Have you ever read this book? It's so cute. It's about a boy who loves to paint so much, but he just can't seem to keep all the crazy colors on one page. The paint goes everywhere and his Momma tells him that he "ain't gonna paint no more!"
I read it to my second graders before we started portrait drawings. I introduced them to the proportions of the head and face and how each part relates to other. I gave them mirrors so they could make their features their own. Then after drawing REALLY LARGE PORTRAITS on paper, they traced the pencil lines with black oil pastel.
They added color by finger painting their portraits. The fun thing about this project is they get to make their portraits messy, without getting themselves in a big mess. (Well, this is the plan, but even in the art room we don't always stay clean and pristine!) I can't wait for them to finish so you can see the end results.
Our very first "real" project and I want to see what my new fourth graders are made of. I pulled out the "oldie-but-goodie" shoe contour project. The focus is on teaching the kids about CONTOUR LINE DRAWINGS and COMPOSITION. The first day we looked at different types of shoes and talked about how to approach drawing them. I am blessed with very small 4th grade classes, so we pulled out the dry erase boards and practiced starting with the outline of the shoe and then filling in basic details. I had them use their finger or marker (w. lid on) and trace around the outside of the shoes before they started on their white board.
After practicing on the white boards, they began to draw on their paper, but not before discussing COMPOSITION and the RULE OF THIRDS. The objective was to create an interesting piece of artwork by how the shoe(s) are laid out on the page.
These aren't finished yet, and I haven't had all of my 4th graders, but so far, I'm super impressed. I can't wait to post more pictures and show you the end results.
We have been studying LINE as an element of art the past two weeks in Kindergarten. I started out by introducing different types of line to them. On our first day we used our "magic marker" or finger and practiced drawing them in the air. (We even have different sounds for different types of lines.) After we got a good feel for each type of line: straight, broken, curvy, zigzag and overlapping crazy (that last ones just for fun) we practiced drawing them on paper.
On day two I let them take turns identifying different types of lines on other people's artwork. We also rolled out play dough into long skinny "snakes" and practiced creating lines in 3D.
The last day we made these beautiful "Hidden Line" pieces. I told them to create a "secret" piece of artwork that no one could see. We used white crayon on white paper. They worked pretty sneakily to keep it a secret from their neighbors! Then we rubbed/blotted dot-painters over the top to reveal their secret lines! They really loved this project and its nice to "paint" without making a huge mess. I admit, I was short on dot-painters, so we worked in stations. I have 5 tables with 4 dotters each. After a 2 minutes at a table, we all "rotated" to a new station with new colors. The Kindergartners really liked the constant moving and discovering new colors at every table. I think the artwork turned out very well!
The New Plan
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I have decided that full TAB is not my style. Although I have loved the
deeper conversations the kids are having about their artistic decisions,
the messy ...
File Folder Books Revisited
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This is just a short post to remind you about this great project.
Grade 1 started their Penguin file folder books yesterday. It occurred to
me that thes...
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Summer is almost here! Remember to keep your "Pop Open a Good Book"
reading logs to record your summer reading. If you return it during the
first week of...
