Pop-Up Kirigami Landscapes

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!

Thanks for stopping by!

Printmaking Bonanza Part 1: Kinder -2

It is Summer and I have to admit, my blogging fell to the wayside. I got married a couple of weeks ago and let's just say writing up posts wasn't a priority in the final weeks of school.

I finished my last day of teaching this year on June 20th and was married 5 days later. The last big unit I taught my kiddos was printmaking and now that I've had some time to reflect, I am ready to share our successes.

This is only my 2nd year teaching art at my elementary school. Most of my students haven't had many or any art classes before they met me. I didn't get to printmaking with them last year because I had so much groundwork to lay down but I made sure to cover it this year.

Here is what we did in the primary grades. I'm not going break down all of the steps here on the blog because I made some videos on my youtube channel. If you want to know more, please submit comment below.

Kindergarten: Wayne Theibaud inspired Gum ball machine prints.
We have been studying pop art in Kindergarten and what more fun way to experiment with printmaking than be inspired by Wayne Thiebaud's 1963 painting "Three Machines".

Wayne Thiebaud "Three Machines" 1963

oooooo! gold paint!

We practiced printing lines with cardboard, and circles with recycled glue stick caps.


1st grade: We practiced printing by using styrofoam plates and used the crayola marker ink to color and print them  on wet paper. We drew cupcakes and angry birds to go with the whole Pop Art theme. Unfortunately didn't get any photos because I have 30 kids in these classes at the very end of the day....I'm usually running on fumes at this point of the day.

2nd grade: We first experimented with mono-printing by painting colorful landscapes inspired by contemporary English printmaker Chris Keegan. We quickly painted tempera on plastic transparency with thick paint strokes and pressed/rubbed paper on the wet paint to pull our prints.

Chris Keegan "Brilliant Sky"

We then used styrofoam plates to draw an angry bird. We colored them with crayola markers and printed them on white drawing paper. We cut these out and collaged them on our dried landscape paintings to make an Angry Birds game course. We glued a small piece of cardboard to the back of the Angry Birds to make them appear to fly. The kids LOVED this.

*One of my 2nd grade classes only got to see me twice for a total of an hour so they printed fish inspired by Sandra Silberzweig.

Sandra Silberzweig "Wild Tribal Sun Fish"

Phew! Printmaking is a blast.
Thanks for stopping by! If you have any questions, please leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you.

Winter Wonderland Collaborative Mural

Wonderland mural assembled

As winter break comes to a close I am excited to get back into the art room with the North Star students. Just before break we created a giant winter mural for the hallway outside the art room. The glue and paint was still drying as I hung it in the last minutes before we all left for a much needed holiday. I'm looking forward to seeing the reactions of the school when they come back tomorrow and see their hard work hung in all its wintery glory.

Ready for viewing in the hallway

I must give credit to phenomenal art educator Cassie Stephens, with her version of this mural. I took inspiration from what her students created and felt my classes could produce something similar.

Pieced together the patterned paper

I tasked Kindergarten classes with painting the snowflake sky, Ms. Davis' class with painting the patterned hills and chalk clouds, Ms. Homestead's 4th grade with painting the evergreen trees,  Ms. Attaway's class with producing the houses (big and small/near and far), and Ms. Jump's class plus a couple of my 4th grade helpers with assembly.

Kindergarten painted snowflakes and practiced their brushwork.

4th grade students painted the evergreen trees with 2 values of green.

2nd grade constructed a big and small house for the mural. The made 2 different sizes to show distance with scale.

I'm so proud of their hard work. They were all delighted to be a part of it's creation, I feel like this type of collaborative work gives the students a sense of accomplishment as well as stronger sense of community.

I look forward to more art collaborations! Thanks for stopping by!

Bedroom Dioramas inspired by Vincent Van Gogh

Complete bedroom diorama

The 5th grade artists have been practicing their skills in perspective drawing since October. They have had experience drawing a version of their "dream" bedroom, adding wonderful elements to their interior designs. I wanted them to build on this skill and imagine their room 3-dimensionally, so in response to the Washington state standards, I asked them to adapt their 2-D drawing in creating a 3-D work.

1 point perspective drawings showing bedrooms

I began this process of adaptation by introducing the "Bedroom in Arles", painted by Vincent Van Gogh. We examined the painting together by discussing the structure and content of the room. The students were asked if they were able to  to determine Van Gogh's character based off this bedroom. They were able to list characteristics like lonely, tidy, poor, organized, and artistic without knowing much about his biography. They were interested to learn that their analysis was fairly on point with the painter's personality.

Vincent Van Gogh's, "Bedroom in Arles"

Next, I demonstrated how we would take a 15" x 15" piece of white tagboard to produce the open diorama for their bedroom.  They created their own afterward.

Diorama construction

The students were then able to access a variety of mixed media to achieve their design purposes. I provided wall paper, construction paper, foil, chenille, raffia, beads, wooden sticks, fabric, felt, magazines, art straws, tissue paper, and encouraged them to bring in anything from home they wished to include. I handled a hot glue gun if they wished to use heavier materials like plastics and metals.

Students used their drawings when thinking about what to include in their room.

Small magazine images make for great wall posters!

They used 2 classes in constructing furniture with tagboard (I showed them how it was necessary to create "feet" when folding their tagboard so that there were surfaces to spread glue for attachment to the diorama), and adding the mixed media materials to express their creativity.

This student is constructing curtains with fabric and art straws.

Gluing the "feet" of the tagboard built bed.

I really enjoyed watching these kids work and help them solve design problems. I couldn't believe how fast our time went in class.  It was very rewarding to watch them come into class excited to work. They would speedily get their projects, materials, and set to art making. I never had behavior or lack of motivation issues, they were all engaged. This is an art teacher's dream!

Here are some more of their results.

An artist's room.

I love the use of beads!

A modern room with lime green floor!

A very cozy space.

I'll be sure to repeat this lesson for next year's 5th grade. The results were all unique in their creativity even though they were all bedrooms. I took notice that this class really enjoys working 3-dimensionally, I'll be sure to take that into account when planning other lessons.

Thanks for reading!