Summer Art Camp...

This past week I taught art camp with my 3rd - 5th grade students.  The morning session was Painting and Printmaking and the afternoon session was 3-D Art.  I used a lot of ideas from my fellow bloggers.  A big thanks to http://plbrown.blogspot.com/, http://barbarasthoughtoftheday.blogspot.com/, http://elementaryartroom.blogspot.com/, http://sleepyheaddesignsstudio.blogspot.com/, and http://mrsmanzellastudentartgallery.blogspot.com/ for ideas and inspiration!!!

Here are a couple of pieces completed during camp.  Check out my school blog for more pictures....  http://dundeeart.blogspot.com/

Landscape of the courtyard at the high school.  Water-soluble oil pastels, watercolors and gouache. 

Folk art painting inspired by artist Karla Gerard.  Thanks Sleepyhead Design Studio. Students painted with tempera and acrylic.

Paintings inspired by Wayne Thiebaud.  We used acrylic and modeling paste. 

Group Mural inspired by circle painting.

Crayola air dray clay.  Unfortunatly a lot of the sculptures broke.  Has anyone else ever had trouble with this kid of clay? 

Wacky sculptures with model magic and wire (a Dick Blick lesson).  I never realized how well the primary colored model magic mixes.  I wish it wasn't so expensive. 

This coming week I will be doing the same classes but with 6th-8th grade.  I hope to share their projects soon.

Inspired by the “Happy Rizzi House”

We started this project by looking at pictures of James Rizzi’s work and focused on the “Happy Rizzi House.” This building is located in Brunswick, Germany. I then show students how to make a 3-D building with tag board (thanks to an art teacher at the MAEA conference). We add windows and doors and discuss design ideas. Students use marker to complete their building. The kids loved this project!

As an extension to this project we wrote letters to Mr. Rizzi. In Germany Mr. Rizzi’s art is used widely in art curriculum.

Things that make me happy…Kokeshi Dolls

Today a colleague and I were talking, and she got me thinking about Kokeshi Dolls. I just love them! Aren’t they cute. Above are the dolls in my craft room. I made the two on the right out of paper just for fun. Below are some cute Kokeshi Dolls I found on ebay. I believe this is the same seller I got my dolls from. A good idea for my X-mas gift (hint, hint, Tim)

Last year I taught a Japanese art enrichment class. Here are a couple dolls my students made. We used toilet paper roll, foil, plaster wrap and acrylic paint. These were made by 4th graders.