4th Grade Georgia O'Keeffe Flowers

After my first two years teaching art a few years ago, I had to turn in a portfolio to the state to determine whether I received a "Proficient Practitioner" teaching license or not.  Until then, I had a probationary license.  (All new teachers needed to go through this process.)  In my portfolio, I was to select one grade level to showcase, so I chose fourth grade and had them complete these gorgeous Georgia O'Keeffe inspired paintings.

After viewing and discussing the art of Georgia O'Keeffe, the students got to work on their paintings.  For the drawing part of this assignment, I let the students choose to draw inspiration from some silk plants I had around the room, or look at images of flowers.  Each student was given a viewfinder so that their eyes could "zoom in" on one section of the plant or photograph.  They then drew what they saw through the viewfinder on watercolor paper, but not focusing so much on the tiny details of the plant.

Next, they traced over their lightly drawn pencil lines with regular school glue.  While waiting for the glue to dry, we discussed color families, specifically warm and cool colors.  The students chose one color family for their paintings.  Once the glue was dry, I demonstrated a wet-on-wet watercolor painting technique so that they could mix and blend colors a little easier.  (The color in these pictures are a little off, so unfortunately you can't see the color blending easily.)

I don't know if this next step was completely necessary, but I had the students trace both sides of the glue line with a thin sharpie marker.  I think that it certainly helped some of the artwork look finished and complete.

4th Grade Junk Art Wall Sculpture

Fourth grade studied the sculptures of Louise Nevelson to create this "Wall of Junk."  The students quickly identified her use of repeated shapes and forms, as well as using a uniform color. 

Like many art teachers, I'm a collector of junk.  You never know when you might need a bag full of buttons or a broken coffee maker.  The students sorted through my junk collection to find items that had similar shapes and forms.  Using hot glue (whoa...dangerous!) and regular school glue, they arranged the items inside a shoe box.  Some students strictly used one shape (like the cut paper towel tubes below), and some added more shapes.

I had intended on using spray paint to paint the sculptures one color, and even went so far as to have a "color election" with each section of 4th grade.  I don't have a spray booth, and the next best option to use spray paint is outside.  Unfortunately, the weather would not cooperate with our timeline.  It was either too windy or raining.  So, we just left the boxed unpainted, but I'm pretty satisfied with the look of the box collection as a whole.  I displayed the boxes on a rarely used bulletin board, and on top of my cabinets (until the fire marshall showed up) in my classroom for the school year.  The kids loved to look at all of the boxes each time they came into the art room this year.

4th Grade Jasper Johns "Encaustic" Flags

Fourth grade studied the flag artwork of Jasper Johns and created their own version of encaustic artwork with a sense of identity. 

This project was done in two parts: 

Step 1

The students cut out words from magazines that described themselves and collaged them onto white paper.  They then added a white wash over the collage so that we could still read the words, but everything was unified by the white. 

Step 2

Next, the students used a sheet of fine grit sandpaper and drew a flag in reverse.  They were to leave the white stripes uncolored.  I didn't require them to draw stars because of the melting process in the next step.

Once the students layered up enough color on the newspaper, I flipped their sandpaper upside down on top of their white-washed collages and pressed a hot iron to the back of the sandpaper.  The crayon melted onto the collage to create a very textured flag.

Make sure that you use a fine grit sandpaper because we found the a courser grit won't release the melted crayon when heated. 

4th Grade Van Gogh Sunflowers

Finger painting!!  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. :)  Fourth graders studied the art and style of Vincent Van Gogh, specifically his sunflower paintings.  No matter how many times we discuss the life of Van Gogh, the students are so fascinated by him that we end up spending the art period just talking about him.  It may push our project a little further along, but what art teacher would want to stop genuine conversation about an artist?!  The students examined many of Van Gogh's sunflower prints.  The most important characteristic they identified was the textural quality of his work.

First, the students drew the sunflowers with black crayon on white paper while looking at the Van Gogh prints.  Most students drew the head of the sunflowers facing the viewer.  For me, the most important part of this art lesson was texture, so I didn't sweat too much about the kids not showing other flower viewpoints.  

Next, the students used tempera paint and their fingers to apply the paint.  I stressed leaving texture on the paper and not smoothing out the paint.  This was definitely harder for some of them than I thought it would be.  When the students painted the petals, I told them to paint them like little pieces of candy corn, and then we blended the colors together a little bit.

Once the paint was dry, the students emphasized the texture of the paint by taking a peeled crayon and gently rubbing the crayon over the tempera paint.  Lastly, they outlined everything with black oil pastel.  

 

Earth Day Art Project

I know that Earth Day has come and gone, but we've had some really sporadic bad weather here over the last few weeks and we were just NOW able to get outside to create our environmental art pieces.  The students looked at the art of Andy Goldsworthy as their inspiration for their artwork.  They were to use only natural items from the schoolyard for their creations.  Once photographed, everything was put back where it was found.

This is a project that I've done every year and the kids never get tired of it...probably because they get to go outside. :) 

4th Grade Middle Eastern Architecture Drawings

Fourth grade students examined Middle Eastern architecture to create their own version of buildings.  They looked at many examples of this style of architecture and identified common characteristics.  To add a little more interest, they added "fireworks" to the sky.

I can't take credit for this project idea.  I THOUGHT I had "pinned" this idea on Pinterest, but when I went back to find the link, it wasn't there.  I really need to do a better job of remembering where I've found these awesome projects, so I can give credit where credit is due!!

4th Grade Value Snowmen

4th Grade Mona Lisa Parodies