A trip to the zoo

 The Arabic teacher for the 1st grade asked me to help the students create a trip to the zoo. I formed most of the animals from TP tubes then the students painted them and added all of the details using yarn and feathers.

In the center section you can see where the paths between each area are as the whole layout for the whole project. Some of the things turned out a little strange like the green horses. Others like the peacocks were little wilder in color than we expected. It is the kid's art and important that they do the projects without a lot of rules.

It is a great way to integrate what they are learning in any subject and make them remember better.

Wire art with the 6-8th grade

 Beginning wire art with this group was a bit of a challenge. I decided we'd forge forward and do a dragon. Using several colors and weights of pipe cleaners was the way to go. At first it seemed like no one was going to get one started then they all began to come together with lots of exclaiming and showing off that "it stands up!"

They really did a good job on them and the 4-5th grade cannot wait to give it a try.

3rd grade creates tiles for door to Morocco

 As part of the cultures day the third grade selected the country of Morocco. For their art project I had them create tiles based on a Moroccan design and then assemble the door including the stonework around the center. They drilled the designs using wooden templates then painted them. They helped match the tiles up to create the design.

4-5th grade paint Picasso guitars

 The class has been wanting to paint. I chose this so we could discuss modern art paintings, Picasso and have them continue to draw. I did an example with them showing them that Picasso  did not draw a traditional guitar. This seemed to get their creativity going and this is the result. Some of them are quite traditional and others including the one with the lightning bolts on it are quite on the creative bent.

2nd Grade paints Picasso guitars

The 2nd grade was assigned Spain for their cultures day. We decided to do the guitar artwork from Picasso as part of this project.
We reviewed some examples of his musical period and talked about some of the other periods like his blue period. The students both drew and painted the guitars.

6th-8th draws caricatures

In an effort to get the group to do self-portraits I had them try their hand at caricatures. They were hesitant at first but really got into it when they found out how funny the pictures could be. I do not think they've ever seen a caricature. I think we'll try this again in the spring and see if we can't get closer to traditional caricatures.

4-5th grade do pastel of wind

 Continuing with the mornings discussion on the windstorm I had the fourth and fifth graders also do a pastel drawing of the windstorm. Some of the drawings are remarkably interesting with great detail an interesting interpretation of the wind, others of them are more about using the medium and not the topic.

This group has been a hard one for interpretation, they are much more factual and have done well with structural drawings like the mosques.

2nd grade draws a windstorm

 We use the windstorm last night to inspire us in our drawings using pastels on either white or black paper.

It was interesting to discuss with them how they thought the wind looked and what it would impact in their drawings. We also talked about what they saw when they got up in the morning and what they heard during the storm.

You can tell from the drawings that the wind apparently was very very noisy.

Windy storm inspires pictures 3rd grade

 There was an exceptionally windy storm the night before we get that project. I tried to use the idea of what they heard during the storm and saw in the morning to inspire them on their drawings.
This project was done with oil pastels on regular drawing paper.
 It was fun to discuss with them what they might look like and how it might move around the in their drawings.
They were also given a choice of black or white paper so that they could do their designs.



 They turned out pretty good.

Pastel faces and more 4th-5th

This is the first year my classes have used oil pastels. We tried them out but the  student grade products were frankly crayons. I tried a new brand this year and we are sold on them. We did this project to compare how they react to alcohol and oil in blending but found little difference. They were to draw themselves or some other item of their choice.