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 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.  

 

2nd Grade Aborigine Hands

"One old man in Arnhem Land remembered being carried as a child on his father's shoulders as his father climbed up a log leaning against a rock wall. His father then sprayed his hand with red ochre against the rock, leaving a stencil he could still recognize many years later. The main function of the stencils was to record people's presence and association with a site." Aboriginal Art Online

Second grade students studied the Aborigine Art of Australia.  They traced their own hand and painted dots in the style of many of traditional bark paintings in Australia. 

Kindergarten "A Color of His Own" Chameleon Paintings

Kindergarten students LOVE to read books, so we read the book "A Color of His Own" by Leo Lionni and created a very colorful chameleon.  The students followed along with me to create the very basic chameleon shape.  Even though they watched me draw, notice how different the chameleons look!  Next, they added details inside the chameleon.  They used texture plates and crayons to give the chameleon a variety of textures.  We found that the textures didn't show up very well on construction paper, so we gave the chameleon a light coat of watercolor paint to bring out the textures.  This was a fun, quick project to do in between two larger projects! 

Thanks to Deep Space Sparkle for the inspiration for this project!

2nd Grade Poppies in Perspective

Second grade studied perspective to create these stunning poppy paintings.  They first drew a horizon line on either light blue or light gray paper.  Next, they painted red "lips" starting at the bottom with the largest and ending at the horizon line with the smallest.  Once dry, they used black oil pastel to add the black centers.  Using light green and dark green oil pastel, they drew lines to represent the grass and stems.  To add just a small amount of detail, they painted (or drew with oil pastel small wildflowers in pink and yellow. 

After hanging these in the hallway, many teachers told me that they'd like to have one to hang at home and they couldn't believe that second graders created these!

I can't take credit for this project idea, although I can't remember where I saw it!  Sometimes I find something that just sticks with me!

Kindergarten Jasper Johns Inspired Number Paintings

This has to have been the most messy project I've ever taught.  Sometimes I think to myself, "Why in the world am I doing THIS with KINDERGARTEN?!"  But when the project is finished and I see the end result, I'm so glad I went ahead and persevered through the mess. 

Day 1:  Kindergarteners studied the art of Jasper Johns, specifically his number paintings.  I drew a "tic-tac-toe" grid on their paper and they added the numbers 1-9 inside the grid.  Choosing one color of tempera paint, they painted over their numbers. 

Day 2:  Trying to eliminate dirty water and dirty paint colors, we started with yellow, and they painted around three of the numbers, then three more with orange, and the last three with red.  I gave them clean water again, and they used green, blue, and then purple. 

Day 3:  Starting back at yellow, they filled in the empty spaces around the numbers.

1st Grade Spring Chicks

First Grade had the awesome opportunity to experience chicks hatching in their classrooms, and I thought this would be a perfect project to connect to what they had learned.  We started out becoming experts on texture.  We talked about how baby chicks felt and how they looked like they felt.  I had the students go on a "Texture Scavenger Hunt" where they made crayon rubbings of all the textures they could find in the art room.

To make the chicks, I had the students use sponges in clothespins and a little white and yellow acrylic paint on light blue construction paper (I found that the yellow tempera paint I have is a little thin and didn't create the intense yellow I wanted).  As they were sponge painting, I told the students it was like they were creating a 2-part snowman.  Once the paint was dry, the students added the eyes and legs with black marker, the beak with orange colored pencil, the wings with a darker yellow paint, and the grass with green paint.

Thanks to For the Love of Art for the inspiration for this adorable project!

5th Grade Impressionism Paintings

Fifth grade students studied Claude Monet and Impressionism for this project.  They quickly identified a few characteristics of Impressionism from examples I provided (bright color, visible brushstrokes, a "fuzzy" appearance).  I can't say our school has a very inspiring landscape, so I gave the students some pictures from old calendars to use as inspiration for their paintings.  (I wanted to attach the photos for you to compare, but wasn't sure about posting someone's photograph, so I just left them off to be safe.)

Here's where a little poor planning on my part comes in.  I didn't order enough supplies for the entire year!!!  I was running dangerously low on paints and painting paper, but had quite a few sets of tempera cakes and construction paper.  So that's what we used, and I'll have to say that they didn't turn out half bad. :)

First, I had the students sketch out the very BASIC parts of their chosen inspiration.  With this kind of paint, I thought it was best to have the students paint in layers so they didn't have to do too much mixing.  On the last layer, the students added some shadows and highlights.  Not too bad for tempera cake paint!  

6th Grade Cherry Blossom Branches

The weather around here has just been fantastic over the last month or so and the trees are starting to blossom early!  Also, The National Cherry Blossom Festival kicked off on March 20th in Washington, D.C.  I wish I could say I am the ultimate planner, but it was just coincidence I needed a quick project for my 6th graders to complete at the end of the grading period AND the trees were starting to blossom.  This made for the PERFECT project!

We started this project with a quick discussion on the history and significance of the Cherry Blossom Tree.  Next, the students traced a circle for the moon and painted the background a light blue with "homemade" watercolor paint.  (At the end of the year last year, I made this with old and dried up markers, water, and a few drops of isopropyl alcohol.)  The students then practiced making the branches using black ink and blowing through a straw.  Once comfortable with their practice branches, they made branches on the blue painted paper.  They then went back to their practice page and practiced a few blossoms using acrylic paint, and then painted the blossoms again on the final painting.  Lastly, we discussed Japanese artists using a "chop," or a signature, and the students added their own personal chop.

Thanks to A Faithful Attempt for the inspiration for this project.  I can't tell you how many "Ooohs and Aaaahs" I heard while hanging these paintings! :)