Cacti and other Desert Plants

3rd Graders made these wonderful desert plants out of clay! The lesson pervious to this we created a desert landscape with overlapping hills (Thanks to Lines, Dots and Doodle for the idea). Here is a picture of the landscape painting.

Doing the landscape before the clay lesson made for some great connections and students were more familiar with how desert plants look. I encouraged students to add patterns and rhythms to the pots of their plants to give their artwork more embellishment and details. 

These obviously have not been painted yet, but they have great FORM! 

I love the yellow coils creeping from the pot of the front right piece! 

Ndebele Houses

It was so much fun creating this 3D works of art with 1st Grade! After talking about and showing them some pictures of the Ndebele people of Africa and their beautifully colorful, patterned houses, we started to create out own. First we started with black paint to create patterns with lines or shapes. Then in our next meeting we added color with crayons or markers, still keeping patterns in mind. After all that we took those 2D flat piece of paper and transformed it into a 3D artwork! This is a great lesson to do with the students so they can learn about Form, especially  if you don't have clay and a kiln at your school. Check them out!

Two Point Perspective

Again thank you to Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artists!

I challenged my 5th graders this year with this two point perspective lesson. And boy did they rise to the occasion! Again we started with a ruler and practicing showing perspective and depth on a city street or building. We used watercolor to add the color values to the buildings, which some students had trouble with controlling the medium. When I do this lesson again I will allow students to choose their medium or we will practice watercolor technique first.

Love the robot boy and dog on the side of the building!

This is unfinished, but I love the cluster of colorful buildings!

One Point Perspective

When first starting this lesson we always practice with rulers one point perspective. Seeing students make connections with space and depth is always a joy. Some of these students used color theory such as trying to use primarily warm or cool colors with their landscapes to create a mood within their artwork. Starting with tempera paint and then adding oil pastel for those details and cleaning up the edges. 

I think the results came out wonderfully! 

Great ocean road perspective!

Love these warm mountains!

The red house is such great emphasis!

Circle Weavings

Thank you to Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artist Blog for the idea!
4th grade students first started by weaving in a circular pattern. Choosing either warm, cool or neutral color looms. Then I gave creative power to the students on how they wanted their backgrounds to look. I gave a few guidelines such as to show visual texture and/or unity with their weaving. I loved the results and the opportunity to see my students evolve as creative and thoughtful artists.

This one is upside down, but you get the idea:)

Pop and Op Art Heart

3rd grade students were inspired by Jim Dine and Andy Warhol while making these Pop Art Hearts. Like this Dine seen here:

 When creating we discussed contrast and different color theory such as warm and cool color families. We painted the backgrounds first, then collaged hearts on top. Here are some great examples of artwork the students made:

4th grade students learned about Op Art when creating this Optical Illusions of Hearts. I was inspired by a lesson I saw on Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artists blog (one of my favorites). After discussing line, shape, pattern and color theory students got to work on these eye crossing works of art:

If you wondering why so many heart projects? Well, at my school we do a fund raiser with a company called Square 1 Art, this year I decided to do a heart theme with the entire school, to go along our school's theme of Kindness, I thought a heart would be most fitting.

What's happening

I'm sorry there won't be any pictures with this post. My home computer is on the fritz so I can not upload any photos, hopefully soon though so be on the look out. But I still wanted to update everyone on what is happening in art right now.

Kindergarten will soon be finishing their primary color birds. This is a great lesson where students learn about their primary colors for the bird then mix the secondary colors for the background.

First graders are starting to work on their backgrounds to the Modrian inspired animals. They did a great job of using thoughtful craftsmanship when painting!

Second grade learned about Value and did some color mixing. Now they are starting to turn all that wonderfully painted paper into a Tropical Bird collage. Thank to you Deep Space Sparkle Blog for the idea!

Third grade just finished learning about Geometric Shapes and made some really creative Robots. Soon we will start making a Southwestern Landscape.

Fourth graders are learning how to weave. Creating circle weaving's using different color families, inspired by the Aztec "sun stones". Next step backgrounds.

Fifth grade students are being challenged and learning to draw using 2 point perspective. And they are passing the challenge with flying colors, I couldn't be happier with the results! Thank you to Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artist blog for both my fourth and fifth grade lesson ideas.