Braque & Britto ... post number 1

I began to map out a still life/observational drawing lesson inspired by Romero Britto, then I went to the Met in NYC about a month ago and had the most amazing discovery.... George Braque's "The Studio".

Braque's painting had the same use of outline and broken up space that Britto uses in his work. 

The craziest discovery- when I was doing research on the artists I found out that Braque died in 1963 and Britto was born in 1963-- how weird is that?!! 

"Braque and Britto"... the words just flow together so easily, it was meant to be!

The above images are slides from the power point I created to introduce my students to the work of Romero Britto, George Braque, still life art, and pop art. I will post the entire power point for use soon. 

I am in the middle of doing this project two ways with my fourth and fifth graders. We are almost finished and it has been really successful. 

**We began by doing CONTOUR drawings of three objects (a tall glass bottle, and two different pitchers).

Then the students traced them with black crayon. 

Version A (grade 4):

Students broke up the space in the BACKGROUND first - using the way Britto breaks up the space through out his pictures and filling in with patterns. We used black crayon to outline and Crayola Oil Slicks to fill it in. 

Version B (grade 5):

Students broke up the space throughout the entire composition and took overlapping of lines and spaces into consideration.

The students are filling in the OBJECTS FIRST. 

We are doing a study of analagous colors- 

and each object was filled in using one trio of analagous colors. 

Here is my analagous color chart-- my mantra is 

"Analagous colors are THREE COLORS IN A ROW, JUST LIKE WINNING TIC TAC TOE".

You'll never forget it...

Stay tuned as our project continues!!... :)

April Showers

My K & 1st grade April Showers bring May Flowers installation!

Fun experiments in watercolor and resist and cutting practice.

(raindrops were blue liquid watercolor and salt- painted on both sides so they didn't curl)

Versatile Blogger Award!!

Holy Moly!!

Double Versatile blogger award (and a few new followers as a result, woo hoo)!

Thank you oodles and boodles Mrs. Hahn at Mini Matisse and Hannah at Art Paper Scissors.

I owe Mrs. Hahn an extra thank you for her great ATC package I received way too far back and a promise that your students will get one back asap! Unfortunately due to snow days, testing, a crazy schedule, and a tough year our ATC project keeps not working out as I would like.



A few things about me in no particular order:
- My nana just turned 90, my mom is about to turn 60, and I just turned 30--- it's a 30/60/90 year, crazy!
- I'm an author! I co-wrote a chapter in the book Teach Boldly! that was published last year.
- Two of my all time greatest mentors: Patty Bode and Margo Mensing - they are amazing educators, artists, and researchers... google them! (and if Patty is ever presenting at a convention or somewhere you are going to be- GO SEE HER! you will not regret it and you will instead be truly inspired!)
- After college I worked for an amazing company called e ko logic- an accessories company that makes all of its items out of recycled sweaters, I learned SO much about recycling fabric, color, and how to pick out cashmere sweaters in thrift stores.
- I spent 5 months in Ghana for my semester abroad in college almost 10 years ago- I have a serious love for West African art and culture- if you ever need resources, pictures, etc. do not hesitate to contact me!
- I just can't seem to give up waitressing.... hopefully by the end of the year.
- I love beets!... my boyfriend is obsessed with my love of beets (I love beet greens even more I think.) Here's a picture of this beet pesto/pasta sauce recipe I made a few weeks ago after a trip to the winter farmers market... yup, that's beautiful magenta pasta!

Blogs to check out:
Mrs. Brown - a fellow art teacher in my district! Amy is so amazingly dedicated to her web audience!
New City Arts -
   a good friend of mine teaches at this school and told me I HAD to check out this beautiful blog
All Things Paper - lots of good inspiration for projects
Art Enrichment - Danielle is a fellow Tufts University M.A.T. alum, her blog is pretty new so I figured  
   I'd give her some promotion
Art Explorium - another Massachusetts art teacher!
Jeanne Williamson - Jeanne often teaches and shows her work at the Danforth Museum of Art where I
  work, her fiber arts and mixed media work is fantastic and really interesting- her blog has a wealth of
  links to great artists

Incan Inti Masks

I used to do an Incan mask lesson adapted from Crayola using model magic, however due to my lower budget and being out of model magic I decided to change up my mask lesson and it was very successful.

The third graders study the Inca prior to their unit on Native Americans. They know a lot and are excited to share their knowledge with me and apply it to their art lesson.
We looked at various Incan representations of Inti the sun god and identified shapes and lines we recognize. We also discussed what the use of the semi-circle on the head could represent.

On 9 x 12 tag board- horizontal- the students traced half of a paper plate to create the large semi-circle shape. They chose wood pieces to represent parts of the face and ears and glued them down. 

Then they finished drawing designs and shapes with pencil and traced everything with black sharpie. 

Then next class the students cut out their mask. Then they painted with golds, and used metallic markers finish adding ornamentation. (I am very strict with the metallic markers, they are awesome- however I say they are only for small areas and lines - NOT for big spaces, paint is for big spaces, otherwise they die very quickly.)

Kinder Cherry Blossom Trees

This lesson took two 30-minute class sessions. We discussed attributes of Japanese cherry blossom trees and the parts of a tree. Using recycled pieces of grocery bags the kindergarteners cut up strips and then "built" a tree starting with the trunk, making sure to incorporate interesting branches.

After crumpling up various pink tissue paper pieces and adhering them with glue stick the students added on clouds of white tissue paper and practiced their angle cutting skills by cutting green construction paper scraps for the grassy ground. 

Matisse Posting #3: for the younger ones

The following are examples of K & 1 students after examining paper cuttings by Matisse.

Kindergarteners testing out cutting symmetrical shapes and spaces and arranging the elements:

The first graders had a little more exposure to symmetry so we focused on constructing interesting compositions out of the cut paper, added cut scrap paper, and stamped circles and lines with scraps of mat board and empty glue sticks dipped in tempera. 

This was a follow up activity- drawing with white and black crayon first and then adding marker.

When the students finished we looked at each others papers to see what the shapes reminded us of.

Kindergarten Goldfish Bowls:

Selections from my informative (in progress in some pics) bulletin board: