Valentines Pop art 4 ways

See all the art photos by clicking here

With the K-3rd graders I did some "pop art" that had a Valentines Day theme. It was also a good way to have them do different techniques and media in on project that also ends up looking pretty cool. I used the heart as a theme, but they could interpret it in any many of way or color and were encouraged to go beyond red and pink! I had them do the heart four ways ith 6x6" squares of paper:

Watercolor on white paper

Oil pastel on black paper

Penicl and pen on white paper

Collage on black paper

Then I glued them into  a graphic 4 square layout.

Its amazing how creative the kids could get and how it made them think outside the box (even though were creating in a box) Amazing how setting  few rules can free you to be creative. Also, teaching them how to cut and draw hearts is an amazing lesson in symmetry, and following directions, which at this age, is no small task!

America the Beautiful

 This year, we are having a school-wide focus on North America, and American history in several grades. In music, the kids were learning 'America the Beautiful,' so I decided to do something that tied into the song in art class.

To check out all the art photos click here. 

The K-1 class did one picture that was their choice of imagery from the first two stanzas...all the most common phrases:

O beautiful for spacious skies, 

For amber waves of grain, 

For purple mountain majesties 

Above the fruited plain! 

America! America! 

God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood 

From sea to shining sea! 

I showed the kids some imagery from a book that had some wonderful illustrations, and we discussed spacious, amber, grain, etc.  The technique we used was torn paper. I do this so they don't get to worked up about drawing or cutting exact shapes. 

My educational goals in this lesson were to teach the kids to use color, shape and texture. Tearing (with some cutting) is a good way to get some interesting shapes. Then the kids were to think about their arrangement before gluing and try to use layering with background and foreground objects to create depth. They did a good jobs for kids this young!

Tangrams

This was a fun project that our other teachers did with the kids on a "Fun Friday." The results were too cute and artistic to not post here as well. Lots of fun combos of triangles!

Kinder Bees

Being that its springtime now, and the kids have been learning about insects, I had the idea to do bees with the little kids.

This was a fun multi-step project that turned out great. I did explain a bit about the parts of a bee, and they used paper, paint, and some foam packing material for the wings.

 I'm always amazed at how much personality the kids can put into their art. It is always much more charming and evocative than the sample I show them!

Color Value landscapes

This project turned out better than I hoped. A few weeks ago, I had the kids paint 4 sheets of paper with dark-light versions of a color. Most people chose purple, blue or green. Those had to dry, so we picked it up a couple weeks later.

This lesson involved both color value and the idea of perspective and how distant objects are usually less complex looking and lighter. The kids had to layer their painted papers from light at the top to dark at the bottom. The way they chose to cut and overlap also had to attempt to get sharper and more complex shapes in the foreground and softer shapes in the background.

Owl collage

 A favorite of mine during the Fall are owls, which also seem to be popular these days.  They seem kinda autumnal, cute and aren't they supposed to represent knowledge?

This owl, which I did with my K-4th graders, used some collage elements. I first copied some sheet music (a song about birds) onto two different earthy colored papers, and then collected some newspapers and scrap paper.

The kids were told to cut a heart out of the music paper and that forms the body. You fold down the point to form a beak and up the round parts to form wings.  Then tear the newspaper into little bits for belly feathers.

Its amazing how much personality you get from the kids!

Star Wars Collage

For those Star Wars fans in my art classes. This is for you!



Jeremy Messersmith - Tatooine from Eric Power on Vimeo.

Week 7: Henri Matisse collage

PANEL WITH MASK

1947

In my continuing efforts to introduce famous artists every so slightly into the curriculum, I talked to the kids about French artist Henri Matisse. He is a very famous painter, but at the end of his life, in the 1940s, became well known for his collage cutouts that he said were "painting with a brush."

I have done a bunch of drawing projects and emphasized line this fall, but this project had the goal of emphasizing several other things:
1. Abstract, graphic art
2. Color, with an emphasis on bright primary and secondary colors
3. Shape, with an emphasis on variety
4. Heirarchy, from large bold shapes to inticate small shapes
5. Layering of imagery to create dynamic compositions

To accomplish this, the kids were to pick two pieces of paper (one primary and one secondary on the color wheel) One of these was the background, the other was to be the large background shapes (Matisse often had background blocks of color). I tried to emphasize to the kids to make the large shapes alrge and bold and not too intricate. After they had done these two colors, they could choose two more colors from the scrap bin to use as medium and small shapes (Matisse had many smaller intricate shapes). I wanted the students to experiment with different shapes and not try to be literal.

Week 28: Georgia O'Keefe Flowers

Continuing to study famous artists, we turned to Georgia O'Keefe and her iconic flowers. Instead of painting these beauties, I had the kids use tissue paper and watered down glue, so that the result would be as bold and graphic as possible!

I started by showing the students several of O'Keefe's most famous flowers and pointing out that she made her images bold, colorful and really close-up. I wanted the kids to fill their paper as much as possible. The tissue paper allowed for some nice layering of color and bold forms.

Several kids made their art 3-D by crumpling or using paper that tuck out more. I even hd a few cupcake liners that make nice flower centers.