My Personal Artwork

I love summer! I have a chance to work on my own artwork, which I don't really have an opportunity to do during the school year. This summer, I have been experimenting with metal embossing. I have been making a lot of jewelry (pendants, rings, bracelets, earrings) and also wall hangings.

Here are a few things that I have done.

I started by making just pendants and rings. This is a periwinkle blue pendant/ring combo.

I experimented with mixing 2 colors in 1 piece. Here is a blue/violet pendant.

Then I started making entire sets- pendant, ring, earrings, bracelets.

This is a piece that I just finished for my bathroom. 8 squares with the same pattern, alternating purple and green with a $2 frame that I refinished. Pin It

Fourth Grade Spirit Rattles

Materials Needed

• Clay- preferably red
• tools
• glaze
• small pieces of fired clay- to place inside rattle
Arrow to the Sun: A Pueblo Indian Tale

Fourth grade read the book Arrow to the Sun: A Pueblo Indian Tale. They discussed different types of rattles- baby rattles, maracas, native American rattles, etc.

They planned their rattle by drawing a sketch of what they wanted it to look like in their sketchbook. I had a variety of Native American resources on hand for them to look at, including resources that explained the symbology that is used.



When they were ready, they were given a ball of clay. They formed this clay into a pinch pot. They put pieces of already fired clay into the pot and then made another pinch pot. The pots were attached to create a sphere. Some students stepped outside of the box and made different shapes than spheres. I had hearts, stars, cubes, but the majority ended up being spheres.

A handle was formed out of more clay.

The students added textures to their rattles with different tools and texture plates.

After the rattles were fired, they were glazed. When we were glazing, we talked about how they didn't have to cover the entire rattle with glaze. The beautiful red clay could show through. They could use the glaze to highlight the designs and textures that they had created in their rattle.

We then covered the entire rattle with clear glaze and I fired them one last time. Pin It

Fourth Grade Imaginative Instruments

Materials Needed

• Oil pastels
• Fine line black markers- permanent
• Colored pencils
• Sheet music
• Colored construction paper
• Construction paper crayons
• Colored markers
• Mod podge
• Sketchbooks
 
Other Resources

The Remarkable Farkle McBride- John Lithgow

“Brass Section”- Romare Bearden
“Musical Forms”- Georges Braque

Fourth grade read the book The Remarkable Farkle McBride by John Lithgow and then made a list of all of the instruments that were presented in the book. Each student chose 2 instruments that interested them (from different families- strings, woodwinds, brass, etc) and practiced drawing them in their sketchbooks using either photos or instruments that I had handy in my room.

 

I showed them how they could create shadows and highlights in a drawing by using color value. Darker values creating the shadows and lighter values creating the highlights. They chose 1 of thier instruments for their project and drew it on a piece of construction paper. They had to draw the same instrument at least 3 more times, but they had to draw it different sizes. When they were finished, they had at least 3 of the same instrument in varying sizes.

 

Each instrument was then colored using a different medium. I had oil pastels, color stix, markers, construction paper crayons, etc for them and demonstrated how each could be used to create the effect that we were looking for.

 

When they colored their instruments, they added shadows and highlights by using tints and shades of color.

 

After each instrument was colored, we used pieces of old music scores and glued these onto our artwork and then covered the composition with a layer of Mod Podge.

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Fourth Grade Egyptian Masks

Materials Needed

• plastic masks-  purchased from Sax (Make-A-Mask Plastic Face Form http://store.schoolspecialtyonline.net/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?item=516866&minisite=10206

• cardboard (Egyptian headdress/"beard")

• masking tape
• plastercraft

• tissue paper- variety of colors
• acrylic paint
• jewels
• white paper (eyes)
black marker to outline eyes

Fourth grade looked at "Egyptian Mummy Case" and "Limestone Bust of Queen Nefertiti", both by unknown artists. They looked for the symmetry in the masks and the patterns that were used to decorate them. Then the students began making their own Egyptian Pharaoh’s mask. I had a variety of Egyptian resources on hand for them so that they could look for hieroglyphics, patterns, colors, etc.

 
I had a parent volunteer help me cut poster board headdresses that the students taped onto the masks. They had a hole in the middle that fit over the top of the facial form.
 

This was then covered with strips of plastercraft. 2 layers is plenty. When the plaster was dry, they removed the plastic mask and covered their work with colored tissue paper. They used paint and other accessories to decorate the mask and make it look like a pharaoh’s burial mask.

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Fourth Grade Color "Wheels"

Materials Needed
• pencils/erasers
• masking tape
• watercolors/brushes
• water containers
individual color wheels

Fourth grade went more in depth into the color wheel than they have in previous years. They learned a mnemonic device (memory) for remembering the order of the colors in the color spectrum and rainbows- ROY G. BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). They used this to paint a new version of a color wheel. They taped two pencils together with an eraser between them. With this device, they drew ribbons on their paper. Then they used watercolors to paint the ribbons. They began with red (the first color in the rainbow- R) and continued through the spectrum.

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