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.  

 

5th Grade Doodle Profiles

Fifth grade studied visual texture to create these profile drawings.  While the students were finishing their previous project, I traced each individual student's profile.  Using an unlimited amount of colors, they added the doodle designs with marker.  They then cut out their profiles and attached them to colored paper.

This project turned out to be a great stress relief from all of the testing they had been doing!

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!

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!

6th Grade Doodle Drawings

I had originally intended for this project to be something the students work on a little bit at a time throughout the grading period, but they were having so much fun and their work was looking so awesome that I decided to turn it into a regular project.  I have been so impressed with the quality of work my 6th graders are completing this year!  We talked briefly about visual texture through pattern, but for the most part, the students were left to their own devices!

Thanks to A Faithful Attempt for the inspiration for this amazing project!