Visiting Artist- Beatrice Coron!

Ok, we are VERY excited that we had a special visit a week ago from the artist BEATRICE CORON.  She will be designing a fence around our school this spring, and we had the wonderful opportunity to invite her to our classroom.

My art club students were able to have a conversation with her about her art, and they created paper kirigami art with her as well.  Check out beatricecoron.com to see her beautiful paper cuttings and other works!

5th Grade Koi- Charcoal, Watercolor and Salt!

Fifth grade had such a great time with this lesson. When I showed them the example finished project at the beginning of the lesson, they said "WHOA, MISS- We are NOT going to be able to do this!" And my reply was "Uh, if I can do it, YOU CAN DO IT TOO!"
And they did.
Week 1, We drew koi fish together step by step using line and shape with charcoal.  I explained that we have to do the blended gray areas before the dark areas because of how charcoal smudges. We touched on value briefly, but I really wanted them to focus on making their fish accurate proportions.
Week 2, we used water color paint around the fish, discussed cool colors vs warm colors, and added salt for a "splash" effect!
This lesson had so much variety and opportunities to learn. And every student was successful!
...See? I knew they would be :)

3rd Grade Oil Pastel and Watercolor Peacocks!

Week 1, we drew peacocks together using shapes and line (another lesson inspired by artforkidshub.com)- I got a good laugh when I explained that most colorful birds are male birds who are trying to impress the ladies with their awesome feathers. I changed things around a little to make it easier for my third graders to draw, but they really showed me they could do it! After using pencil, we traced our lines with Sharpie markers to make sure we could see them through the watercolor paint in week 2.

Week 2, we used oil pastels to color in our bird, and the oval feathers and then watercolored everything else! Students had a great time seeing how oil and water do not mix, and it was cool to see how they turned out so differently, even though we all started with the same idea.

2nd Grade Sock Monkey Shape/Line Drawings!

Another great inspiration from artforkidshub.com.  Students followed me to draw the sock monkeys using shapes and lines.  Then we added some finishing touches to make our monkeys unique. After we added color with crayons, we finished up with watercolor paint.

1st Grade Shape Robots

I have to give a shoutout to one of my favorite art resources, ARTFORKIDSHUB.COM for this lesson.  I walked students through drawing a robot using rectangles and circles, and then allowed them some time to make their robot unique!  Then, after using crayons to color in our robots, we used watercolor paint to finish it off.  Great job, first grade!

Japanese Notan- Negative and Positive Space! 5th Grade

5th Grade had a great time making Japanese Notan Art! We talked about negative and positive space and explored some examples of the traditional japanese art.  Afterward, students drew shapes along the edges of their paper squares, and cut them out. After flipping them, they discovered a work of art!