1st Grade Fantastic Self-Portraits

Look at the Fantastic FIRST GRADERS!!!

These self-portraits have sooooo much character!  We learned basic facial proportions, like how big our facial feature are and where they should be.  We also talked and investigated the shapes and line that help us draw all of our unique faces.  The book My Many Colored Days was shared and we thought about colors and what they mean to us.  How color sometimes can show moods and emotions. This helped with the background.

Sometimes it can be tricky to find the right colors for our skin and hair, so we talked about how to layer colors and shared the book The Colors of Us to help us think about what kinds of colors we might need.  The book helped us visualize colors by giving us some juicy descriptions of colors... like cinnamon and honey.... it kind of made us hungry!

3rd Grade Color Experiments

Third grade is a big year for color theory.  Every year it is a new adventure and this year I think we figured out a perfect way to experiment with color interactions or color mixing.  After really looks at and understanding what the color is and how it works - it was time to explore.  We used regular crayola markers on plain white paper.  We colored and filled our paper with all of our marks.  We thought about what colors we wanted to put next to each other and started to predict what would happen it they mixed.

Then, the magic begins... plain ol' clear and clean water and a paint brush is all you need for this trick.  When the marker is wet it turns into what looks like watercolor paint!  It moves and mixes, runs, and drips.  SO NEAT and needless to say AMAZING!

When our experiments were over we discussed what happened.  Did anything happen that we predicted, or did something happen that was unexpected.  Artists became scientists for a day in the art room.

"Value"able Flags

5th Grade has begun working on the project we will send to Square1art for our art fundraiser.  The Ooohhhhs and Aaaaahhhhhs this project got when I showed them the finished example warmed my heart and energized the art room.

WOW and AMAZINGNESS.... hmmm but how will we achieve it?  Through VALUE!  Value shows the differences between lights and darks in a piece of artwork.  When we use value we can create DEPTH and what appears to be an optical illusion.  All very nifty tricks!  In 4th grade last year we learned about value and optical illusions, and this project builds on those skills and takes them to a new level.

To start we created a value scale by using shading.  We needed to get our muscle memory back on what it feels like to shade using layers or variable pressure. Our paper was divided in to columns with a couple diagonal lines.  Each column then had rows, that either curve up or curve down.  After that it becomes a shading game.  Creating value scales within each space... kind of crazy how everyone became super-hyper-focused and all you could hear was a pencil scratching on the paper.  Fun stuff!

What started out as something that may be a huge unattainable concept, or visual effect, became within grasp.  Instead of hearing oooohhhs and aaaaahhhhs about the amazingness that we will acheive, I was hearing thoughtful remarks... "Now I get it" or "Wow this makes sense, do you see it?".  Students started explaining to one another who the illusion was going to work.  It started to "Click" inside of their brains - that is the true AWESOME that we all strive for.

Can't wait to post more on this one soon! 

"Free Create"

There is never a dull moment and there is always something to do in the art room!

No matter how hard I try to predict and schedule when my students will finish a project... there is always some sort of extra time that some students will have.  Sometimes there is an extension project using the same concepts and materials as our main unit of study.  If there is no extension mostly everyone enjoys 'free draw' meaning they can use the drawing books from the bookshelf, are encouraged to use their own imaginations.

Working hard on the 'sheet of the week'

This year I have added a few things to our 'free' time.  There is a coloring 'sheet of the week' that I have already finished and put on display.  The 'sheet' can go home, always a bonus!.  There is also an 'idea of the week', which is a drawing prompt that can be completed and turned in for me to hang in the art room.

We have a few puzzles and games too.  The puzzles are problem-solving based, like tangrams.  Games require logic skills.  Soon we will have a building area too, where we can use straws and connecter to create structures.

Students are also welcome to read any book from the bookshelf and find a comfortable spot in the room to enjoy the book.

1. Playing Square Up
2. Coloring the 'sheet of the week'
3. Reading a book