Monsters!

Roll-a-Monster!  What a fun project for this time of the year.  Each student had a dice and a worksheet.  Each roll lead them to build and draw a different part of the monster.  With the primary kids it helped reinforce looking and the dice and matching numbers to the right column of the sheet.  For intermediate kids we also worked on ENLARGING and shrinking our monsters with correct proportions... tricky concept.

Then we let our imaginations run wild with naming our monsters and writing something interesting about them.

Thanks to http://www.expressivemonkey.com/ for all of their amazing resources!

Peaceful Scarecrows

No Scary Scarecrows here!  The book we read about a scarecrow that loved nature and watching the seasons change inspired these peaceful scarecrows.  Even though the scarecrow has a smile on it's face, it kept the garden safe.  Instead of scaring the crows away, it invited them to stay and chat on it's arms all day.  One of my classes realized..."if the birds are on his arms all day, they won't bother the food in the garden!"  What great thinkers!

We made sure that there was a horizon line in the background so we knew where the ground and sky came together.  I'm so proud of our first graders filling the entire paper with color and adding the fun patchwork borders to finish the pieces.

OP ART - Tricky or treat-y & Gnomes too!

Smashing success with our Optical Illusions in 5th grade!  There are daily compliments on these eye catching pieces.  We learned three ways to create optical illusions and pumpkins served as a perfect canvas for this time of year.

OP Art should make you take a moment to pause to look closer at the artwork.  It may make you think-how did they do that?  Op Art masters create amazing optical illusions that create a sense of depth, a warped surface, or some kind of movement within their pieces.

We have just scratched the surface of understanding and creating Optical Illusions.


Clay GNOMES!
In 5th grade we start to work with clay a bit more.  The objective of this lesson was to create a balanced piece that could support it's own weight... and oh-yeah... make a clay GNOME!

Yes-we talked about cones, sphere, and cylinders.  We reviewed how to scratch, slip, and attach our pieces so they don't fall apart.  Texture for beards and hair... end results... GNOMES!!!

Pumpkins and Louise Nevelson

There is an amazing story we read Pumpkins written by Mary Lyn Ray/Illustrated by Barry Root.  The story is about a man who loves an open field across from his house.  One day a 'for sale' sign was in the field.  He was worried that construction on new houses would demolish the beauty of the field.  He was able to buy the field by planting pumpkins in it and selling them.  The book has such a simple but important message.

This book inspired our artwork-

Artwork on the drying rack

Drawing pumpkins so they looked near or far was a goal for this piece.  Understanding things that a near are typically larger and they get smaller the further away they are.  We reviewed what a horizon line is and talked a lot about overlapping, what does it mean and how does it look.  It was fun to see everyone think about how to make it look like their pumpkins were not all just sitting upright.  The topsy turvy pumpkins look like how they really grow in a field.

On display in the Halls

The pumpkins were traced with Warm Color markers so that when we painted them orange a little of the marker blended into the paint to create some shading.  These pumpkin fields look beautiful in the hallways.

Louise Nevelson-Recycled Collage Art
Our second graders learned how to reuse and recycle items that could be considered trash and make artwork out of it.  Louise Nevelson was an artist who did not have a lot of money, so a lot of the materials she used to create her artwork came from the trash.  She used her imagination to create new collages out of the 'treasures' she found.

works in progress

Ready for Display

They had a great time arranging and thinking about what they could do with the 'treasures' they found and brought in for class.  It was neat to see all of the different items the kids had collected.  It was also eye-opening for me to see how the reimagined and repurposed the objects.  It was a bit of a process with a great pay off!

"Value"able Pumpkins

Do you know what Value is?  Most of the time we think of money or worth... but in the art room it is all about showing the differences between light and dark.  Why is important? Well, with out it our drawings would always look very flat.  Value helps add depth and make things look three-dimensional.  We learned about value scales, highlights, and shadows.

So-What do you think perspective is? and how do we use it in the Art Room?  Take a look at the amazing pumpkin drawings and see if you can spot how we used perspective.

Our perspective a.k.a point of view shows depth by how near or far we are from the pumpkins and how they are overlapping.  The perspective is also shown with the different views or angles of the pumpkins.

The beauty of these pumpkins is better seen in person.  The artists worked very well with all of these ideas and different mediums- color pencil, chalk pastel, and a hint of whimsical metallic paint.

Color Mixing Light Bulbs

Every year I look for a new way to teach color theory.  This year I looked around for inspiration... then a light bulb sparked an idea-haaha.  Colored Light Bulbs! Perfect, they are transparent so having two different colored overlapping light bulbs would make a third color.  We discussed the different parts of a light bulb and the different shapes.

Color Mixing- Overlapping Light Bulbs

After we drew the light bulb shapes we filled them in with the PRIMARY colors -red, yellow, blue.  Where a light bulb overlapped another we had to think... red+yellow = orange, yellow+blue = green, blue+red = purple.

Last but not least we shaded the metal with our pencil and added black broken glass shapes in the background to break up the space and make our colors pop!

International Dot Day

Our whole school celebrated International Dot Day earlier this year.  We read the book The Dot and thought about how we would like to leave our 'mark' on the world.

Unique Dots

All grades

Kindergarten Dots on Paper Plates

1st Grade Concentric Circle Dots

New and Improved

Hey All! Well it is about time that I am figuring out this blog again.  My apologies to those of you who were waiting for so looong.  I'm excited and rejuvenated and want to keep you up to date with the latest and greatest that our amazing artists are creating at Blackberry Creek.

Super Neat Color portraits from the first day of school

Starting on day one this year we read My Many Colored Days by DR. Suess.  Every student at Blackberry drew a monochromatic (one-color) self portrait... yes even the kindergarteners asked if it was like drawing a "selfie."  Made me smile : )  We created a great sense of unity and community with this great start to the year.