Currently, my eyeballs feel like they are made of broken glass and are just barely staying open. However, I'm thrilled to say that pulling those close to 12 hour days at school this week has paid off: All of my students 400 Henri Rousseau-inspired masterpieces are up and on display for our Open House! Whew! If you follow me here, you've seen my students progress. We've all learned about the artist and created a tiger-tastic work of art (side note: our school mascot is also a tiger and we have a Tiger Run coming up next month. So now the halls are decked out for that occasion as well!). I'll be sharing each of the projects here over the next coupla weeks so stay tuned! Today, I present to you the work of my fourth grade artists!
To conquer this Jungle-tastic Project, we used the following supplies:
* Model Magic by Crayola
* Sax Versa Temp paint
* Chalk pastels
* Oil pastels
* 9" X 12" painted construction paper
* 9" X 12" poster board to back the construction paper
This project began on the very first day of art when, after covering the rules and such, we set about making painted paper. This idea of painting paper on the very first day came from my good friend and art teacherin' genius Laura Lohmann.
My Monday and Tuesday classes painted a variety of green papers for our jungle-y projects (used mucho by my third graders for their project, details to come) while my Wednesday and Thursday kids painted orange papers. My fourth graders ended up using these as the background for their collages.
We painted, we scraped with texture combs, we tried out different paint application techniques.
We pulled prints which we thought was just about the coolest thing ever and that was it for our first day! On our second day of art, we learned more about the artist Henri Rousseau and studied his jungle paintings. I even created a Jungle Lounge in my art room for the occasion!
Complete with Clean Up Gong, of course. Over the next two art classes, the students were allowed access to a ton of books featuring photos of tigers and information about their habitats and eating habits. With that in mind, they were given about golf ball size of Model Magic to create their tiger. I did show them some simple basics but really encouraged them to experiment, look at the visuals and come up with a creation of their own.
The following art class, those were painted. I thought the students would spend about thirty minutes painting but they were so excited to do detailed work on their tigers that they ended up using the entire 60 minutes to paint!
They might have been a lil influenced by this guy hanging out in the Jungle Lounge.
The kids have been spending the first 5-7 minutes of each class in the lounge sketching in their newly created sketchbooks! They love this area. I can't wait to create some more seating for them.
Creating the background took the kids another 60 minutes. They were allowed to pick any of the textured and painted papers they created on that first day to serve as their background. Then they could use either all warm or all cool colored chalk for their sky. Once the sky was complete, the kids could create the land portion of their work with any colors they liked.
We talked a lot about the habitats of tigers and again studied the visuals. The kids created lakes, rivers, jungles, mountain ranges, you get the idea. I was so impressed with their diverse ideas.
I mean, check out this: I was informed by the artist that her tiger was jumping from a rock to the top of a tree. This is her ariel view.
Once the chalk portion was complete, the kids were allowed to add more plants with oil pastels. They also used some remnants of the painted paper to create plants, trees, suns or moons and whatever else they could dream up.
Once both the background and the tiger were complete, the kids brought their tigers to me and told me where to hot glue them to the work. I also hot glued their work to a pieces of poster board as the construction paper was not strong enough to support the weight of their tiger. It was a little bit of added work on my part but I didn't mind. We were just so happy with the end result!
Have y'all used Model Magic before? I'd love to hear about your projects, I'm always looking to steal, er, borrow new ideas!
Dang, girl! Those tigers are too too cute! Nice job!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'll tell the kiddos you said so!
DeleteI love to do a "Day of the Dead" activity in October with Model Magic. We learn about "CALAVERAS". I have skeletons ran off onto paper that the kids can use as a guideline or template for approximate size. They make a skeleton out of the Model Magic and then glue it onto a piece of cardboard. The following week after it is dry, they dress it and decorate it. We have had MANY interesting projects such as Calavera brides, Calavera baseball players, even Calavera art teachers. With this project, I had a couple of Jehovah Witness students that didn't think they would be able to make it so I did a little mini study of the body's skeleton and why we have skeletons and then they felt comfortable doing it from the "science" perspective. I did this with 2nd grade.
ReplyDeleteLOVE this idea so much!! Especially how you made it friendly for ALL! Thank you so much for sharing!
DeleteVery cool! You should blog about how you made those giant palm trees. It looks hard.
ReplyDeleteMy fabulous friend Carol Goff made them!! She created them for a play and I borrowed them for my room this year! The support underneath is a metal frame of some sort that she found in our school storage closet and wrapped in bulletin board paper. She used an old umbrella frame as support for the palm leaves! She's super amazingly artistic and creative, I cannot take credit!!
DeleteI've used model magic for P-K and K to make snow men. Very easy we make a small sphere a medium sphere and a large sphere. We add twigs for arms and make hats and scarfs with various colors. They come out so cute to have a crowd of snow men.
ReplyDeleteActually the first graders and kindergarteners had been splatter painting and their art work was sitting on the tables when I snapped these pics! I thought it looked really great as a frame, I might have to have the fourth graders create some!
ReplyDeleteIt is expensive and, honestly, I didn't love it. The kids did! It broke A LOT once it was dry and we were constantly having to reattach limbs. I love the result of this project...but I didn't love the medium. I'll have to rethink what we can use as an alternative in the future!
ReplyDeleteI just finished using Model Magic with my Seventh Graders. I teach from a cart and have *extremely* limited storage and no storage in the individual classrooms. This was an expensive alternative, but I am thrilled with the results! My students made window frames, inspired by Muslim architecture, to frame a drawing of a building they could 'see' from their window. We are just finishing up the second part of the project, and my students loved it! I would recommend especially as an alternative for cart teachers (no water or major clean-up needed) and for use with students who have sensory issues. I have one OCD hand-washing Seventh Grader who only went to the sink twice during class (I call that a win since he usually goes 6-8 times in a class period to wash his hands no matter what we're doing). I overbought, not knowing how much Model Magic I would need, so I am looking for projects for the remainder.
ReplyDeleteI love what you did and am looking forward to seeing your other grade level projects!
Got any great monkey projects? Trying to find projects for the upcoming Chinese New Year that would work for K-8.
I just finished using Model Magic with my Seventh Graders. I teach from a cart and have *extremely* limited storage and no storage in the individual classrooms. This was an expensive alternative, but I am thrilled with the results! My students made window frames, inspired by Muslim architecture, to frame a drawing of a building they could 'see' from their window. We are just finishing up the second part of the project, and my students loved it! I would recommend especially as an alternative for cart teachers (no water or major clean-up needed) and for use with students who have sensory issues. I have one OCD hand-washing Seventh Grader who only went to the sink twice during class (I call that a win since he usually goes 6-8 times in a class period to wash his hands no matter what we're doing). I overbought, not knowing how much Model Magic I would need, so I am looking for projects for the remainder.
ReplyDeleteI love what you did and am looking forward to seeing your other grade level projects!
Got any great monkey projects? Trying to find projects for the upcoming Chinese New Year that would work for K-8.
I'm doing Rousseau collages right now, with painted paper. But all paper, and all sorts of jungle animals. I've not used model magic before for a large project like this. Cost is definitely an issue. But I love the 3d quality it gives to these works!
ReplyDeleteHi, Cassie, I love your art ideas...thanks for being so inspiring!
ReplyDeleteModel magic projects I have done with success...yes it dries fast, but, you can give the kids a golf ball size and then have them press it into a texture tile and pinch out a handle....now they have a cool stamper! We colored on it with water washable markers right away, spritzed the paper with water to moisten the paper, and made cool stamped papers as the marker ink bleeds onto the dampened paper! We also were experimenting with this! Then, we re-rolled the model magic sphere, cool color mixing, pressed it out again onto a texture tile and re-marked it again...repeat as many times as it is still not too dry. We ended with one last impression disc of Model Magic that had been impressed into the texture tile....glued it onto our patterned paper and students incorporated that bas relief disc into a creative object drawing on the paper next art period...or get creative with it in another way! I have also used it around pipe cleaner people armatures whereby the students create great posables.Each students used about one half of a package. First they made their 6 inch pipe cleaner figure and then we engulfed it in model magic, posed it with a wider model magic base...had to work fast...15-20 minutes, let dry and next art time we painted them or you can permanent sharpie marker them...we created a diorama background...they had pre-planned their action figure sketch in sketchbooks with setting.
Sorry it is not on my weebly site as I did this process prior to blogging!
LOVE LOVE LOVE the ideas!! Thank you so much for sharing!!
Delete