Artistic Freedom

Pear Cherries Pear Orange (top view)  Banana   Green Pepper Lime Mosaic Fruits and Veggies! After finishing the toothbrushes I went right into another observation drawing hoping that we can continue to draw things LARGE! The students looked at a plastic fruit or veggie at their tables. The requirements were that the object had to have two sides / parts go off the edge of the paper, and it had to take up most of the paper space. I was worried, but soon blown away. The students drew outline drawings of the objects and outlined them with a wide black sharpie. The next class we looked at multiple examples of mosaic artwork from all around the world. The students  got the point quickly (NO PIECE OF PAPER CAN TOUCH ANOTHER PIECE). We looked at the highlights and shades (student had to use at least two or three different colors). By the way, great project if you have a large box of scrap paper. Students picked the colors and...

I saw an artist that worked with drawing objects (bikes) in a quad format on Pinterest. I loved the idea and the 5th grade group possibilities. The students get excited when they hear that they get to work with friends on a project, but the frustration sets in when they find out that they all have to agree on every possible decision. It is not easy, but the project is coming along nicely. We are just starting color and outlining now. I will explain the steps and give images of the finished products soon. Each piece is a 8 1/2 x 11 in piece of paper. More photos to come soon!

I try not to toot my own horn, but I was asked by the music teacher to make a prop for the Christmas concert at our smaller K-2 school. The Christmas musical is called Flakes and involves / needs a snow plow. With a large refrigerator box and ten dollars worth of wood, I created this interesting work of art. The students loved it, and the musical might have been the best Christmas K-2 performance I have ever seen. Very cute! 

Tracers again…. But with that said, my main objective for this lesson was an introduction to tempera paint, cutting with scissors while turning the paper and not the scissors, and listening to directions and steps. After all is said and done, my objectives were met and the final product is very pleasing.  We started out by painting three different sized pieces of paper. The large one was colored with reds and orange crayons and the painted over the top with red paint and scratched. The medium sized paper was colored purple with crayons and then painted black and scratched. The smallest piece of paper was colored yellow with crayon and colored orange with paint and scratched. Students got tracers the next class and cut out the shapes for each piece.  The next class I handed each student a small piece of cardboard, and long narrow piece of white paper, and a paper plate with black paint. The students looked at some examples of birch trees and we ...

My examples of layered art objects (top right), emphasis example (lower right), and colored object example.  My students are close to finishing their EMPHASIS project with an object observation. Students made a layered black and white drawing of two different art objects. They started by tracing each object with pencil, followed by a "still-life" observation drawing to fill in the inner lines and details of each object. The lesson makes students aware of where things are on the page. The layered affect adds depth to the composition. When the students finished the drawing, we talked about an emphasis, and added color to ONE item on the page. Students used colored pencil to add color to their item. We are still working on them at the moment, but I was excited to show them off. Finished projects are soon to follow. 

We started out with a head tracer. Then drew the interior details of the giraffe, followed by the neck and spots. The next class, I gave the students all a different giraffe book from the library and we spent 15 minutes making a list of adjectives. The students learned a bunch of new thing about giraffes. Did you know they sleep standing up? Did you know they can turn half their brains off at a time, or that their tongues are as long as a human arm? Well, my students found out. After we made the list, my students grabbed a sharpie and wrote their adjectives on the surrounding background. They wrote the words large, small, bubble letter, all capitals, and any other form they could think of. Color- The students picked one color and found 2-3 different shades / tints of that color in a monochromatic like form. The students colored in all of the giraffe with that color (crayons). The next class, we talked about complementary colors. The...

Every year I ask the kids to draw their house or family in a drawing. It can be a scary subject this day, but the way they draw and talk about  both can tell you a lot about the child and family. With that aside,  every year the children struggle drawing houses. This is understandable at such a young age, but this year I had a fifth grader struggle with a house. I thought to my self... I have to draw houses more with the children and talk about floors and different styles of homes in a simplistic form.  We started talking about the horizon line and the fact that it separates the sky from the ground. We drew the line across the middle of the page. Above the line we drew two trees and three houses. Below we made curved lines as if they were rows in a farm field (We live in WISCONSIN). We filled the rows with patterns and textures (line designs like the bottom of our shoes). For the color the students picked from the warm and cool colors. The...