5th Grade - Monochromatic Collages

This was a multi-faceted project that took itself in a different direction than originally intended - I love when that happens!  It started as a lesson in value, and mixing paints to make a whole palette of various tints and shades of the same color.  Our "palettes" are just pieces of wax paper.  Typically, I have students use little foam plates for mixing colors and we just rinse and re-use them.  However, this time, I realized it wasn't very time efficient for the amount of mixing they'd be doing in 45 minutes.  It worked great - clean up was so easy!

 Next, I asked the 5th graders to paint a piece of paper with all the tints and shades they mixed.  They only had the one class period to do it, so they couldn't think too hard about what was going on the paper!  I encouraged just lines and shapes.

They next class, they explored various ways of cutting up the painted paper and gluing it to the black paper to start a collage.   Some students chose to build their collage 3-dimensionally.

 I also encouraged them to incorporate any of the "odds and ends" from around the art room; fabric, beads, pipe cleaners, yarn, etc...  They could only use objects that fit into their monochromatic color scheme, though!  Some students also added finishing touches with metallic sharpies.



5th Grade - Triangular Design Color Wheels

5th graders reviewed the color wheel, and with this, made a 6-color color wheel.  However, instead of just mixing colors and painting them in a circle, they created a line/shape design inside of a triangle template I gave them.  This design was then traced onto tracing paper and copied onto the larger white paper 6 times using the graphite transfer technique.  To do this, students colored the back of their design on the tracing paper with a graphite stick.  They then turned it back around and traced over their design with the pencil, leaving the graphite marks on the white paper.

Each section of the color wheel was colored with one crayon.  They made different values of the color depending on how hard they pressed with the crayon.

Art Portfolios

I must say, it's great to be back at school!

I started all my classes out with a portfolio design lesson.  Each grade had a separate design, but all included their name or initials.  Here's an example from each grade:

1st Grade; Made a patterned "frame" around their painted first initial

2nd Grade; They first wrote their initials, then filled in the spaces the letters created with various patterns, using marker and/or colorsticks (and using only warm or cool colors).  When finished, they painted over their initials.

3rd Grade; Students started by writing their name in block or bubble letters.  They filled in each letter with a different pattern or design.  The backgrounds were colored with colorsticks.

4th Grade; Students learned about the "layering" style of Jasper Johns by looking at the painting "0 through 9."  They layered their initials, outlined in oil pastel, colored some of the spaces in with crayon and watercolor painted the rest. 

5th Grade; They created radial designs around their names using sharpie and watercolor painted it in.

 6th Grade; They had their first lesson in one point perspective drawing to write their names.  They used white colored pencils to outline and metallic crayons to color them in.

Kindergartners will be making their portfolios in the next couple weeks.  Stay tuned!  :)

5th Grade - Wood Sculptures

Here's some more pictures of the finished wood sculptures.  Students could choose to make their sculpture either realistic or abstract.  They used up to 9 pieces of scrap wood and glued them together with wood glue.  During this project, they found out just how important balance is to a piece of artwork!

 

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Snow, snow, snow!

Today was our third snow day in a row, and sixth total in a month!
This is the snow drift by the front doors of the school...

Needless to say, we haven't gotten too much completed in the art room.  However, there's some great starts to some fun lessons!
One of my favorite lessons is underway - wood sculptures by the 5th graders.  I'm really lucky to have one of the paraprofessionals donate bags of wood scraps to me every year for this project.  Here's some pictures of the works-in-progress.  As you can see, some are close to finished, and some are barely started thanks to the snow days.  Keep posted for more information and pictures in the next week or so!

 

5th Grade - Tessellations

Students learned about MC Escher while creating these tessellations.  They made their own tessellation shape, traced it on the larger paper, and had to transform that shape into an image. 

 

5th Grade - Flowers with an "Ism" Twist

Students first put their still-life drawing skills to the test and drew a flower pot. Next, we discussed and looked at examples of three different styles or "isms" of art that they could use to transform their flower drawings; cubism, impressionism and pointillism. Some students chose to incorporate more than one style. Results were phenomenal!