Artistic Freedom

My first student finished the Pop Art lesson. I am so excited to show off her hard work! The students looked at multiple condiment containers and made prints using washable markers and damp paper. The bright colors look great... I am so excited to show you more pictures as students finish. LOVE THIS LESSON! Check back for more student work soon.

My Kindergarten students learned about Contour Lines this week. I am looking forward to painting with these students soon, but for those who follow my blog I think you will agree that my Kindergarten students have improved their cutting skills (it is a night and day difference). With this project we traced, cut out shapes, and overlapped them on a large piece of paper. The next class I introduced them to contour lines. I talked about how I didn't want the contour lines to touch each other or cross. The students started next to a shape and mirrored the line drawn before. They did a great job!

I have to show off my students still life drawings to start off the Pop Art lesson.... Every students did an amazing job! We are making Andy Warhol inspired prints. To start out, the students drew still life drawings / contour line drawings of the condiment bottle at their table (each table had a different bottle). Once the students finished their drawings, I placed a piece of tracing paper over the drawing and the students traced what they had just drawn. The students will then take the tracing paper and flip it over making the image backwards and outline the drawing once again over a piece of foam. All this work will hopefully be worth it when the students see the final results with their printing plate of their backwards condiment container. Each student will print their image four times, with four different colors of ink.... Fingers crossed!

My second graders were introduced to Pablo Picasso and his famous "Blue Period". We looked at a couple examples of Picasso artwork during the Blue Period, especially the "Old Guitarist." I got this idea from the blog Dalismustache (Thank You!). The lesson gave me a great opportunity to work with the concept of collage. The students started out with a large 24in x 10in piece of paper. We used tempera paint to paint the entire paper blue ( I gave the students blue and white paint to allow students to mix their own color blue). The next class, the students were given multiple colors of blue paper, white paper, black paper, blue burlap, newspaper, and blue and white wallpaper. The only directions I gave the students, was to be creative, use as many materials as possible, and not do the same thing as the person next to you. Once the students got to the point they didn't want to add anymore, then they were given a black sharpie to add designs. Once finished, the stude...

I wanted a lesson for my fourth grade that wouldn't take five weeks... I came up with this lesson introducing the students to the idea of line. We talked about what line is and what it isn't. We soon found out that line is way more than what it is not. I used scratch paper for the lesson. I figured by fourth grade the students had used scratch paper before... I guessed wrong. This was a super plus for me because when I used the scratch stick for the first time, my students eyed lighted up. It was Christmas and Thanksgiving in one.... The students were so excited to be given a ruler and stick. I had the students trace their hand with pencil (lightly). Next, the students took the ruler and drew the horizontal lines. When they came to the outline of their hand they skipped it and continued on the opposite side. Once the students finished the horizontal lines we talked about the impact of curved lines. Curved lines can make an object POP or look as if it is 3-D. The students starte...

I got this lesson idea from a good friend of mine who teaches in Peshtigo WI. (Thanks buddy). I started out the lesson by reading the book "Dinosaurs Love Underpants," If you haven't read the book ... go out and pick it up! The students loved the idea of the book, and loved learning how to draw dinosaurs. We started out drawing the dinosaurs shape by shape. I explained what side profile means and how we can only see one eye and nostril when something is viewed from the side. After they drew the dino's they used oil pastels to color them in. The next class the students created the background with oil pastels on black paper. The students loved how the colors popped on the black paper. Once the background was finished the students cut out their dino's. For the underpants, each student picked out a piece of scrapbook paper. We put the scrapbook paper underneath the cut out dinosaur and traced out the outline of the dinosaurs back end. The students cut out the traced b...

I only have one fourth grade class (The other art teacher I work with has the four others). This class has just finished their first project of the year. This pour class has missed four weeks worth of class, due to testing, severe storm watches, assemblies, and today a power outage due to five inches of wet snow. Well.... nine weeks later the secondary color still life painting lesson (long title...sorry) is finished. I started out the lesson talking to the students about the color wheel, and what colors make certain colors when mixed. I gave the students three watercolor tablets (red, yellow, blue). By only giving the student the primary colors they were forced to learn how to mix colors. We started out by mixing the secondary colors to make a color wheel. The next class, the students found their tables filled with fresh fruit (oranges, and grapes) and flowers (orange and purple flowers). We talked about the horizon line and correct proportions. I gave everyone a grape to put on thei...

In this lesson I read the book "Fredrick" by Leo Lionni. The book talks about a family of mice that get ready for the long winter soon to come. For this reason alone I thought it was a good book and lesson possibility. I love Lionni's illustrations, he using nothing but construction paper in the book. In an attempt to work on the Kindergartners fine motor skills I decided to copy the book and create our own Fredrick's. The students started by tearing a large oval shape from a rectangle piece of paper. This was by far the hardest part of this lesson. After this all of the accessories followed and were glued on to the white paper. The lesson went well, but I taught it step-by-step and it drove me crazy! I ended up with a bunch of carbon copy student art and I didn't find that there was enough free thought and creativity. The lesson is a great idea and has great potential... just don't teach it like I did if you pride individuality and free thought!

My cousin sent me this picture and quote, and I absolutely love it. Anyone that knows me, knows that I love John Lennon ( He was not the greatest guy, but he was who he wanted to be and was always true to himself). We all want to be happy... some of us make bad choices and never get there, while others go through a lot of crap before they can finally be happy. I have gone through some hard times, but at the age of 26 I love this quote because I have lucked out and found a great profession that I not only love... I look forward to waking up and going to everyday! I AM HAPPY!

I had the students put their seahorses in the box and then we shook brushes with different colors of paint on them against the sides of the box. The students had a great time and I love the splatter look on the seahorses. These are a sneak peak of my new Eric Carle "Mr. Seahorse" lesson. My students started by drawing seahorses using the whole paper. Once they finished the drawing we placed tissue paper on top of the drawing and I covered them in Modge-Podge. The next class the students had fun doing the splatter paint on top of them. Next week we will be cutting out the seahorses and placing them on a sheet of paper that the students have made to look like a underwater scene full of seaweed and air-bubbles made with a bubble solution and paint. The students loved blowing bubbles over their artwork (when the bubbles landed on the paper they left a small-large blue ring). Can't wait to show the final project all put together!

My inexperience shined through in this lesson... My main objective was for my third graders to gain experience using a ruler. I soon found out I had to teach my students how to use a ruler. The finished work looks amazing, but the drawing took longer than I had expected. I introduced them to the artist Paul Klee and his use of colorful shapes in his artwork. We took that idea and made it into multiple shapes (squares, triangles, and rectangles) to create a cityscape. This project has been done by many teachers all over this nation... I hadn't found it done using watercolor crayons though, so I though it would be a great opportunity to introduce the students to a new media. Other than the struggles with the ruler in the beginning of the lesson, my students did a great job. They were so happy and surprised how great they looked when they cut out their cityscape and glued it on the black paper.

My Girlfriend shared this quote with me today and I thought is was worth sharing...Thanks MAgs! "We do not teach the arts to create great artists anymore than we teach math to create the next generation of mathematicians or language arts to create the next generation of writers. We teach the arts in our schools to create great people so they are empowered with skills and knowledge to be successful in life… to do great things regardless of the vocational pathway they choose." Steve Jobs As an art teacher, I am a tad bit bias... but the quote is so true and I wish more people saw the importance of the arts in education!

These self-portraits took a long time to make... But well worth the wait! My students learned about foreshortening with this lesson. I wanted the portraits to look as if they were falling through space. I got this idea from a fellow blogger (Thanks). I started out by having my students trace their shoes and hands on the first day. After they did that, we talked about face structure and dimensions. The students learned a lot and I feel as if they were surprised with how well they turned out. They looked at me like I was crazy when I told them that the eyes were in the middle of your head and the nose in the bottom quarter. Since they have been in the hall... fellow teachers can't say enough good things about them. As a first year teacher, I have no idea what was taught the previous years. The previous teacher teacher taught for almost 30 years and did the same project year after year (not that there is anything wrong with that). I do know that the other teachers are loving the new ...

Thanks to a great friend, I got a great idea to do a dinosaur lesson with my first graders that reinforces the horizon line. I read an awesome book "Dinosaurs Love Underpants" to my students and then talked to them about side profile. We talked about how we can only see one of the Dino's eyes and nostrils. After reading the book we did a step-by-step drawing together. After we finished the drawing that we did together, I allowed the students to flip the paper over and draw another dinosaur using what they had learned. Almost all of my students did an even better job on their second drawing, that they did on their own. I love the fact that almost every student told me that they learned something. In all honesty.... I did this lesson because 1. I loved the lesson that I saw from my buddy. 2. I saw my students drawing dinosaurs during free draw and the dinosaurs were always smiling with two eyes (even though the students drew them in side profiles), and they always had five ...