In the Art Room: First Grade Landscapes

 My first grade artists finished off these fall landscape collages inspired by the artist Eloise Renouf...and the artists (along with this art teacher) couldn't be more proud. In this lesson, we learned how to mix a tint of blue, create textures in wet paint, print with a variety of tools, learn the parts of a landscape, use proper scissor use, collage and more! The kiddos were sad to place these on the drying racks as they were so excited to take them home. Not until a display in the halls for all to see, says me!

These pieces were created on 12" X 18" pieces of paper. My students spent the first couple days of art class this year creating a variety of painted and textured papers. I do this in a similar manner as my friend Laura at Painted Paper Art. In case you are curious how I go about doing it, as I don't cover that in the video, I thought I'd share:

1. I start with giving one grade level (I see two first grade classes back to back in 30 minutes, no break between) one color and white. I focus on the words TEXTURE and TINT. I tell the kiddos that they are to apply the color to their paper in large plops. Then they clean their brush on their messy mat by sweeping it back and fourth. 

2. White plops are then added and mixed with the color. Viola! Now you have a tint! Let's create a texture.

3. Using a variety of scrub brushes, dusters, paint scrapers and more (most found at the Dollar Tree), the kids then add texture to their tinted papers. Once finished, they place it on the drying rack and grab another sheet to more more papers. No names need to be written on the papers as they are going in a communal stack to be used later.

4. The following glasses are given a different color and white...this makes it so we end up with a rainbow of papers!

Hopefully that makes sense and helps clarify the painted and texture paper making mayhem. The kids LOVE making the papers and creating with the results. Here's the instructional video I created to share with my students:

Week One: Like I said, I have 30 minute art classes, twice a week...and those minutes go by in a blink. So, on our first two days together, we spent one day cutting ovals and talking scissor safety. It seems silly...but it was necessary. Ovals cut were placed in a community stack for the following day's printing activity. Here's a video of me teaching the first day portion:

From there, we printed! One day we printed with white paint and the next, black paint. 

Week Two: After another day of printing, we had a nice stack of painted trees. Those we kept for our own, we did not share. We learned all about landscapes, horizon likes and collage the following day. We then cut a piece of land and added it to our chosen sky background.

Week Three: We talked a lot about overlapping, variety and composition the final day before we glued our trees down. I did alter the lesson in that, after the kids glued the trees down, I had them use black and white oil pastels to add the trunks, not paint. Less mess on our last day. 

 I've not matted and framed them for the halls yet, hence the curled edges. I'm looking forward to popping all of our landscape projects up in the halls very soon. Now that these guys are finished, we can move on to our next big undertaking. Just don't ask me what that is yet!

I'm just gonna sit back and admire the view. 

 I was so excited with how these turned out (and now excited the kids were) that I immediately popped them up onto my IG page. 

Imagine how excited I was when our artist inspiration, Eloise Renouf, posted below...it seriously made my day! I cannot wait to share her message with the kiddos!

I love how social media makes our world just a little bit smaller...

And more colorful!