Kindergarten -- Polar Bears

Kindergarten students learned all about polar bears for their next project.  We discussed their habitat, how they survive, cubs, food sources, and much more!  The students learned about cropping a picture, and as a result we focused on the head/shoulder area of the polar bear.  We drew out our polar bears with pencil.  Students focused on using shapes to create the bear.  From there, the students used a cream colored paint to fill in their polar bears.  They used a splattering technique to create snow falling from the sky with white paint.  Once the paint was dry, the students used oil pastels for facial features and vine charcoal to create shadows.  They did an excellent job! 

Kindergarten -- Stuart Davis Collages

We learned about Stuart Davis and how he was an early American Modernist painter. He created proto-pop art paintings that were colorful and influenced by jazz music. The students noticed that he used geometric and organic shapes in many of his paintings. We then focused a little bit more on his painting "Ready-to-Wear" (1955).
"Throughout his lengthy career as one of the preeminent American Modernists, Stuart Davis looked to the sights and sounds of the United States for his subject matter. In this vibrant painting, Davis explored the American invention of ready-to-wear clothing, a term first employed in an 1895 Montgomery Ward catalog. The broad, flattened areas of red, white, black, and blue may represent leftover pieces of fabric, while the angular white shape in the upper-right corner suggests a pair of scissors. With its bright palette and energetic composition, the painting celebrates not only the vitality of the ready-to-wear clothing industry but also America itself."
Kindergarten students worked on black construction paper and cut our a variety of shapes from red, white, and blue construction paper. We made sure that we used organic and geometric. We also made sure that we were overlapping the shapes.
Here are some kindergarten examples below:

If I were 20 feet tall...

Our school has been working on a writing prompt with the students on what life would be like if they were 20 feet tall.  There were many positives and negatives that the students came up with.  From there, the students then put 20 feet tall into perspective.  We discussed how 20 feet tall is about the height of a two story building, slightly taller than the average giraffe, and around 3-4 times the average height of an adult human being.  We talked about all sorts of ways that you could draw a 20 foot person (based on perspective) and came to the conclusion that no matter how you set up your person, everything else in the drawing needs to shrink in size.  Here are some examples of what the students have been working on.  There are more to come!

4th Grade One Point Perspective

Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface (such as paper), of an image as it is seen by the eye. The two most characteristic features of perspective are that objects are drawn:
* Smaller as their distance from the observer increases
* Foreshortened: the size of an object's dimensions along the line of sight are relatively shorter than dimensions across the line of sight

After the 4th grade students learned about perspective, and more specifically one point perspective, we began drawing on 12 x 18 paper. The students made a dot to represent the vanishing point. Streets, sidewalks, buildings, cars, etc all lined up according to where their vanishing point was. This allowed the city view to start out bigger and become smaller and you look further down the street. Students had many creative ideas to develop their buildings.

3rd Grade Paper Mosaics

A mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral. Small pieces, normally roughly quadratic, of stone or glass of different colors are used to create a pattern or picture. As a class we looked observed a PowerPoint with many ancient mosaic examples. From there, we looked at more modern examples such as space invaders created by street artist "Invader". The students planned an image in their sketchbooks at first, then followed out their plan by creating a paper mosaic. Most created small square tiles with the use of a pencil and ruler. The paper tiles were attached with white glue.

5th Grade Color Wheels

5th graders learned about color theory in this project. We learned exactly how to make the twelve colors on the color wheel. We reviewed how to make different values of each color as well. The students designed a color wheel with a radial design in their sketchbooks. We used a pie tin to trace a circle onto a piece of white paper. We used 90 degree angles to find the center of the circle. From there, we used protractors to measure out 30 degree angles to form twelve equal sections. The students then drew their radial design onto their circle. In their design, the students were to have designated areas that included the hue, tint, tone, and shade. Students received red, yellow, blue, white, and black paint to create all of their hues and values for this project. Once the color wheels were completely painted, the students went back with a permanent marker to tighten up any loose edges, and also to show their radial design more clearly.