inside details, and took time to draw four of our own silhouettes for practice.  We also watched this video where a dance group uses their shadows to create different figures.









   Students were then introduced to the concept of value and how artists make value scales.  We used both charcoal and pencil to create a value scale (one for charcoal, one pencil).  Students then applied their knowledge of value to create a night sky, looking something like these:

We created our different value areas by drawing concentric circles, allowing for them a space to put their round value scale.

After our background was done, we learned about how we can use silhouettes to draw a tree.  A tree silhouette was drawn on top of the value sky.

   Here are some final results:

Second Grade Lego Portrait

   In Second Grade, we finished discussing Portrait Artwork and viewing various types of Portraiture.  We took our learned information and applied it to our own Portrait Artwork.  We created a Portrait drawing of a Lego Person.  It could be any Lego person the Artist desired. 

   Stencils were made available if students chose to use one, the Lego outline can be challenging and frustrating for some kiddos to create.  While others chose to challenge themselves and create their Lego outline free-hand. 

   We used crayons to color in our Lego people, some chose to color the background while others left it blank.  Leaving the emphasis on their Lego person.

Second Grade Pointillism Landscape

In Second grade we are finishing our project where we explored the painting technique of Pointillism.  We discussed the Artist Georges Seurat and his paintings, looking at his use of colors and Pointillism.

We learned about the different parts of a Landscape Artwork- Foreground, Middle ground, and Background.  We created sketches where we used our knowledge of the Landscape parts and created our own Landscapes.

After discussing the parts of a Landscape, we started looking at Georges Seurat and his paintings- focusing on his use of Pointillism.  We practiced Pointillism by creating a color wheel and using markers to give the illusion of the colors mixing to create the desired color.  In Pointillism, the painter places colors close together to trick the eye into mixing them.

Here are some of our color wheel practices:

Here is our final Pointillism Landscape:

Second Grade Bird's Eye View City

In Second Grade, our first project was dealing with a drawing technique called Bird's Eye View.  This technique is used to create drawings that appear to be viewed from up in the sky, making the audience feel as if they were flying overhead looking down- Like a bird. 

We created sketches practicing the technique, it has a lot of steps to follow and Second Graders did a great job taking on this challenge!  We used rulers to help guide our building lines to the Vanishing Point on our paper. 

On our final artwork, the students were given pre-cut pieces of construction paper which would be used for the roofs of the buildings.  The students used their rulers to guide their lines down to the ground level.  When finished, they created many different details to complete their cityscape.  Some created oceans and beaches off to the side, others created streets weaving through and parks for their residents to go to.  The process was a great one to watch! 

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!

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.

Second Grade Value Moon

Second Graders are working on discussing value scales and silhouettes.  We watched a pretty cool YouTube video that showed a dance group who projected their silhouettes onto a screen.  The kids really enjoyed watching it.

They had the opportunity to work in charcoal on this project, which they loved.  We practiced by creating value scales, a range of shading that goes from dark to light, and we then created some branch silhouette drawings.

Second Grade Warm and Cool Cityscape

Second graders finished their project focusing on warm and cool colors and three-dimensional forms.  We first practiced making the forms (cubes, spheres, cones, etc...) then we practiced making our sky pattern with the warm or cool colors.  They had a lot of fun creating their own cities, I had fun watching their ideas sprout and grow!

The materials we used were Oil Pastels for the sky and colored pencils for the buildings. 

Second Grade Matisse Collage

Second Graders finished discussing Matisse and his artworks filled with color and shapes.  We also looked at the book When Pigcaso met Mootise, a humerous book which they enjoyed and shares some information about Matisse and his style of work.  I saw this project on another Art teacher's blog and could not wait to try it with second grade!

In this project, students learned about positive and negative space as well as organic and geometric shapes.  Inspired by Matisse, students created their own collages using these four art elements.  They turned out well, each class created such unique pieces!