In the Art Room: My Fave Landscape Lessons

Hey, y'all! Welcome to another installment of my Back to Art Teacherin' series! I kicked off this series with a lil What to Wear-ness and a Giveaway where y'all had to indulge me in your fave back-to-school-clothes shopping stories. I loved each and everyone but I gotta say, this one from Michelle was one of my faves:

My favorite, and most embarrassing, back-to-school memory involves my dad taking me and my two sisters shopping for back to school clothes...way back in the eighties! There was plenty of black and neon combinations, acid wash jean skirts, and at least one knitted cat sweater involved, which was my favorite thing. We were so proud of our gear that we begged our dad to film us putting on a fashion show - complete with commentary by my sister and some hilarious bloopers, including a particularly confident walk by my eight-year-old self, all the while with my hair tucked into the neck of my prized cat sweater (there were some quick dress changes!) and followed by three full turns at the end of the “catwalk” (I think I had figure skaters and fashion models confused at the time). My dad filmed it all on his old school video camera, the kind that was so large it had to be propped up on his shoulder and held a full-sized VHS tape! The evidence still exists!

Congrats, Michelle, on your grab bag of art teacherin' books win! Now, don't ya'll leave me hanging for our next fun-ness...don't forget to snap a photo of what you wear on your first day back to school! I know many of you either have already started (in which case, just snap a photo of any ole art teacherin' day, I won't tell!) or don't start back for a while. No worries! I don't plan to share the post until the end of Auggie/start of Septie. More details here. 

Now if all y'all are like me, unit planning, lesson writing and sample making are in full swing. This is also the time that I find myself getting a lil stumped and frustrated. And ain't nobody got time for that! So I thought I'd share with y'all a sprinkling of my very fave landscape and self-portrait lessons to kick off your school year! 

For starters, this landscape project you see above was created by my fourth grade students last year. I loved it because it was a color mixing lesson that produced the mostly lovely of hues as well as unique paintings. All the landscape-y color mixing deets here, kids. 

One of my fave projects my second graders tackled last year were these Chilean-inspired arpilleras. We used textured and printed papers, collage, origami for the houses, puffy paint and stitching for the border. So much fun in one project! 

After our big chalk episode this year, the classes that didn't participate were really interested in the medium. So I took advantage of that interest of theirs and introduced them to the artist Sushe Felix and her lovely landscapes! The kids loved working with chalk and thought this technique to be simply magical. 

I love meshing several art lessons into one project. I find that the experience for the children is more rich and the artwork lovely. If you think about it, artists don't usually create in one medium solely independent of another. Meaning, they don't make a collage with just paper or a weaving with just yarn but they mesh many different techniques and supplies. By introducing that style of art making to children we are showing them that the processes taught can be applied to the creation of something magical and great. 

I know, y'all. It ain't no wheres close to winter yet but this here is one of my fave kindergarten landscape lessons! It's always sweet to see their wintery scenes...and I'm convinced that each year, these babies bring us the luck of snow! 

Who says landscape lessons have to be taught two-dimensionally? This tree weaving is one of my faves of all time and can really introduce so many concepts on both landscape, scale, perspective and weaving! 

You know how people are always giving us the weirdest things? Like, toilet paper tubes, for zample? One year, when learning about Medieval times, the fourth grade used 'em to create these totes tubular castles! 

But even without the castles, these landscapes look all kinds of awesome, says me.

These Egyptian desert landscapes were created by my first grade artists. Can you believe the lil Leonardo was such a wiz with those camel-cutting scissors, y'all?! 

Introducing cultures with collage landscape is always a good idea (kinda like Paris). These second graders knocked this project outta the park! 

Tho this first grade artist did a pretty magnifique! Another use of those ole t.p. tube, y'all. 

Okay, now I'm all kinds of excited to start the year with some super landscape painting projects! Our theme at the start of this year is Henri Rousseau-inspired jungles...I can't wait to see what my wee artists create! What are some of your fave landscape lessons? I'd love to know!

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In the Art Room: School-Wide Collaboratives!

Hey, kids! I'm comin' atcha with a mere two and some change weeks o' summer vacay left before The Return. Which means, if you are anything like me (and, Lordie help you if you are), you are dreaming up ideas for the new school year. One of my fave things to do to kick off the beginning of the year is have a big ole school-wide collaborative (or "scollab" as I like to call 'em). And lemme tell you why:

1. It gets the kids creating right at the start of the school year! If your kids are anything like mine, they spend their first full week learning rules -n- routines everywhere they go. The cafeteria. The classroom. The playground. The bus. WHICH I know is important BUT I'm dealing with the under-10 set. When they come to the art room they are soooo over that mess. Not only that, but I've had most of my students since kindergartenland. If they don't know my R-n-R's by now, well, when they see that we're gonna create on the first day o' art, they learn 'em real fast. Nothing like a big ole fun and messy carrot to get 'em behaved and ready to create, amirate?!

2. It makes the school look lovely! At the start of the school year, our school halls are empty and nuthin but wall to wall BLAH-eige (my friend Debbie coined this term: blah + beige = BLAH-eige). What better way to spice 'em up than with some kid-created masterpieces?!

3. It shines a spotlight on your art program! Let's face it, you ARE the Donna Summer of your school:

Sing it with me, "I work hard for the money. So hard for it, honey! I work hard for the money so you better treat me right!" However, you just can't run around tellin' folk how hard you and your young artists are working. You gotta show them. Put up a show stopper at the start of the year and you'll have everyone talkin' about your art program. 

Now, I know y'all are thinking, "That's all well -n- swell but what scollabs should I dooooo?!" Well, I'm here today to share with y'all some of my very faves with linky-loos to the blog posts that will walk you thru all of the steppies. Let's start with this fourth grade legacy mural! And, good news, if you are attending this Thursday's AOE conference...

You can hear me chat at length about each of these projects! As well as me questions live at the conference. AND take a tour of my school and get an even better view of these masterpieces. However, if you can't attend, don't you sweat it. I've got ya covered in this here blog post!

The mural is proudly displayed in the front lobby of our school and give a fair amount of fun -n- funk to our entrance way, doncha think?

Another fun scollab we did this year was our Village of Kindness mural/installation. 

Our theme for the school year was Be Nice and what better way to do so than with a village full of houses with kind messages to greet the viewer.

This also incorporated a fun backdrop that was painted by my rockin' second grade artists! More on that process here. 

This scollab is prolly one of my all time faves and it was purely by accident. Our school hosted a "street painter" or sidewalk chalk artist who introduced the kids to her trade. The kids were then supposed to try their hand at chalk art outside on our sidewalks but the weather decided against it. So we used the flip side of ceiling tiles instead! Full details here. 

Now we're thinking of doing this project every year because my administration loved it so much!

 If you want a scollab that will have EVERYONE feeling all warm and fuzzy at the start of the school year, have I got the one for you. The Gallery of Gratitude is an idea I played with forever...and I totes wish I had done it sooner. It meant so much to the faculty and staff to see their portraits and words of kindness written about them. 

Who doesn't love to feel appreciated?! This project def did the trick.

And, last but not least, the final scollab I've got for you here in this post is the Johnson Elementary has Heart mural! If you need a heart stopping show stopper (sorry, had to), this is it, kids!

So, what do you think? Are you ready to tackle a scollab to kick off the start of your school year? If so, what do you have in mind? I'd love to know. Leave me a lil sumpin sumpin in the comments, would ya? Til then...

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