Music Painting a Picture

It's that time of the nine weeks again when the grade teachers get extended planning and  we get art enrichment with our students. This time the music teacher and I again collaborated to do an aesthetics and art crit lesson. We did this particular lesson with second grade. I showed the class three different art prints and while they looked at the art prints we played a song. I asked the students to point to the print they think went with the song being played. From there I called on students who wanted to share their opinions on why the song went with the print.

 Our students were very insightful and did a great job. One print was a  somewhat abstract, rainy, city scene. While playing a jazz song, most of the students chose this print to go along with the song. One student said that the song went with the print because the sound of the piano went with what she imagined the rain to sound like in the picture.

Lastly, we played a song they had never heard before (Vivaldi Autumn The Four Seasons)

 and told them to let the song paint a picture in their mind. They were given paper and crayons and drew what they saw in their mind. They had some nice imagery.

A musician with a violin.

A city scene.

An orchestra. 

A pick-nic.

A wedding scene.

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Art Camp: Eric Carle Collage

I feel that there is a special place in every elementary teacher's heart for author/illustrator Eric Carle. I love to do this project with my second graders. I start by introducing and talking about who Eric Carle is and what he does. Most students know of him and immediately get excited about our project. I show them a slide show on how Eric Carle makes his painted papers from his website. I also show them from the site, how he cut shapes from the paper and assembles them to make a picture. From here we spend the rest of the class just painting paper. I tell them not to paint a picture, but to paint like Eric Carle.

They paint until the end of class. Some students get one or two papers painted while some get six to eight done. Some try to have a contest to see who can get the most done. I actually encourage this because it doesn't give the student too much time to over think what they're going to paint. They just go for it, pure enthusiasm, and no inhibitions. For the next class, I take the papers and cut them down into smaller easier to handle pieces. There is nothing like trying to cut a small shape from a huge piece of paper. 

We start the next class with the story The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse. I chose this story because I feel it breaks down the preconceived notions that art has to look realistic. If you have not checked this book out you need to. I review how Carle made his animal pictures and demonstrate how to make an animal from shapes. From here they get to choose a piece of colored construction paper for  their background and get to make a picture of any animal they want. 

I tell them that every element of their picture will be made from cut paper, no pencils! There also has to be a setting. No animals "floating in space."

I know you're traditionally supposed to save the best for last, but this is MY FAVORITE of all the collages I've ever seen. First, being a Sagittarius, centaurs hold a special place in my heart. Secondly, how creative. What seven year old thinks, "I'm going to make a picture of a centaur". This kid. 

A cute bird, and a lovely background.

I guess the owl craze has gotten to this kid as well. I think this owl is one of the most awesome owls I've ever seen.

This picture was created by an eight year old. It's a snake in a basket with a light shining on him, while his owner looks at him through the terrarium glass. Besides the overall greatness of this picture, one thing that's pretty cool is that the student cut triangles to put on the snake. It's easy to think that they may be part of the painted paper design, especially in a reproduction, but no.

I was blown away with the collages the campers made!

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