"Mrs. Cook..... Why do we never study WOMEN ARTISTS?!"

Good question, Miss Sarah! So here ya go....

Laurel Burch's cats are everywhere, jewelry, tshirts, tote bags, notecards... the works! We began by looking at some of her fantastic felines on her website. Since Laurel Burch was actually alive (unlike many artists we study) not too long ago, we have her official website to refer to....

See Laurel's website HERE

Since this was a multi-layered project, it wasn't easy... or fast, but the results are awesome!

 

First we drew the cat, and colored in with construction paper crayon.

 

 

Then filled the background with "fireworks" and metallic paper mimicking Laurels Burch's jewel tones and metal in her paintings and jewelry.

 

 

And then here comes the gold....."purr-fection."

 

 

 

 

Just Keep Swimming....

This school year was hard for me to switch gears from "swim team mom" to "full time working mom"... so I decided to incorporate a little of my summer into the art room.

We began by taking a look at David Hockney's California Series of Swimmers:

 

 

The kids discussed the rippling effect of the water in Hockney's painting and problem-solved to think of what type of art media we could use to create that "look" on our paper.

 

The student's started by drawing a figure (preferably themselves) swimming.... we discussed drawing bodies in motion, and proportion. After the figure was drawn, we colored in and added white crayon wiggly lines all around our swimmer.

 

 

 

 

Of course, the most fun part of all was adding the sparkling blue watercolor to the top of our drawing. My art scientists discovered that oil and water don't mix, and they crayon would repel the watercolor, creating a very cool effect on the paper.

 

 



 

 

A well-equipped swimmer.

 

 

A bathing beauty.

 

 

A very flexible fish of a guy.

You win some, you loose some.

For the this lesson, I had this wonderful idea about crayon resist mixed with etching mixed with repetition and printmaking and......well, it turned out..... "meh."

No art teacher out there will tell you they have great success with every lesson they try. Unless they are lying.

Our inspiration for this project was Andy Warhol's Flower Factory.

 

Seemed easy enough.....We'll start by folding our paper into QUADRANTS (math word) and by folding it SYMMETRICALLY (math word) twice.

 

In each QUADRANTS (see... not all is lost, we're learning math) the student will draw one flower and color it in with crayon.... (looking back, I should have used oil pastels even though they end up all over the floor and on those precious clothes mamas send their kids in).

 

And then, color the background space green (again, use oil pastels, NOT CRAYONS.)

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, cover the green areas with black tempera paint.

 

 

 

Now the moment of truth.... scratching off the black paint (which I probably should have used a cheaper, more watered down version) to show the green underneath and creating that wonderful depth that Warhol has in his prints.

 

 

 

and we win some, we lose some. Thanks for the effort little ones!

 

 

 

 

 

 

James who?

Okay, I admit it.... I don't know everything about every artist in the entire world... shocking, right? So I was thrilled to find out about a little gem from Brooklyn named James Rizzi.

 

 

My son takes an afterschool art class from an awesome teacher who introduced them to this bright, colorful, "Peter Max meets Walt Disney" kinda guy....So being a lifelong learner, I decided to study up and create some fabulous James Rizzi birds with my Kinders and First Graders.

 

 

Of course, most of the credit belongs to Deep Space Sparkle-- the (in my opinion) best art teacher's blog out there...For detailed instructions and more wonderful lessons, check it out!

 

 

Draw and outline birds with black crayon.

 

 

Paint in with liquid watercolors.

 

 

Wet background and fill with "dabs" of watercolor.

 

Fabulous feathered friends.

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Lovely Landscapes

 

 

Let's just say it.... landscapes can be boring. Yes, they teach perspective, and can meet your requirement to teach, "genre art." but, most the time they aren't very interesting.... UNLESS you look at David Hockney's landscapes!

 

 

Hockney lived in both England and the US, and his surroundings are mirrored in his work. Both the rolling meadows of England's countryside and the Hollywood Hills show up in his landscapes.

 

 

 

 



 

 

My fourth and fifth graders started by creating a line drawing using warm and cool colors to create, foreground, middle ground and background.

 

 Then added construction paper stylized trees in cool colors.

 

 

The final product was a fabulous, "mess-with-your-eyes" optical illusion of movement and color.

 

 

 

 



Hit the ground running....

Every year, it seems I find more and more lessons that I want to try out! With the invention of the most magnificent virtual pin board... (you know who you are) I'm set with boards and boards of lessons for about the next nine years.

This adorable lesson was adapted from a collaborative high school art project. Since we are "Meeting New Friends in Art" this year, we started with the always interesting Vincent Van Gogh.

After viewing artwork by Van Gogh and discussing what "clues" let us know that a masterpiece was painted by him, we started on our lesson inspired by his work.

 

Each student designed a sunflower experimenting with line, and traced over it with a sharpie (kinda my all-time art medium ever).

 

 

We filled in with warm colors using markers.

 

 

And finally put them all together as a group project on 18x24 paper.

 

 

 

Pretty fabulous, right? And a nice way to teach warm and cool colors, radial symmetry, history, pattern, line, texture..... and the list goes on and on!

 

'Till next time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fifth Grade Legacy Project, part 2!

At Blossomwood, we decided this year to start leaving a Legacy Project from each fifth grade class. This year, our "Seniors" are creating a tile wall. We started by looking at images of Matisse's cut paper collages. The student were then assigned a organic shape to draw and paint on a tile. We layered the glazes 3-4 times on the tiles to make sure the colors are vibrant and bright, and top coated the underglazes with a clear, shiny glaze. The kids are amazed at how the kiln turns the glazes bright and shiny.

After framing, grouting and cleaning the mural, here is the finished project!

I can't wait to see this beautiful piece of art hanging in our school for years!

Quite possibly the best lesson ever.....

Okay, You guys that know me... or well, follow me, know that I hardly ever take credit for a completely original idea.

To me, it's just as important to work smarter, not harder. This lesson is a PERFECT example of taking something fantastic and making it even better!

These Japanese  Koi fish were found on www.artprojectsforkids.me  a website that absolutely could teach a hamster to draw... (no offense hamsters). I love this site and frequently use it's step by step approach to teach kids to ANALYZE (what? a higher order thinking skill from Bloom's Taxonomy in Art Class?) and CREATE (what? the HIGHEST thinking skill on Bloom's Taxonomy?) their own drawings. Even though the instructions were basically the same for each child, all of the drawings look different.

 

So there. Quite possibly the best lesson ever.... and I had nothing to do with it's creation.

It's CLAY DAY!

 

 

Check out this little herd of elephants! My 4th and 5th graders really loved working with clay and creating this wonderful little creatures.

 

The kids really enjoying discussing fractions when we divided our clay into pieces to form our elephants. Then I really blew them away discussing the science of firing clay and the evaporation of water molecules!

 

 

 

 

 

After firing, we will paint them gray and take them home to treasure forever!

Where are you Spring?

I don't know about you guys, but I am ready for some warm weather, bright colors and fresh air around here! I felt like my Pre- K and Kindergarteners agreed, so we created printed Cherry Blossom trees inspired by Japanese Sumi E painting.

We began by looking at some Sumi E paintings like this:

(image from bing image search)

They we used recycled cardboard piece to dip and print tree limbs like this:

and then added wadded up tiny pieces of tissue to add the blossoms like this:

Finishing off with a "chop mark" cut from e-z cut linoleum to make our painting look as authentic as possible.

I'm hoping that warmed you up a little... only 28 days left of winter, but who's counting?

Up, up and Away!

Continuing with our "Traveling Around the World" theme, we "visited" France where the hot air balloon was invented. After a brief science lesson on hot vs. cold air, we began assembling our balloons.

 

We started by decorating the balloon with pattern and coloring in with oil pastels.

 

Then cutting and gluing construction paper to create a layered background.

 

 

And finishing with a photo in a basket held on my yarn.

 

All of them turned out great...and the kids really enjoyed posing for their high-flying pictures!

 

Blosssomwood Fifth Grade Legacy Project

At Blossomwood, we decided this year to start leaving a Legacy Project from each fifth grade class.
This year, our "Seniors" are creating a tile wall.

We started by looking at images of Matisse's cut paper collages. The student were then assigned a organic shape to draw and paint on a tile.

We layered the glazes 3-4 times on the tiles to make sure the colors are vibrant and bright, and top coated the underglazes with a clear, shiny glaze.

The kids are amazed at how the kiln turns the glazes bright and shiny.

BEFORE

 

 

AFTER

COMING SOON!

 

 

What a wonderful piece of art to leave as their "legacy."