Happy Spring (flowers)!

Spring is such a cheery season for students to try to recreate. We have so many early blossoms in our little beach town that inspiration is around every corner!!

 

And then there was last week when we had gusty winds whipping the palm trees into a frenzy!!

Think I will need to work on a lesson to exemplify the wind, but for those looking for quick (or semi-quick) spring flower lessons, I do have these former flower lessons here,  here , here , here and here!! 
The flowers below take a bit longer, but the lesson can be found here. 

Hope you all are enjoying your Spring Break!

An Artful Thanksgiving

From Farmers' Market . . .

These photos are from a stop at Casa de Fruta in Hollister, California.

. . .  to Thanksgiving table . . .

These are painted pumpkins on my holiday table . . .

. . . to the Art Room . . .

. . . and these, of course, are from the Art Room.

Hope everyone enjoys a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with good food, friends and/or family, and a creative spirit!!

Art Rocks!!

How about this for a cool way for kids to practice shading to create the illusion of depth?! You could start by having your class collect their own rocks/pebbles to draw, or you could use a photo of rocks, like this photo of river rocks taken on my vacation in Montana this summer. I ask kids to imagine what it would look like if each of these rocks had a magical patterned stripe (or stripes) around them!

This can be done with any number of rocks appropriate for your age group or time restrictions. It starts with a pencil sketch using a light source to identify shadows. I know I have written about my light source icons, but it bears repeating. Here is a link to that lesson idea: http://kids-finelines.blogspot.com/2010/10/sunny-day-great-shadows.html  I find that often students need practice in how to press harder to get darkest values and lighter for highlights.

 I like to circulate as students work, asking them to identify their darkest and their lightest areas. Sometimes what they see as dark is nowhere near dark enough to make their drawing "pop". We talk a LOT about this. A value chart can be useful for some.

Once the pencil drawing is complete, students create bands of color patterns using permanent (or watercolor) markers. I like Sharpie fine points for this. I think that this is a good way to review (or teach) color elements at the beginning of the school year ( primary, secondary, complementary, etc.) This would also be the time to point out that the color bands will be curved, following the contour of the rock in order to appear more realistic.

The rocks can be cut out and then stacked, overlapping on a background paper like in the photo below. You could easily turn this into a collaborative project by having students make individual rocks, cut them out and glue them as a class cairn (or rock pile).

For those with more advanced drawing skills, the rocks can be drawn  stacked with overlapping parts and then colored like this:

I like using the book, Three Pebbles and a Song by Eileen Spinelli, as a literature connection for this rock project. 

As I look at some of these rock compositions, I see that you could do essentially the same lesson in the spring with eggs as the subject.

Rock on, artists!!

Spring Fingerprint Snapdragons

Tints and Shades

Last week our 1st graders created half of their mixed media still life paintings. You can see how they made their vases, table tops and backgrounds here. This week, after discussing how you can see where the sunlight hits part of the blossoms, we broke out the liquid tempera and children got busy with their index fingers.

  I shared Lois Ehlert's, Feathers for Lunch, and we searched for examples of where she used tints in her flowers.

You may notice that I put the white on a separate, disposable plate, as some tables got their paint pretty messed up by the end of the hour.

 I demonstrated how to use JUST ONE FINGER to make the snapdragon blossoms. Children had 5 "color wheel" colors plus white. They dipped into the color first and then into the white before printing. We call this "double dip painting". They started printing at the bottom of each stem and went to its left, then right, left, right, etc. until reaching the top where the blossoms taper off. They went back and added prints or more white (for highlights) as needed. I had newspaper spread under their work, so before switching colors, kids just wiped their finger on it so that their finger was ready to dip into a new color. (This really worked. The paint colors stayed perfectly "clean" all week long!!)

 Probably the hardest part for some was making sure that their stem extended down "into the vase", that is, to the bottom part of the oval depicting the vase's inside. Otherwise the flowers look like they are floating in air. We talked about this in each class.

 These spring blossoms definitely brighten up an otherwise rather bland hallway!!!!! I think we'll keep them there for awhile!!:))

Spring Still Life - 1st Grade

This is the first week of a two-week project to welcome Spring. There are many great still life paintings out there on the web for children to examine and talk about -- take your pick and show them your favorite artists to kick things off. I had a real vase positioned on a piece of fabric for kids to compare with a painting of a flower vase. I asked, "What did the artist do to make the vase look realistic?"

 Hands shot up and kids saw everything I was hoping they would see!! Comments were: "The artist made a "circle" at the top of the vase (not everyone remembered the word "oval" so I wrote that word on the board), "The vase has a light side where the sunlight is hitting it", "There's dark shading on the shadow side", "The bottom of the vase is curved like the oval", and my favorite, "The table looks like it goes behind the vase so it looks like you can just walk up and pick up the vase with your hand."  Are these children observant or what!!!??!!

Then, using oil pastels, I did a directed lesson to get them started with the vase. (Start with drawing an oval in the center of the board. Add sides and bottom and color in everything BUT the oval. Make a vertical black strip on one side, and a matching white strip on the other side. Blend all layers together with curved, horizontal strokes, using the original color of pastel. (You can find a similar lesson with details and photos HERE.)The hardest part for little ones is to get that horizontal direction of their pastels as they blend the black, color and white together smoothly. I do a lot of walking around and assisting during that portion of the lesson. 

Next, they added a simple plaid, fabric table cloth using whatever colors they liked. ( I modeled how to do this, too.)

A few stems were added to get ready for the flowers that they will add with paint next week.

 The last step was to add 2 colors of chalk/pastels and smear it with their fingers for the subtle background.

Stay tuned for vases full of snapdragons next week:))

Pumpkins in Puddles

Around this time of year I ALWAYS have a yearning to draw pumpkins, or to teach kids to draw pumpkins. However, because of parent conferences and Halloween scheduling I almost never am working with students these last weeks of October. So we will probably get around to this lesson next month as an Autumn theme art project, but I just can't wait until then to post it here because it's really fun to do and would be great for Halloween!

We'll start with drawing step-by-step pumpkins.  I use regular copier paper for this. First, you fold it in half. Students draw their pumpkins on the fold, leaving the bottom of the paper blank. I have to make a run to Target tomorrow to stock up on Crayola Classic Watercolor Markers -- the best I've found for this reflection technique. (See a previous post using markers and water to create reflection in a city scene by clicking HERE.)

 Notice that we draw with a darker color first, brown or purple works well. This creates the look of depth in the creases of the pumpkin.

 When coloring in with the orange it is important to leave spaces white where the highlights would be. I usually bring a flashlight and a pumpkin to school so that kids can actually see how the light source creates that highlight. It also helps to add darker color shading on the underside of the pumpkins. We often add a few tendrils as a last step.

When their drawings are done, students paint plain water (lightly) on the bottom half of the drawing and fold it up onto the drawing. They press the entire area and then pull up to reveal the reflection.

All of this can be completed in one 45-minute session. However, if you would like to go a step further, when the print dries, kids can add crayon details for the straw the pumpkins are sitting on, extra shading on the pumpkins, etc. The first example at the start of this posting has that and some pencil details to delineate the puddle effect.

There, now I have satisfied my yearning for pumpkin drawing. When we finally get around to doing this little project in class, I'll be sure to post student results:))

Happy Halloween, everyone:))

Stellar 4th Grade Still Life with Vincent

4th graders have finished their still life fruit baskets that they started 2 weeks ago. I must say that I am ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE WITH WITH THESE!!! I look for excuses to walk up this hallway so I can look at them.
You can see how the lesson started by clicking here. For part 2 of the lesson scroll down on this page.

Why do I like these so much?? Well, first, almost everyone remembered to highlight where the light shone on the fruit.

 We did the first citrus fruit together so that I could remind students how to blend oil pastels smoothly and most of their shading was gradual and realistic looking.

 There were a lot of gasps as the kids finished the final layer of their shading and marveled at what they had done!

 I also love the overlapping of fruits to give the appearance of depth.

 The baskets have a nice textural look, too.

The majority of artists captured the "small brush stroke" look of Van Gogh's background, even though they were using a different medium (chalk pastels). Most also darkened the place where the two walls came together behind the fruit, giving the space even more depth.

sorry for the focus on this!

The Process:

On Day #1 the kids made their baskets and most of their backgrounds. You may recall that we were aiming to create a background with the same "feel" as Vincent Van Gogh's in Basket with Six Oranges.

At the end of Day #1 this is what we had:

 Nice layering of colors in these!!

 You'll notice that the bottom piece below has the basket glued upside down -- oops! It will be interesting to see how that gets fixed on Day #2:))

 Day #2 started with a discussion focused on this Vincent Van Gogh quote (which I saw in passing on Pinterest):
            "Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." 
I asked students what they thought this sentence meant. It was an opportunity to talk about "small moments" in story writing, the parts that make up equations, small fruits assembled to create a whole basket, etc.  What a great cross-curricular discussion!!

Well, back to art. Using oil pastels this time, students made one fruit with me modeling on the document camera and big screen.. This was my opportunity to review shading, size and the use of baby oil and stippling to give the citrus fruits texture. After making the first fruit with me, kids were on their own for the rest of their still life fruits.

 There were a few kids in each class who were thinking ahead and made the observation that they could use this technique for other art, like making planets or soccer balls. Don't you just love it when kids do that!!!

 Notice that the fruits are not diminutive in size, which is often the case. That is because I asked students to "bump" all 4 sides of their square yellow paper. I used yellow to ensure undertones for these fruits.

 As fruits were cut out, students slid them in the slit in their basket so they could visualize what other colors would look good in their basket and how they might arrange their fruits prior to gluing. The final step was to glue the fruits, using small dots of glue around the edges.

After a little time on the drying racks, it was time to display these wonderful works of art in the school's hallway!!!