Artistic Freedom

Head tracer.... say what you want, but it kept the scale right and each student made the face their own. Amazing individuality and creativity with the spots and the size of nostrils, eyes and ear lines. Love the first day drawings. Let me know what you think.

Framed out Mondrian Squares. My second graders just finished this years Mondrian Squares. I love to start with this project each year because of the use of Primary colors and attention to detail with the use of a ruler. The second graders struggle using a ruler, but it sets the tone for the year, and my expectations for 2nd grade. The students spend the first class of this project making straight lines with a ruler. The second class they practice again until ready, then they start their Mondrian squares. I ask for 8-10 lines with at least two lines in each direction. Then the students add color to the squares... at least two white squares, and at least one square of each color (Crayola color sticks). To end, the students could pick from two sized circles and put as many as they could fit on the black paper without overlapping. They traced and cut the circles out with scissors and glued the black paper down on top of the Mondrian Square. After three years... th...

Fourth grade still-life toothbrush drawings. My students are finishing up their still life drawings. They were each given a toothbrush to draw. We talked about proportions and how to draw 3-dementional drawings. I am so proud of my students, these look amazing!  Will give more details soon.  

This hand transferred on it's side... Kind of liked how it looked.  Sample of the hand sample given to students. Yay Hands again! Like last year, my fifth graders learned about drawing hands. They found out how hard it is to look at your hand and then draw it. After a day of frustration, I brought in a picture of a hand and talked to them about shapes and proportion. We used three overlapping ovals to make each finger. The students used a large circle to create and start the palm of the hand. After days of practice, I gave the students a long piece of paper and told them I wanted the hands larger than life. What I got is shown above.  After the drawings were finished, I introduced the students to Roy Lichtenstein and Pop Art. The students were interested by the colors and the dots. I told them they had to choose four of the six color possibilities (red, yellow, blue, dotted red, dotted yellow, and dotted blue). Once they picked a...

Trace, Cut, Trace, and Cut... then Trace one more time. The students were given a puzzle piece as they walked into my classroom on the second day. The piece represented something with lots of curves and individuality. I had four tracer puzzle pieces for the students to trace and cut out of thicker paper. The students traced the pieces with only a little difficulty. When it came to cutting, the students struggled like I expected. This gave me the chance to talk and re-explain the importance of their thumb on top and the fact that the hand without the scissors moves the paper...the scissors should never point anywhere but away from the student. The students showed much improvement with each and every piece they cut out.  On a long white piece of paper, the students wet down half the paper and overlapped three pieces of tissue paper (red, yellow, and blue) over the top of the wet paper. The wet paper draws the color out of the tissue paper. The three primary colors ble...

Kindergarten... wow!!!! I had the students start out with an oval tracer with a dent on the top and bottom. The students added a rectangle on the top and made a ground. To add the pumpkin shape curves, I had the students follow my lead as I introduced them to different kinds of line. We did a straight line, curved, zig-zag, looped, and dotted. The lines added an illusion of pumpkin curves, and I love the interest it adds.  The students added grey or black to the background, green for the stem, and brown to the ground with crayons. To add the orange, I was able to teach the students about how to hold a brush and basic cleanup procedures without the mess, with the use of tissue paper instead of paint. The students put water on their pumpkins where they wanted the orange to stick to the paper. Once the paper was wet enough, the kindergarteners placed an orange (I gave students options: light orange, dark, and regular orange) piece of paper over the top of the...

My players, and great young men! My apologies to all of you waiting for a blog update. I have been thrown 15 directions this year. I love every minute of it, but this year (third year teaching) has been crazier than the last already. I am at three schools and coaching the Varsity soccer team. It is a non-stop gig, but a dream to mix together your two passions in life and get paid for it.  On that note, thank all of you for keeping up with my blog and getting on me to add new post. My students this year are doing an amazing job, and I can't wait to show off all of their hard work. With that... Lets start year THREE!!!!