An artist talks with pictures!

I'm an artist and I talk with pictures! This is how I display instructions for my kindergarten and first grade classes. I printed the pictures, had them laminated, and put magnets on the back.

First Grade Color Wheels

I love to start the year off with color. I think it really sets the foundation for the year. I'm always trying to think of different ways to go over the color wheel without making it the same ole thing. I decided with this project that I would also incorporate value, pattern, and emphasis.
I started by having the students paint a gray vase. They had to mix to make the gray. They painted the "table" black, and put a pattern in the background.

The next class they added the stem and petals. I think this may be a keeper.

Crayon Shaving Fall Trees

We are on Thanksgiving break right now and I feel like autumn is fleeting. I've always felt that the Friday after turkey day was the beginning for Christmas  and winter festivities. So here is my last post related to fall because next you will be seeing snowmen and snowflakes!

I did this project with my first graders. We first talked about which season we were in and the different attributes that went along with fall. Namely, colorful falling leaves.

I showed them how to create their trees with brown construction paper. After they were done creating the tree they brought me their picture so that I could add crayon pieces and iron the wax paper together. We had a nice orderly system going that worked really well.

After their paper was fused together, they added a black border and put a fall pattern on it with oil pastels. 

I have to say that I didn't intend for them to be sun-catchers. I was just simply holding them up to look at and realized how great and vivid  they looked with the light shining through.

I decided to display them in the windows above the front door. This is a heavily trafficked area where I knew the student's work would stand out. 

This was a great one day project that included science in the art making. The students really enjoyed it and thought it was so cool how the crayons melted. I am excited to do this project again next year.

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Color Bugs!!!

I wanted to think of a unique way to introduce color mixing to my first graders and came up with this idea. First we read the story Mouse Paint and discussed primary and secondary colors. The students mixed their colors, drew their backgrounds, and collaged their bugs to complete their beautiful pictures. 

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Art Camp: Gees Bend Inspired Paper Quilts

Tomorrow is the last day of camp at The Frist and I wanted to post some projects we've made over the next few days. The camp that I taught was Art Smarts for ages 5-7. It was a week long half day camp where we explored different art making methods each day: form/sculpture, painting, collage/assemblage, drawing, and printing. In addition, most of the projects are related to the current exhibitions.

Side note: One of my favorite things about The Frist is that they are a visiting gallery. The museum does not have a permanent collection and the exhibitions change about every three months. I love this. There will always be something different and there have been once in a lifetime exhibitions. Exhibitions that have come from other countries that may never leave their home museums again in my life time. Awesome!

One of the exhibitions there at the moment is Creation Story: Gee’s Bend Quilts and the Art of Thornton Dial.

I didn't know anything about Gee's Bend or the quilters until this exhibition. I am very happy to have had the chance to see it and learn from it. The quilts have great stories behind them and really lend themselves to lessons about shape, color, and symmetry/asymmetry. 

The campers got a chance to spend some time in the gallery looking and making observations about the quilts. When we got back to the studio, we reviewed what we saw and I introduced the vocabulary symmetry and asymmetry. I instructed them that they were going to get a white card stock square and using different shapes of colored paper they would get to make their own paper quilt. In the center of the table they had a large amount of scrap paper to choose from. Painted papers, solid paper, and printed papers. I told them that they could use any colors and shapes they wanted, and they could make their quilt symmetrical or asymmetrical. I demonstrated the idea for them. My example is pictured below.

From there I let them go to create. They really took their time and thought about shapes, colors, and prints to use. I really loved how they came out. Below are a few student examples.

Here is a link to an older article for a different Gee's Bend exhibition, but it still has some interesting information.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=970364