First Grade Joan Miro Portraits

I first saw this lesson on Deep Space Sparkle and decided to adapt it for my first graders who have been learning about lines, shapes and warm/cool colors.

We looked at a variety of different Joan Miro paintings, focusing in on what shapes and lines they saw in his artwork. I found a good sampling of  Joan Miro artwork in a YouTube video and the kids ended up playing a game of "I Spy" searching out all of the lines and shapes.

Then we brainstormed 2 different lists: lines and shapes.

From there, I did a sample drawing showing how we could make the body out of any shape that they wanted to use.

They used 1 line for the neck, 1 line for the arms and another line for the legs, then added a different shape for head, hands and feet.

From there, I had them draw 2 shapes inside the body (trying to use a shape that they had not used previously). 2 lines were then used and I told them that the lines had to go through the shapes.

They added 1 line in each of the hands and feet.

When they were ready to color, we reviewed warm/cool colors and they then had to color each individual section a different color, never letting the same color touch.

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Third Grade Sandpaper Prints

Georgia O'Keeffe was the basis for the third graders printmaking project. I started out by reading the book Through Georgia's Eyes by Rachel Rodriguez. We spent some time looking at O'Keeffe's floral paintings and talking about how they were magnified.

For the project, I have a wide variety of old calendar pages that have been laminated. I have jeweler loupes that the students can use to magnify different parts of the print- helping them focus in on aspects of the picture.


 The students practice drawing 2 different flowers in their sketchbooks first. The focus for them is:

1)  fill the entire page with the flower
2) make the flower go off of the page
3) use a variety of tints and shades to color (by using the loupe, they can really see the colors that are in the flower)

Once they have their flowers drawn in their sketchbooks, they choose the one that they like the best.

 I give them a piece of sandpaper (fine-med grain) and they replicate the flower onto the sandpaper using old crayons- I have a really big tub of old, broken crayons that I collect every year (I never throw crayons away) and these are what they use.

I demonstrate how they need to color hard enough to cover the sandpaper. When they are finished, they should not be able to see the brown sandpaper at all.

They can also use their crayons to build colors on top of each other, creating the tints and shades that

 naturally found in the flowers.

When they have colored the entire piece of sandpaper, they bring it to me.

I have an iron plugged in (I used to have an ancient dry-mount press, but when we got our new school, it did not make it into the new building- a sad day for me!), set on Polyester/Wool. I adjust it as I go along.

I iron the crayon onto a piece of white drawing paper (12 x 18) and then staple the sandpaper next to the print.

I used to iron them onto colored construction paper, but the effect was not as dramatic- now I am sticking with plain white paper!

I especially love the sunflowers! Pin It

Kindergarten Warm/Cool Elmer the Elephant

This is a new project that I did this year with my kindergarteners. I read Elmer by David McKee.
If you haven't read this book, it's a great book to read to your students to talk about being different. After we read the book, I showed them how to use basic shapes to draw their own Elmer. It was like we were doing a magic trick- the ooh's and aah's made my day! Their Elmer's turned out adorable. Then I showed them how to use a tool that the big kids use- a ruler! They used the ruler to draw straight lines on Elmer going side to side and up and down. I made sure to show them how to hold the ruler so that it wouldn't slide on them.

After they had drawn Elmer, we worked on adding some details to our picture to create a landscape: we added the ground, so that Elmer wasn't flying in the air, a tree to show that he was in the jungle, some clouds, the sun, birds, etc.

They traced their entire picture with a black marker.

They used crayons to color the entire background. We really had to talk about how the sky touches the ground. It doesn't stop up at the top of the paper.

When they were finished coloring their background, we learned about warm and cool colors. They got to choose whether they wanted Elmer to be warm or cool, but they could not use both (very difficult for a 5 year old!). They got to use oil pastels to color him in and they had to work really hard to color Elmer in so that it was dark- I kept telling them to press HARD! Pin It

Fifth Grade Schapiro's Shapes

Materials Needed

• sketchbooks
• watercolor paper
• watercolors/brushes
• fadeless construction paper/neon paper
• glue
• scissors
"High Stepping Strutter"- Miriam Schapiro
"Free Falling"- Schapiro

"Anna and David"- Schapiro

We started the project by looking at a variety of artworks by Miriam Schapiro, focusing on her pieces that used the human figure. We took notice of the use of space and how the figure takes up the entire space. We talked about different actions that we could demonstrate with our figures: running, cheerleading, basketball, ballet, etc. and what positions the different parts of the body would be in.
The students used the wooden manikins that I have in my room to draw 2 figures, each showing a different motion. They had to think about the proportion of the different body parts and what position they should be in. Would the leg be perfectly straight or slightly bent?

When they finished these, we looked at the artwork of Jackson Pollock and talked about how he created some of his more well-known pieces. Then they did a quick splatter paint background using liquid watercolors (my new favorite! I have given up using the pan watercolors- we go through them too quickly and the colors are not nearly as vibrant). I showed them how to control the splatter by tapping their paint brush onto their other hand. By doing this, we had a minimum of clean up. I let them use as many colors as they wanted and the backgrounds turned out to be works of art in themselves.

I had the students make an origami envelope for the next part. They used this to hold all of the pieces that they cut. I asked them to cut out all of their pieces and put their person together first without doing any gluing. That way they could make sure that they had the right proportions, colors, placement, etc. They stored their pieces inside of their envelope for the next class.

When they had all of their pieces ready, they began gluing everything down onto their splatter paper. They used all of the scrap pieces (we didn't throw anything away!) to cut out decorations. I had hole punches on hand for them to use, they cut zig zags, etc. I basically told them to go CRAZY with the decorations.

They ended up looking amazing and we used these to move into a 3D project where the students made a plastercraft sculpture of their figure.

Vocabulary:


space, proportion, movement 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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