In the Art Room: Pandas with Personality by Fourth Grade Artists!

Howdy, friends! I trust that most of y'all have been spending your summery days chillaxin' like these two. Sunny day, cold bevvy, fancy umbrelly and a polka dot bikini? Why, don't mind if I do! My genius fourth grade kids created these Pan-duhz with Personality at the end of the year and I'm still chucklin' at their silliness. 

As y'all might recall, I did share with ya's our annual art show where every masterpiece each and every kiddo created throughout the year was hung all over the place. Like, we're talking around 2000 pieces of art. Y'all, we covered every inch of that school...so much so that I was a breath away from hanging some artwork in the bathroom stalls (which reminds me: does anyone else love those stall-ads as much as I do?! Although, I gotta tell ya, I do find the restaurant ads a wee bit disturbing when I'm, well, you know. Droppin and ploppin). When I was out for a coupla days for the amazing NAEA convention in San Diego, my awesome sub had the kids create those Party Panda paintings. This proved to be the perfect jumping-off point for our ceramic endeavors. 

Lemme break down for just how the kids created these cuties: 

Day 1: We created the base. To do this, pounded our Cone 06 clay to a cookie thickness. Then we traced a template for our base shapes with wooden skewers. I provided circles, organic shapes or rounded-edge squares. After those were created, the kids created the basic forms of of the panda's body. After our 30 minutes, the kids wrapped their work in a damp paper towel and stowed it in a labeled ziplock bag.

Day 2: I demoed some ideas on how to make a panda head. We looked at a boat load of examples and thought about our fun drawings. The word of the day was personality. The more your panda had, the better. Once the heads were created, the kids started attaching them to the bodies and kind of playing with just how their panda's body would look. Would he be sunbathing? Chillin with the kids? Strummin' a gee-tar...

whilst wearing shades and sportin a big pink bow?

Or glazing their clay pinch pot, as pandas like to do.

Days 3 and 4: On these days the kids really started thinking about details and an environment for their panda...one that would really reflect their panda-nality.

A coupla of my kids recalled that our local zoo had just hosted a red panda exhibit. With that in mind, this cutie was created.

I love the sweet gaze of the baby panda to it's mama.

Once our friends were fired, we glazed them with 3 coats of Mayco Stroke and Coat. My fourth grade friends have created a masterpiece outta clay every year since kindergarten so they are pretty much like experts at this whole process. Hence this panda-monium. 

Speaking of pandaemonium...

Y'all, this week, I'm currently at the amazing Tennessee Arts Academy and gearing up for this Thursday's online conference with The Art of Education which means my life this week is crazy-happy-fun-busy. So don't ask me why I thought it would be a good idea to start the Artsy Book Club this week. Thereforeness, I've decided to officially begin posting next week...but y'all can start reading Teach like a Pirate by Dave Burgess and/or Printmaking Unleashed by Traci Bautista any ole time, ermkay?! I'll be back soon with a full report on the Arts Academy...and I hope to chat with ya at the AOE conference. Til then, strap on that bikini, slap on that sunscreen and enjoy these summer days while you can!

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In the Art Room: I Scream, You Scream

Ima gonna tell you a dirty lil secret of mine: during the summer months, I seek out and devour ice cream on a daily basis. I mean, I'm like some sort of rabid dog. Think Cujo but with eyeliner and a sailor's mouth if anyone should cross my whipped-cream-cherry-on-top path. There is no screaming for ice cream with me cuz that would be too easy. Oh no. If I'm refused my daily dip, I can be reduced to ugly-crying like that time at the McDonald's drive-thru when I was nightmarishly informed that their soft-serve machine was down. Hot, grimy, ugly tears.

Tell me, what kids don't love the ice creams as well? During our annual art show (deets here and here, ya'll), we also host an Ice Cream Social. So, the day before the art show, with all artwork complete and hung in the halls, I got the crazy notion that we should do one more masterpiece in honor of our said social. And, in 30 minutes or less, my 3rd and 4th grade kiddos busted out these bad boys. They really were the cherry on top of our art show.

So just how did the kids create these super delish paintings in 30 minutes? Well, Ima bout to tell ya. Let's start with my sad list of end-of-the-school-year/we've-just-about-used-everything-up supplies:

*  Rectangular white paper. I had actually run out of normal sized white paper and was reduced to using rando odd sizes found in my storage closet. These were about 5" X 9".

*  Broken crayons. I never buy crayons because we rarely use them and I'm always donated bags of 'em at the end of the school year by classroom teachers. Although, this upcoming school year, I think I'll invest in some construction paper crayons.

*  Watercolor paint. What's left of it, anyway. At the end of the school year, my trays were empty. So I busted out these odd bottles of watercolor I'd found at the back of my closet and they worked great. The kids knew they were working with a limited palette and to make the best of it.

*  Paint brushes. Duh.

For directions, I chatted with the kids for a hot minute on the whole crayon resist thing (they've been down that road before so they knew the routine) and how a whole lotta pressure was going to be needed to "put a raincoat on your paper" to help it repell the paint. Then we chatted about ice cream flavors and background designs. I really kept the chat short as they only had 30 minutes to create these 'creams.

I suppose a good art teacher woulda chatted about Wayne Thiebaud but I've never claimed to be a good art teacher. 

The kids spent a lot of time in watercolor land this school year. I loved seeing them using all the skills they had learned like this wet-on-wet background.

And this splatter-painted one.

Once complete, I mounted the kids' work on whatever construction paper I had left before hanging up this display outside the cafeteria where the ice cream social was hosted. 

Dude, this painting reminds me of the time my mom bought me an ice cream cone at Orange Julius ('member them?) at the mall after relentless begging. The moment she handed it to me, I took one lick and shoved all those neat spheres of ice cream to the floor (notice I said "spheres" instead of "balls". Who else has learned the hard way never to use the word "balls" around 10 year old boys?). My mom just gave me a "Really?" while the angst-ridden dressed-like-Madonna (it was the 80's, ya'll. Girls were either on Team Madonna or Team Lauper) rolled her eyes and yelled: I NEED ANOTHER ICE CREAM CONE! to her cohorts. To this very day, I prefer non-tongue-push-over-soft-serve for that very reason.

Wait, where was I again? Geesh, sounds like someone needs therapy (who am I kidding, sounds like someone needs more therapy). Back to the paintings: there you have it! A super easy and quick painting that's just as delightfully fun to create as it looks. Happy Ice Scream Painting, ya'll!

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