Cakes, 5th Grade

 This lesson is a perfect Wayne Thiebaud lesson.  I found the idea for this lesson on Arteascuola.   Students drew a cake and then added shading to make it more realistic.

Here's a hint:  After coloring with oil pastels, have students use a Q-tip with a little baby oil to blend the colors.  It really makes the pastels look smooth, and almost like paint.

Cupcakes, 5th grade

 My fifth graders recently drew these beautiful cupcakes. The focus of this lesson was to use tints and shades to create a realistic cupcake. These were colored with soft pastels.

Cupcakes, 3rd grade

 This week my third graders created these beautiful clay cupcakes. To begin, my students looked at the artwork of Wayne Thiebaud.  My students then used the pinch pot method and silicone cupcake molds to create these awesome cupcakes.  After these cupcakes were bisque fired, students used tempera paint to add color to their creation.  Of course if you have the time and resources, these could easily be glazed instead.

 These are beautiful, and my students are very proud of them!

Cakes, 2nd Grade

This lesson is a great way to introduce the artist Wayne Thiebaud.  For this lesson, I teach my students how to draw a cake with a piece taken out of it.  They love this, because they think it makes it look realistic.  We draw the cake first, and then color it with oil pastels.  After this, I have my students make a symmetrical cake stand out of construction paper.  We then glued both the cake and the cake stand to a large piece of black paper.

 I think my second graders did a nice job with this lesson!

Monet, 1st Grade

 These beautiful Monet Paintings were made by my first graders.  I found the idea for this lesson on Art Sonia.

 This lesson was very simple, we used sponges to paint the grass.  Next, we painted simple circles for flowers, and finally we used oil pastels to draw the bridge.

These turned out beautiful!

Starry Night, 2nd Grade

 I have done many lessons on Starry Night by Van Gogh.  Here is our most recent interpretation of this painting. 

The stars, wind, and moon were drawn with oil pastels.  Then, we used liquid watercolors to paint the sky.  Lastly, students drew a city on black paper and glued it to the bottom of their painting. 

Chagall, 2nd Grade

 This lesson is based on one of my favorite artists, Marc Chagall.  I just love his fanciful Surreal paintings, and my students always enjoy pointing out the "odd" things in his work.  I found the idea for this lesson on Mary Making.  I did have to change the lesson a bit to fit my time constraints, so my results were not as wonderful as hers.  However, I think these turned out nice, and my students definitely enjoyed this lesson. 

To begin this lesson, I had my students sponge paint a simple blue, white or pink background.  While this was drying, I had my students draw three things on a separate piece of paper.  Each student drew themselves, an animal, and a plant.  These things were then cut out and set aside.  Next, I had my students paint buildings with black paint onto their simple sponge painted background.  Lastly, my students glued their drawings to their paintings.  Since this is surreal art, they could glue these drawing anywhere.  They could even make themselves fly, if they chose too. 

Cakes, 2nd Grade

 These cakes were created by my second graders.  For this project, we looked at the artist, Wayne Thiebaud.  My students just love his artwork. 

 For this project, I taught my students how to draw a cake.  Students then colored the cake with oil pastels.  Next, students cut the cake out and put it aside.  Students then created a cake stand with construction paper.  Lastly, students glued the cake and the cake stand onto a larger piece of paper. 

These look good enough to eat.

Fruit Still Life, 3rd Grade

I found this really fun lesson on Art with Mrs. Smith. (I had to adapt it a bit to make it work with third graders, but the idea is mostly the same). This lesson was inspired after Frida Khalo's Still Life with Parrot and Fruit.
For this lesson, I wanted to focus on analogous colors and color blending. We used oil pastels for this lesson, which is wonderful for blending colors. When drawing the fruit, I asked the students to use three colors. I had them first choose the main color for their fruit, and then its analogous color. For example, if they were coloring an orange, they would use orange, yellow, and red. I then asked them to blend these colors together by smearing with their finger.
After the fruit was drawn, I had them cut the fruit out and lay it onto their paper. I encouraged them to overlap some of the fruit, to make it look like one was in front of the others. After gluing these to their papers, I had them use a black pastel to create a small shadow under the fruit.

Starry Night, 2nd Grade

Everyone loves Van Gogh's Starry Night, and I have done many art projects based on it. Here is my latest one.
This project is really very simple. I had my students draw stars and wind with oil pastels. Next, we used liquid watercolors to paint the sky. Lastly, students drew a city onto black paper, which was then cut out and glued to their painting.
I just love these! My second graders did a great job.

Finished Bottle Cap Mural

The bottle cap mural is finished, and I just LOVE it. This one is hanging in the school hallway.
My students worked extremely hard on this mural, so they were very excited to see it hanging in the hallway. It looks awesome!
Here is a closeup of the mural. We certainly used a lot of caps for this project. This was such a fun way to recycle.

Bottle Cap Mural #2

It's the last week of school, but I am still trying to finish a few projects. I know I recently posted on the bottle cap murals my students have been creating, and this is our second mural. This one was inspired after Van Gogh's Starry Night. Today three fifth grade classes worked on this mural, and tomorrow, I plan to have a few students finish it up. I will post another picture when it is completely done. I am extremely excited to see how this one turns out.

Starry Night, Kindergarten

I have done this project before, and every year I love the results. I always do this at the end of the year because my Kindergartners really don't have the motor skills needed until then. I begin this project by showing Van Gogh's Starry Night. We discuss color and brush work in his painting. To start their artwork, I have them draw stars, a moon, and wind onto their paper with oil pastels. Next, I hand out purple and blue watercolors, which they use to paint the sky. The houses were done on black paper, which were cut out and glued to their painting. I really love the movement in these paintings.

Sunflowers, 1st grade

Sunflowers are my favorite flower, so I just LOVE this lesson. If you haven't guessed already, this lesson was inspired from the many sunflowers painted by Vincent Van Gogh. I found this really cool lesson idea on the blog How Beautiful You Are


To begin this project, I gave each child a piece of brown construction paper. With a black crayon, I had my students draw their sunflower. Next, I had my students use their finger to paint the dots in the middle of the flower. (It's not often I let my students put their fingers in the paint, so they really enjoyed this). The flower pedals were done with a paint brush. For this part, they used two colors at once. They first put their paint brush in yellow, and then dipped it staight into the red. My students marveled when it turned orange on their paper. To finish, my students painted the stem green, and the sky blue. Some students chose to put a little white on top of the blue to lighten it up.

These paintings make me think of summer!

Self Portraits, 2nd Grade

I found this lesson on The Incredible Art Department, and I just had to try it with my second graders. This lesson was tied into the artwork of Marc Chagall. I showed them many examples of his artwork. We noticed how some images in his drawings were sideways, upside-down, and even floating.
This project was a self portrait. I began by having my students draw their face, neck and shoulders. After this, I had my students turn their paper once clockwise. On this side, I had my students draw their house. Next, I had my students turn their paper clockwise again. On this side, I had my students draw things they like to do. Finally, I had my students turn their paper one last time, and draw a family member. Everything was outlined with black crayon and colored with oil pastels. The background was then painted with watercolors.

My students had a lot of fun with this project. Second Graders always LOVE projects about themselves. They also LOVE telling me all about the things in their drawing. It is so much fun to talk about their artwork with them.

Arcimboldo at the National Gallery

One of the coolest things about living near Washington DC is that I have lots of museums to visit. This weekend, I went to the National Gallery and saw the Giuseppe Arcimboldo exhibit. It really was one of the coolest exhibits that I have ever seen. If you don't know anything about Arcimboldo, you are missing out. He was an artist in the 1500's who painted portraits by combining fruit, fish, books, and other objects together. This was really one of the coolest exhibits. If you live anywhere near D.C., you should really go see this exhibit before it leaves in January.

Vertebrate sculptures, 5th Grade

The fifth grade teacher at my school specifically asked me to do an art lesson about vertebrates with the fifth graders. They are currently studying this in science, and she thought it would be great to have it carry over into art. I immediately agreed, and I came up with this art lesson. I tied this lesson into the artwork of Alberto Giacometti. He is one of my favorite artists, so I was totally excited to introduce my students to him. I thought his artwork was perfect for discussing vertebrates because he reduces people and animals to their basic forms, and it is quite easy to tell that these animals have backbones. To begin this project, we began with pipe cleaners. I asked the students to think of the pipe cleaners as the animals bones. We twisted and bent the pipe cleaners until we had a head, back, and legs on our sculptures. To help our sculptures stand up, I had them use a tiny bit of modeling clay for the feet. I then asked the students to cover everything with foil. The foil acted kind of like skin. We then used a hot glue gun to glue the sculpture to the cardboard. Lastly, I had the students use gold paint to paint both the cardboard and the foil sculpture. This helped make the sculpture less like foil and more like an actual gold sculpture.
I was very impressed with the results of this project. My students always surprise me with their artistic talent though!

Van Gogh Flowers, 3rd Grade

For this project, I had my students look at flowers painted by Van Gogh. My 3rd graders always complain about their drawings not being "perfect", so I like to point out that Van Gogh flowers are not perfect either. Many of the flowers in his paintings are wilting and loosing its petals. I really think this helps them not worry about "perfect" in their drawings.
This project was finished in a quick one hour class period. It's always tricky for me to do projects with tempera paint because all of my art lessons have to be finished in one lesson. This gives no time to let paint dry between steps. However, this one worked out fairly well. I had the students start drawing with black crayon because I didn't want them to get picky and spend too much time erasing. We drew a vase with at least three flowers in it. Then I had the students use tempera paint to paint the vase, flowers and table. For this project, I did not let my students mix many colors. The only thing I allowed was tinting the colors with white. They could add white to red to make pink, or add white to blue to make a lighter blue. The background was painted with short paint strokes. This was suppose to simulate the kind of strokes Van Gogh would have used in his own paintings. However, it ended up looking more like confetti in the background. Still cool, but am not sure if the students got the point.I really like how these painting have so much movement. One of my students told me that the flowers look like they are dancing, and I totally agree with her.

Monet, 4th Grade

Recently, I have been teaching the fourth graders about Monet. For this project, I wanted the students to paint in the style of Monet. Before beginning, we looked at many examples of artwork by Monet. We discussed how he used short thick brush strokes in his paintings. To begin the project, we drew a very simple lake in pencil. To paint the lake, we used white, blue, and purple. I encouraged the kids to paint with tiny brush strokes. To paint the background, we used green, blue and yellow. Lastly students used black to paint in the bridge. Some students chose to paint waterlilies in their lakes.
Overall, I think these turned out really well. I think the fourth graders really do understand Impressionism now.