Pointilism Fall Trees

Its fall and its time to start giving the K-1 class a bit of Art History. Pointilism is one of my favorites and the materials a re dead simple. Q-tips and some paint!

I told the kids a bit about Pointilism and the artist George Suerat, and then quickly went to the paint. They could draw lines with the black paint but had to use up and down dots for the leaves.

So simple, but so graphic!

I'm always blown away by how differently each child interprets a project.

Handprint fall leaves

After the K-1 class finished their paper self portraits, they did some autumnal handprint leaves.

I had them trace their hands with black marker and make sure they overlapped to create interesting positive and negative shapes. Within these shapes they were to fill with different colors of warm fall color: red, orange, yellow, brown etc.  This was again a lesson on warm colors.  Plus it was a good test of patience and ability to listen!

Sunflowers in watercolor

It's Summer/Fall and that means a lot of old standbys, including this twist on a classic: Sunflowers are so cool looking and even the boys don't mind painting them since they are not all pink and girly! Here are sunflowers from past years. I had all three class levels do this project and it was fun.
I briefly talked about Van Gogh, the most famous sunflower artist.

We started with black oil pastel. The younger kids were instructed to use handprint tracing to make the flowers (there isn't anything you can't do with handprints!). I also used this to teach warm colors and cool colors.

Self Portrait K-1 style!

I did not do this project, but Mrs. Dillon, the main K-1 teacher made these darling crayon self portraits with the kids the first week of school. Too good to not post! She has a the doiley "frame" copied and the kids fill it in with themselves. 

Self portrait in paper: an old standby

At the risk of being repetitive, I did a lesson this week that is an old standby of mine. The reason I did it was that is such a great window into the soul of these kids! A simple self portrait is transformed by how they cut, tear and glue some pretty simple ingredients!  It is amazing how much personality comes thru when you see these!

Snowmen from 2011

Another catchup post from the best of last year's projects!

Tissue Paper Snowmen

Paper plate snowmen

Name Stained Glass 2012

This is a  project that I've had good luck with in the past, and the beginning of the year always seems like a good time. I did this with the K-1 class, and it involves them writing their name in block capital letters with black marker and coloring in the "in-between spaces" with different color crayon, to look like stained glass.

It is surprisingly challenging for these 5-7 year olds, but teaches them about negative space, line and patience!