Kinder Farms

Kindergarten was inspired by the artwork of Grant Wood and created their own farm landscape.

I love to use Grant Wood as a way to introduce Kinder to landscapes and how to show Space. Grant Wood has clear overlapping hills and uses size as a way to show objects in the distance. These are all very easy ways for younger students to understand space on a flat surface. 

First we started by drawing those overlapping hills. Then we used oil pastels to draw objects such as trees, houses and crops to our farm. Last we used watercolor to fill in the sky and ground. 

Here are a few landscapes from this year: 

Awesome Artists

It's that time of year were I have the difficult task of selecting 6 pieces of artwork from the entire school that will go on display at our local library. This is wonderful way to showcase our student artists from all around the district. Here are this year selections.

 1st Grade: Kendall's O'Keeffe Flower

 5th Grade: Ava's Picasso Cat

 4th Grade: Kiersten's Dictionary Page Artwork

 3rd Grade: Ryan's Abstract Shape Animal

 Kindergarten: Miles' Grant Wood Farm Landscape

4th Grade: Reef's Windmill Landscape

I am so proud of all these awesome artists!!!

Tigers

In Kindergarten thru Second grade Art Club we made some terrific tigers! Inspired by artist Henri Rousseau and his wonderful jungle paintings. First we made a tiger from clay then we created our own tiger hidden in the jungle picture.

I found a great pinch pot technique on how to make the tigers, I adapted it from a lesson I saw on Deep Space Sparkle.

 

 

The tiger collages turned out great! After we painted our tigers we cut them out and glued them onto a green paper to look like they are in the jungle. I encouraged students to add leaves and other jungle animals to hide in their picture like Rousseau.

Windmill Landscapes

4th grade learned about Monochromatic. And how Monochromatic doesn't really mean "one color", but it has array of values. After a day where we just practiced mixing values, we talked about one point perspective and drew a field with lines all going to one point. On that point we added a windmill, I showed examples of the tulip fields in The Netherlands to help inspire them. What inspired me was a post on afaithfulattempt.blogspot.com . The results turned out amazing, I know I will picking one of these for our district show this year!

Mondrian Animals

This is one of my all time favorite lessons, first grade Mondrian Animals! This wonderful lesson comes curiosity of "Arts and Activities", and I adapted it a bit. Students are first introduced to the work of Piet Mondrian, with the geometric shapes and primary colors. Then they draw an animal of their choosing, inside they fill it with squares and rectangles, but don't make it look like a checker board. 

Next time we paint after reviewing the primary colors (red, yellow and blue). It is really hard for them not to mix, because they learned in Kindergarten that the primary colors mix and make new colors. So I remind them not to mix and that we will mix in a our next lesson. This lesson is a great warm up to painting for the year and talking about craftsmanship. 

Last we cut out out animal and glue it onto a black background and fill the space with shapes. The arrangements were very abstract and varied this year.

Blue Dog (who is not always blue)

Art Club (3rd-5th) learned about George Rodrigue and his "Blue Dog". First we watched a YouTube video of George Rodrigue from "Sunday Morning", to learn more about this artist and his Dog. 

After that we drew the dog, breaking it down into steps and shapes we recognize. When students were ready to paint their dogs, I reminded them that Blue Dog is not always blue. The next day when it was time for backgrounds on a separate paper we painted monochromatic, concentric shapes, the color was to be the same or contrast the "Blue Dog".

Another great resource I used was the book, 

"Why is Blue Dog Blue? A Tale of Colors" by George Rodrigue. 

A few of the amazing artworks! 

Clay Fish and Pinch Pots

2nd Grade just finished their clay fish. These slab fish are a great way to teach student how to attach clay. These are honestly some of the better clay fish I have seen from students in the recent years. And of course when using clay we are learning about form and the difference between 2-D and 3-D objects. 

Because storage is an issue I load the kiln as soon as I finish a class.
And let the clay dry there before firing.

After the clay transforms in the kiln we talk about the science behind the change. Then we start painting. I gave the students an assortment of paint colors including metallic. Students had to choose a color scheme with 4 colors of less. The results were amazing!!

The gold paint was a big hit!!


Kindergarten Pinch Pots 
 Every Kindergarten student everywhere, makes a pinch pot.
It can be the base for so many different clay lessons.
Here are some pictures of some amazing pinch pot construction by one Kindergarten class.