Kindergarten paints a neighborhood

"Imagine that you are riding on a bird and flying high above the ground" the instructions began. "What do you see looking down on your neighborhood?" The students closed their eyes (briefly) then hands waived wildly as each wanted to say what he or she had "seen." Students donned their painting shirts and aprons (borrowed from the pre-school) and fingerpainted the things they saw on special paper with tempera paints. They did a large road with a crossroad, a stream and a pond, trees and areas of dirt--dirt intreagued them! Trees without trunks were a hard concept though.

The second week we again imagined being high above the ground and pointing out the buildings we saw and the other things we thought were in the neighborhood. Each drew these on a sheet of paper, colored the drawings with markers, cut the sections out with scissors and glued them to the painting from last week. They even remembered the fire station and the movie theater as buildings they might have on the "map."

After school art class tackles VanGogh's sunflowers

It is taking a bit longer than we thought but the results are well worth the time. We are using one of Vincent Van Gogh's many sunflower paintings as our subject on a small canvas. First the students drew or transfered a drawing to the canvas--they learned how to make graphite transfers--many prefered to draw freehand. Next we painted the emerald green pot and began the sunflowers and their leaves. Some have chosen the traditional wood table as a base others are putting their own mark on the painting by changing to a tablecloth. We expect to complete them next week and smudge in a background behind the flowers. You can see a copy of the painting in the background. Each student has their own brush pack and is taking care of cleaning and replacing the brushes in addition to setting up their own paint palette and keeping up with wash water. This is really a great group. I am looking forward to the boats on the shore painting next.

3rd grade creates their own painted prayer rugs

This class is getting lots of opportunity to combine art with other subjects. We reviewed a wide variety of prayer rugs last week using the computer projector--taking note of designs, colors, borders and learning about fringe. The students started a sketch to guide them on the project. Towels are a bit of a challenge to paint on but the price and size were right so we gratefully started on them. Each student has redrawn parts of their design in colored chalk then using fabric medium and acrylic paint they started the designs. It will take several weeks to complete the rug but it looks like it will be worth it. The students were impressed by the detail on some of the very old rugs we found pictures to share.

Fall art projects at the school

Fall brings to mind the stories of the settlement of the United States and the relationship of the settlers to the  tribes of "americans" in place. Explaining the difference between the expected "indians" and the ones the settlers found did the trick. Explaining the bonnets  the women wore was much harder.
I think they really just wanted to create the people. The paper tube project is a bit of a stretch for the 1st graders but they managed nicely, painting the faces then dressing the rolls and applying yarn hair. The tops of the hats didn't happen but faces were produced and for a 1 hour project that they did with little help--great job.

The second grade has a new task--learning to put things into size perspective as they draw. We talked about how ugly the design would be before we were done which helped a lot! Drawing with light lines will be a challenge but they are doing it--petals were a good match for the centers and a few had time to add color. We had a little time to talk about Vincent VanGogh and his sunflowers. They want to do some of Leonardo Da Vinci's work and a bit of art history about him so we will see how the drawing goes. They did a fine job on this one.

3rd Grade paints from Picturing America

This was the last week of art work for the class on Native Americans. The kids have done medalions with geometric designs and fringed beaded edges and a clay totem. The last project was a watercolor painting of one of the Picturing America prints: George Catlin Painting the Portrait of Mah-to-toh-pa–Mandan. We had a lot of fun with trying to get clouds in the sky and keep the browns thin enough to see the figures on the drawings. One of the students decided that the trees had to have apples. We used watery tempra on card stock and it worked pretty well--spillage aside!
The print can be viewed on the Picturing America site--#6b.http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/ 

Life cylces in Multi-media with 4th grade

We got a little out there but with great results. The students researched the life cycles of their animal then created a circular cycle on a poster. They got to choose the type of items to create the depictions--clay was a popular addition. One group chose to paint their cycle complete with glitter paints and texture. The bunny group did much more detail on the written part than the art but learned to use tracing paper to transfer their drawings.

Catching up on art in Wells Branch

It has really been a busy and productive couple of weeks for the artistic at the Wells Branch Community Library and the classes I teach at the Renaissance Academy. We have been drawing up a storm everywhere and with all ages. I learned to make an awesome claydough in colors for the school that let us make massive totems with the 3rd grade class. This followed last week when they painted and beaded native american medallions. Adults and teens drew and painted the best realistic sunflower (me too although mine is not complete) as a part of the Picturing America activities. 
Kids at the library and at the school painted and embellished an apple tree scene for Johnnie Appleseed's birthday--including the sleeping in the tree--they all had stories about what was going on in their painting. 
Next week foil fish==sounds like fun!