After looking through some of Picasso’s famous cubist portraits, these fifth graders created their own drawings on old book pages. Since we were ending our Zero Waste Week at school, I though it would be a nice challenge for students to draw and paint on an untraditional surface. The text adds a nice texture and harmony to these pieces.
These students have a class chameleon!!!! So why not draw chameleons 🙂 Students chose their colors to create cartoonish chameleons. Once I showed students how to draw the chameleon, they were free to create a background with oil pastels. Lastly, we painted over everything with black watercolors and sprinkled salt on top to add some texture and variation in the black background.
This 5th grade class used inspiration from Rex Ray and Henri Matisse to create their own multi media collages. Using painted paper, retired book pages, and cardstock students cut out shapes to later arrange on their cardboard background. I was so impressed by their compositions!
Ohhh la la, these looked so lovely!! These fifth graders started with a black pastel and drew the vase, table top and three circles or ovals above the vase to later create into flowers. We practiced using different brush strokes to paint the background and petals on the flowers. Students did a great job mixing colors to add variation to their flowers.
A tint is created by adding white paint to a color, but a tinted window is made darker! Whhaaaa? Anyways, these tigers by fourth graders came out awesome! I led students through like a directed draw, except we only used paint. Students mixed paints on their own.
Even though students followed my steps, a wide variety of artistic styles were displayed by this project. I love that students were able to spend time with a brush, practice mixing colors, and that each one is unique!
I led another class in painting these fun tigers. Look at the awesome creations!
Ohh la la, I am liking these chalk pastels! Before this school year, I had never used them before. This fifth grade class used them on black paper to create an abstract landscape. Students drew three hills with a building and then divided the hills into smaller sections onto which they could draw patterns. I shared with students that line, shape and color are all elements or art. With these simple concepts all types of art can be created… including a lovely abstract landscape. The room was silent as students were drawing and coloring their artwork and their hard work paid off with these bright beautiful creations!
This was my first time bringing a Georgia O’Keefe lesson to a classroom and for some reason I was a little nervous! I led students through a directed draw, using wiggly and straight lines. I took advice from some fellow art teachery bloggers and didn’t let students use pencil first and I’m glad I did! We used oil pastels to draw the flower and then watercolors to paint the petals and background. Students used warm colors for the flower and blue or purple for the background. The end product was amazing.
I love this quote by O’Keefe, “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.”
Below is the image we used as inspiration.
Okay, I love these! As an introduction to clay, fifth graders created two pinch pots and put them together to create a sphere. Then students cut an opening to create a vase. Next these fifth graders will be creating Alebrije sculptures, so the goal in this project was for students to learn a few techniques with clay.
They remind me of something from the ocean…
This week we looked at artwork by Paul Klee.
Using inspiration from this piece students were encouraged to create their own castle or cityscape.
We began with the outline of the building, then used a ruler to create horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines creating smaller shapes within the building. The diversity of building design was wonderful! We used oil pastels on colored construction paper to get those bright colors. Lastly students outlined their buildings with black pastel.
My middle schoolers saw the sample I made for other classes and asked to also do this project. They began the same way- with an outline and then breaking those large shapes into smaller shapes. Then they had the choice of using oil pastel or paint to complete their project.
Create El Rio 