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Monday, October 31, 2016

"Creepy Carrots" collages created by 1st grade


Have you read the picture book, "Creepy Carrots", by Aaron Reynolds and illustrated by Peter Brown?  My students absolutely love the artwork in this fun story about Jasper Rabbit and his love/fear of carrots. We were inspired by the illustrator, Peter Brown and created our collages.

Image result for creepy carrots 

I began this lesson by reading the story to my 1st grade artists. We looked closely at the artwork by the amazing Peter Brown. We noticed how he used black, white and grey to create the backgrounds and used orange for the carrots. It really made the carrots pop!

Next, we created the background landscape with black and gray construction paper plus white chalk.
 
I asked my students to create a white cloud with the chalk and rounded hill with gray paper.
 Next we drew organic carrot shapes with our orange painted paper, cut them out and glued them to the background.


The next class we added fun facial features for our creepy carrots, carrot textures, and even Jasper Rabbit!



We had a blast creating these collages! We practiced our collage techniques of drawing, cutting, and gluing as well as visual story telling.








Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, October 24, 2016

Hope and Peace Monoprints created by 4th Grade


My 4th grade artists learned about the power of visual symbols by examining the big ideas of peace and hope. We discussed how artists use white doves, olive branches, the 2 fingers, and the linear symbol represent these concepts. We determine what peace and hope represent in our lives and why it is important to strive for those things.

After these discussions my students practiced sketching various symbols and chose one to use for their printing design. I then asked them to create a stencil to use for their Gelli-Plate monoprints.

I shared my demonstration video with them all before they created 2 prints using 2 colors.







The next class they added painted details to finalize their designs. We shared out our designs with each other then self assessed. They determined if they successfully communicated the ideas of peace and hope in their prints, successfully created 2 monoprints, and showed good craftsmanship.





We then assembled all of their prints together to create a collaborative single piece for the school's hallway.


Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, October 15, 2016

"Hope" Origami mural created by 5th grade inspired by Mademoiselle Maurice

 

Since my school is focusing on the theme of "hope" this year, I decided to create some thematic artwork with my students. My 5th grade artists studied the French contemporary street artist, Mademoiselle Maurice. I discovered her on Instagram when searching through street art hashtags. I knew my students would appreciate her art since it was bright, unique, and origami. My kids love origami.

I introduced Mademoiselle Maurice with some videos.



Then I shared with them several examples of her mural work around the world. I asked them to describe her work in each example. They came up with descriptions like colorful, fun, creative, positive, beautiful, unique, and brave. I then asked them if they could figure out how she created her words in her ephemeral street murals. They discovered that placing the edges of the origami forms along the letters edges would create a negative space.

Image result for mademoiselle maurice

 Then I showed them a video of her folding an origami bird, which is the form we were going to create for our own murals.




I had sketched the word HOPE on a large piece of craft paper and asked the students to create origami birds to then tape to the contours of the letters.  After the first day this is what we had.



After the 2nd day we had these. The kids seemed proud of their accomplishment and satisfied that they collaborated to create a cool piece of "street art" for their school.


 

I then displayed their work in the 5th grade wing hallways.

So I shared their work on Instagram and tagged Mademoiselle Maurice, she commented back with this!

 

I agree, they did a great job! Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Painted Paper Pumpkins created by 1st Grade


I really love the look of painted paper and my students seem to REALLY enjoy creating them. I was inspired to teach this lesson by looking at the work of Laura Lohmann over at The Painted Paper. She is the master in my opinion and the work her students create in the Fall is absolutely stunning. You can check it out here.

We spent a lot of time exploring and using a variety of painting tools in creating textures in paint. It was a blast!Then we set to creating warm & cool color painted papers.




The next class we looked at geometric vs. organic shapes. With their cool papers, they were to create 2 geometric rectangles. With their warm papers, they were challenged to draw organic pumpkin shapes and cut them out for collage. They demonstrated their understanding of drawing, cutting, overlapping, and collage techniques in assembling their Pumpkin landscapes.




The last class, they were given oil pastels to add details like highlights, shadows, vines, stars, a moon, and more. Most students were compelled to transform their pumpkins in to Jack-o-lanterns since Halloween is closing in and it is a huge part of their visual culture.




I love to see their imaginations come alive in the last part of adding artistic details.

Thanks for stopping by!


Sunday, October 2, 2016

Monochromatic Self Portraits Mural


It is finally up, our school-wide self portrait installation is in our school hallway. I shared the processes of creating theses beauties in my last post school-wide-self-portraits.

The rainbow of monochromatic color portraits isn't a new idea. You can see these all over Pinterest or a perform a Google search. I decided that I had to try it out with my students.


With the help of 2 wonderful parent volunteers, this portrait mural was assembled and installed in our central hallway next to the library.



I've love watching my students stop and search for their self portrait. I also look forward to October conferences when they can show their parents.

Overall, I'd say this collaboration was as success and the kids really took pride in their contribution.