SECOND GRADE PULLED PAINT CASTLES

I saw this project on another art teacher blog last year and thought it would be a great way to introduce students to the concept of using alternative tools for creating a painting rather than the traditional paint brush. In this case students used pieces of cardboard cut into strips to pull acrylic paint across their paper. The resulting shape was the structure of a castle. Details such as doors, windows, gates, moats, stairs, vines and bricks were added using crayon and oil pastel.

Self-Portraits

The Third Graders at Emerson and the Fourth Graders at FMI are finally finishing their self-portraits and I am absolutely thrilled with how these are turning out. Both groups used colored pencils to add color to their sketches. The third grade classes looked at the art work of artist Andy Warhol, and his repeated images to develop their drawings. Fourth grade viewed the work of artist Chuck Close and his enlarged photo portraits created using a grid. Do you see any faces you recognize?????????

Third Grade Self Portraits

Fourth Grade Self-Portraits

KINDERGARTEN

Kindergarten classes at Emerson started the year learning about the art elements and how they can use them in their art work. We have been taking each element individually and creating a painting, collage, drawing or print. We have just completed line and shape. Stay tuned for texture, color, space, value and form.

 Kindergarten Line Paintings

 

Kindergarten Shape Collage

 

KEITH HARING FIGURE DRAWING

Fifth graders are finishing their unit on figure drawing by looking at the work of artist Keith Haring. Haring's dancing figures served as the inspiration for the students own brightly colored figures drawn on aluminum foil and colored with permanent markers.

FIFTH GRADE SUPER HEROES

The fifth graders are finally done with their SUPER HERO project. We began the year looking at figure drawing and used super heroes as the theme for our pictures. I really under estimated how much time this project would take, but the students really enjoyed it.  They had some great conversations during class about what their heroes were doing and some students even came up with ideas for villains and super hero side kicks.

I introduced the project by showing the classes short video clips, of some super hero cartoons from the past.  Do you remember Under Dog, Atom Ant, Mighty Mouse or Bullwinkle and Rocky? Is that going to far back for you? How about Power Rangers?

Then after some quick demonstrations on drawing action figures, the fifth graders were ready to go to work. Heroes were drawn, and color was added using markers, crayon or colored pencil. Backgrounds were designed and painted using watercolor.  Last, styrofoam was added to the back of each figure and they were hot glued into the backgrounds. This gave the finished pieces a three dimensional look.

When finished each student took some time to write down some information about their subjects. What was the heroes name? What were the super hero powers? What were the weaknesses?

Hero:  Muscle Man       

Powers:  Fast and flexible and glows in the dark.

Hero: Nature Girl and Nature Bunny

Powers:  She can make flowers grow automatically to make the world a better place. She likes saving endangered animals.

 

Hero: The Shadow Samurai

Powers:  The shadow samurai can generate awesome blue plasma balls and she is a martial arts master. Her blue sword can penetrate anything and I mean ANYTHING.

Weakness: Her weakness is, well fighting in the rain because then she can't see. She'd have a disadvantage and would rather stay indoors.