Crocker Highlands Art

While the fourth and fifth graders finished up their (very complex) surrealist montages, the younger students worked on a couple of projects involving faces, one way or another…

First, the kinders and first graders viewed some portraits my Matisse (especially “Portrait of L. N. Delekorskaya”), noticing the strong black outlines, bold colors, and simple forms. Then we drew a really BIG face together, step-by-step (I got the step-by-step instructions from Art Projects for Kids), and traced all the lines in thick black marker. The second week, we got out the crayons and the kids were encouraged to color in their faces with bold, bright colors. I love the way all of these turned out so differently (even after following the same directions to draw the face)!

The 2nd and 3rd graders learned about Maori tiki carvings. First, we learned that tikis came originally from the Maoris of New Zealand (not Hawai’i!), that the term “tiki” comes from Maori mythology in which Tiki was the first man, and that posts were often carved with huge faces to mark important sites or with scary faces to ward off evil spirits.

We also talked about bilateral symmetry, and I told them we would be making symmetrical faces inspired by the Maori tikis (this was another great project from Art Projects for Kids). The directions for the students were to fold the (brownish) paper in half to find the center, then to draw facial features any way any way they like, as long as they are symmetrical! Pencil drawings were then traced over with black Sharpies. The second week, they colored in whatever features were to stand out — again, using any colors they liked, as long as everything stayed symmetrical. We got such a great range of styles in our faces!

Recently all the classes worked on collage projects (though different ones, of course!)

In kindergarten and 1st grade, we created shape collages — this was a project I got from the trusty Discover Art books. First we brainstormed all the geometric shapes we could think of (which for these little ones means pretty much any shapes you know the names of). Then they cut colored construction paper into small geometric shapes and glued then onto backgrounds in interesting designs. The second week, we looked at a few collages, turning them all directions, and brainstormed pictures that could be made from them — then got out the crayons and drew in the details. Some of them were so imaginative!

The 2nd and 3rd graders worked on 2-D vs. 3-D collages (I got this project from School at St. George Place, another of my favorite art teacher blogs). First we looked at examples of 3-dimensional forms — cube, cylinder, cone, and sphere — and talked about how to shade 2-dimensional drawings to make them look 3-D. The students practiced their shading on plain copy paper, then picked three or four colors of construction paper to draw and shade their forms on. The second week, they drew 2-dimensional designs all over their drawing paper with markers, and then glued the 3-D forms on top. They made some very interesting contrasts:

The fourth and fifth graders learned about Surrealism, then created surrealist montages. We viewed classic surrealist works by Magritte and Dali, and learned that a montage is a collage made specifically from pieces of other pictures. The instructions were to create a montage using juxtapositions of images that wouldn’t naturally go together — my examples were a dog with a human head or a tree with wings… but our artists came up with so many more interesting ideas!

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Hope

Everlasting Thoughts

The Eyes of Time

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Floating

While the younger students were connecting with the Peter H. Reynolds books, the 4th and 5th graders learned about one-point perspective and the vanishing point. This was a difficult project — so much work with the rulers, and the vanishing point is a hard concept for elementary students… but they did it!

I have usually had the 4th and 5th graders do the same project, but this time I had two possibilities and couldn’t decide, so…

The 4th graders worked on one-point perspective cubes — sort of a fun way to learn about the vanishing point without all the complications of a street scene. I got this one from Art Projects for Kids, one of my go-to blogs when I need a new project idea. First we viewed some photos and classic artworks using one-point perspective (Leonardo’s Last Supper is a great example). The students then used templates to draw four or five squares on the page, made a vanishing point in the center, and used the vanishing point to turn the squares into cubes in perspective (this was the hard part, as so many students thought they already knew how to draw cubes and had to be reminded about the perspective part). The last steps were to tie the cubes together with a ribbon (so that there would be something on the page that wasn’t a straight line!), then to color the cubes, varying the shades on the different sides to make them look 3D. It was a hard project, but our artists did a great job!

The 5th graders did do a street scene (I couldn’t resist). I found great step-by-step directions for how to teach a street scene in perspective at SmArt Class, which helped me a lot! The idea is to start with the horizon line, then drawing diagonals from the vanishing point to the corners, then drawing buildings on one side and trees on the other, using the diagonals as guidelines. This was even harder than the cubes (it took five weeks) — what was difficult for me to get across for this one was how the windows and doors also needed to point to the vanishing point, and that the first line (the horizon) is an actual line, so not to erase it! When it all got done, our artists came out with some really beautiful and creative street scenes (I wish I could live in some of these cheerfully-painted neighborhoods!)

While the kindergartners were working on their dots, the first, second, and third graders worked on “ish” drawings. We first read a book by the same author, Peter H. Reynolds (he has such great messages for young art students!). It is about a young boy, Ramon, who loves to draw — until one day his big brother laughs at his drawing, saying “WHAT is THAT supposed to be?” Ramon keeps trying to draw, but crumples up and throws away all his papers because they don’t look exactly right… until the day he discovers his little sister has been saving them and hanging them on her wall. She points her favorite; when Ramon says “it was supposed to be a vase, but doesn’t look like one,” she replies “well, it looks vase-ish!” Ramon then finds himself free to draw again, knowing that his drawings don’t have to be exactly right, but can be “ish.” Having some students who get frustrated because their drawings aren’t just right, I found this to be an invaluable lesson!

The rules for this one were simple: using crayons and/ or markers, draw anything you like (well, within reason — no fighting-ish or bathroom-words-ish…) on a slightly small (7×10) drawing paper; then the second week, mount it on a colored paper frame and add the title (-ish)! I cautioned them that just because it is an “ish” drawing doesn’t mean it is sloppy — we still want detail and good work! This idea also came from Panther’s Palette, and I loved both of these projects — they inspired the kids to such creativity! Some of these were so charming…

Vase-ish

Tree-ish

Ice Cream-ish

Afternoon And Night-ish

We recently read “The Dot” by Peter H. Reynolds. If you haven’t read it, it is a wonderful story about a little girl, Vashti, who thinks she can’t draw… her teacher tells her to “make a mark” and see where it takes her. She jabs her marker at the paper and makes a dot, and her teacher, after looking it over, hands it to her and says “now, sign it.” The next day when Vashti comes to class, she sees her dot hanging above her teacher’s desk — “all framed in swirly gold.” Thus inspired, she creates a multitude of different dots and makes a big splash at the school art show. I have so many students who say they “can’t draw,” I love the message of this story!

So after reading the story, the kindergartners used crayons and markers to create any kind of dots they liked on half-sized (6×9) drawing paper; and the second week, we got out the yellow paper and the metallic gold paint, and framed them in swirly gold. I got the idea for this one from Panther’s Palette, and it turned out so well — after reading the story, even the kids who often rush and scribble through their work were so engaged, creating wonderful dots!