My 3rd grade artists have been studying landscapes for weeks. They have a solid understanding of foreground, middle ground, background, and horizon lines. I knew introducing aerial landscapes and a bird's (or in this case, plane's) eye view would make sense to them when creating their drawn artworks. This group of artist were way ahead of the other classes, so we cranked out these beauties in one day.
I began by asking them if they've ever flown in a plane or visited Mt. Rainier. Surprisingly, a lot had!
Next, I shared images of Mt. Rainier, the highest mountain in the Cascade range of the Pacific Northwest as well as our state of Washington. This mountain has a prominent place in our school's landscape. When you exit our school, Mt. Rainier is there, gazing down on you. I knew my students would appreciate illustrating the mountain in this unique way.
Then I performed a guided drawing demonstration inspired by the aerial photographs from an airplane. They used colored pencils to finish them.
Some students asked if they could depict Mt. Rainier erupting, since it is a volcano and all, so I said go for it. I left it up to their imagination from there. Here are some results!
Those are some risk takers right there! Check out the person on the wing!
They were really proud of their results and seemed to enjoy the process.
The 3rd grade artists have been busy learning about landscapes in visual art.
This unit began be introducing students to key vocabulary words such as: horizon line, foreground, middle ground, and background. We analyzed several examples of paintings and photographs in order to determine where in the imagery these terms were illustrated.
To develop their understanding of these terms, they were asked to generate a example of a landscape using blocks, clay, and other art supplies on their tables.
This was a palace landscape...pretty clever, I thought!
The next class, I shared a kirigami (art of paper cutting) technique to create a pop-up landscape. I challenged them to create a pop-up prototype landscape showing background, foreground, and a middle ground pop-up item.
This exercise was to prepare them for their final larger mixed-media pop-up landscapes. I could assess their understanding of the terms and techniques with these prototypes.
The following class the students were given their choice of colored card stock paper (a stiffer/stronger paper) for their background/foreground. I reviewed upon and encouraged them to use collage and mixed media techniques to add visual elements to communicate their landscape ideas.
Finally, they self-assessed their pop-up landscapes by determining if their work showed a landscape with a horizon line (the central fold), foreground, middle ground pop outs, and backgrounds. They also said that there should be good craftsmanship and details.
I wanted the artists to have some subject matter choices, so I was flexible with their content so long as they showed a landscape (view of outdoors). They had a lot of fun creating these, some students went home and created more!
Wow, Summer has just been flying by! I have been busy recharging post wedding and school year. I have been doing a lot of mountain biking, gardening, baking, hiking, traveled to Alaska, rode my bike from Seattle to Portland, and have another bike tour in the works before we start the next school year.
I will be brief in my explanations but will be photo rich! If you have any questions about the processes, inspirations, or anything at all, please write a comment on this post and I'll be sure to respond.
I will say that one helpful tool to control the printmaking madness was using the Time Timer! Wow! This thing really saved me. I would always lose track of time before this I found this beauty. If you don't have one in your art room, I STRONGLY recommend getting one.
Ok...let us start with 3rd grade. We studied the contemporary British printmaker, David Jones. We focused on Jones' work where he creates linoleum cuts inspired by dreams. We began by looking deeply at this series to share interpretations of each print.
"The Acrobat is Alarmed by an Insect", David Jones
We then shared examples of our own dreams. We then made sketches of a personal dream on drawing paper. Their sketches had to communicate dream imagery and show 2-d texture.
After that we transferred those drawings to a piece of foam plate to prepare for printing. I flipped this lesson on printmaking for these classes, you can view it on my Youtube channel.
I limited the color scheme to blue or black ink but they could print on colored printer paper.
I even taught them about ghost printing (printing again without re-inking). They loved that!
We wrapped it up by writing stories about our prints, sharing those prints and our stories on my document camera, and doing a print exchange. We had a great time!
Last week, we celebrated "Earth Day" every day in the art room. We used recycled materials to create our artworks. Thanks to some really wonderful staff and parents who provided us with recycled supplies, we had a bounty with which to work. I still have several boxes CDs left over from the library donations!
Each class, we began by discussing why protecting our planet is important. Students from kindergarten up through 5th grade made points about how a healthy planet is good for all living things. We talked about how we can do small things like recycling to help with waste and pollution. One of our enduring themes was recycling plastics so that they don't end up in landfills, or worse, our oceans.
Ocean pollution is a real threat to our marine ecosystems. Almost all of my art students got the opportunity to recycle plastics in their art making as a way to re-imagine the material. Some classes went a step further in demonstrating art activism in creating a collaborative mural to raise awareness about ocean pollution.
Here are some examples of the work we did!
Kindergarten recycled CDs from the school library to make tropical fish! They used pattern and color to make the scales using sharpie markers and cut shapes for fins. They were incorporated into the art activism mural.
1st graders recycled mixed materials from donations and the art room scrap bins. They used collage techniques to create a recycled robot. One class got to use donated corn starch packing peanuts to make sculptures. Just add a dab of water, and VOILA!, they stick together! Another 1st grade class created Spring blossom trees with recycled paper bags.
R2D2!
BB8!
I love how she matched the Sharpie hair to the yarn she chose.
The magic of corn starch peanuts in action!
A baseball player at bat!
2nd graders recycled plastic bags and lamination trimmings from the library to assemble jellyfish. We talked about how sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and eat them, which makes them sick or even die.
I didn't capture too many photos of this lesson...womp womp!
3rd graders recycled plastic bottles by cutting them and coloring them with sharpies to produce tropical fish sculptures to go with the art activism mural.
4th graders recycled CDs by producing mandala designs with sharpie markers. They showed radial symmetry in their compositions.
5th graders got an extra week to work on their clay sculptures due to a field trip that happened during clay week. We did make some time at the end of class to discuss Earth Day and how artists can use recycled materials to make powerful works of art.
My intermediate Pathways class assembled recycled robots as well, but used more advanced building techniques.
I think we had a great time making recycled artworks. I hope that my students learned about how they can make a difference in their art making as well taking care of their planet. Here are some additional resources if my artists want to learn more about how artists use recycled materials to make fine works of art.
