Okay, I know what you're thinking: Holy crap, Stephens, Dot Day ended, like, a month ago! Y'all. I know. But I never did tell ya the whys and hows and who's-its of these here Reversible Dot Paintings. So don't gimme none of that "holy crap" biznatch, ya hear?
Way back when I started dreaming up ideas for Dot Day, I knew I wanted to use some cardboard pizza rounds. I dunno why. You know how it is when you get an idea stuck in your head for no reasonable reason and you just can't get rid of it. Kinda like herpes. Well that was me with this cardboard pizza round thing. So I ordered a hundred of 'em from School Specialty and got the notion that we'd make some reversible abstract paintings out of 'em.
What gave me that thought was the movie Six Degrees of Separation (if you've heard me tell this tale before, sorry for the repeat. I'm a repeat-asaurus, it's what I do). I knew I wanted the kids to learn about Kandinsky because he's got a big fat showing at our local art museum. And then I recalled this movie clip and was all: YES! REVERSIBLE KANDINSKY PAINTINGS. I'M. A. GENIUS. That is until I found out that Kandinsky never actually did paint any reversible painting. Which could only lead me to one conclusion: The Prince of Bel Air is a LIAR (okay, so it was Donald Sutherland in the clip, whateves).
I still thought the idea was a good one and a fun way to start the school year so I went with it any ole way. Whatcha see above is one child's reversible painting. I love how different one side is from the other. Lemme tell you how we did it. It all started on the first day of school...
Yeah, I know. You've prolly seen this thing too. Told ya I'm a repeat-asaurus. Just ask my students.
On our first days of art class, after our chats about Kandinsky and his painting to music, we tackled our own abstract paintings. We listened to music and musical instruments to inspire a variety of lines. Our first Word of the Week was "artist" which we all decided we most definitely are.
The following classes were spent painting and our word of the week was "unique". I really wanted to emphasize that our paintings are all going to be different, no one better than the other. We also talked about how color could evoke mood and that was the focus behind our color choices. This wasn't a color mixing lesson, per se (gah, I've always wanted to say "per se" on this blog. Today's my lucky day, I dare per se!). If the kids created new colors, HURRAY!, we celebrated that. But our focus was on using colors to show emotion.
And by the looks of things we were all pretty happy. By the way, the paint we were using was whatever-was-left-over-from-last-school-year. My art supply order hadn't arrived yet (because, um, I forgot to place it. Der.) so we may have been scraping the bottom of some bottles. I do have to tell you that upon YOUR recommendations, I ordered VersaTemp from Sax and, y'all. I LOVE IT. Best paint I've used with the kids yet. I can't wait for you to see their new paintings! But, um, back to this.
I think a kid's personality really shines in an abstract painting. This dude is very meticulous, organized and precise.
And this little girl is very free and comfortable with her sense of expression. She's already decided she's an artist now and when she grows up (gotta love that!).
I see a landscape painter every time I look at this painting.
Because I thought the boards should be the opposite on the back, I did go ahead and paint them all black. Which really didn't take as long as it sounds...but I didn't want the kids to use one of their precious art classes painting something black. We looked at a couple of Kandinsky's circle paintings and I gave the kids a "creative challenge" ("creative" being our Word of the Week): Create a painting using only circles.
Because the surface was black, the kids did have to paint the circles white first and then add color. Which was great because then we could learn all about tints and value.
I see a budding Edvard Munch, don't you?
So clever, I love it!
The week of Dot Day, our word was "inspire". This was because our beautiful reversible paintings were to inspire the school just as Peter H. Reynolds had inspired our dot theme. To hang, I simply punched a super small hole in the top and bottom of each painting and paper clipped them together.
And the serve as this super colorful reminder of the unique and creative artists that made them. They're so happy, I think I'll leave 'em up for a while. By the way, I now have a thing for cardboard pizza rounds. I gotta know, what have y'all ever used 'em for? Until next time!
Well, now that the Dot Day dust has settled, I thought I'd share with y'all just how my lil first grade friends created this flower-y dot mural. It's been a big hit and I gotta say, I just love that it's planted, so to speak, right outside my room. It makes me feel like I'm walking into some sorta crazed Candyland everyday. Whiiiich I kinda am. Buuuut whatevers. Lemme first share with you my inspiration for the mural...
I pinned this beauty the moment I spied it on pinterest. I had no idea just how I was gonna use the idea but I knew I loved the piece. It's by an etsy artist who's handle (er, etsy-shop-name? I like "handle" better as my alter-ego is a chain-smokin, gravely-voiced, don't-take-no-shizzle trucker. What's yours?) heathergallerart. I love her whimsical colorful style. When I was scrolling through my pins for Dot Day, I rediscovered Heather's piece and decided it would make the perfect inspiration for our mural-tasticness.
As I've blergged before (whuh, you didn't know that "blergged was the past tense to "blogged"? You, my friend, need to get your kitten mittens on an urban dictionary, stat), my first grade friends began this adventure with a lil intro to Wasilly Kandinsky and his concentric circles painting. Shortly after, the kids attacked a paper plate with their own concentric circle deigns. By the way, what you see above is known as "Crap! My paint order isn't in! Let's just use whatever we can scrap outta the bottom of the paint bottles." You'd think after your millionth year of art teacherin', you'd know to get your supply order in before school starts. Sigh.
Not like any of these artists noticed. They could paint with any ole thang and be perfectly happy. So glad to see they remembered that their Paint Brush Ballerina is to always paint on her tippy toes, never ever scoot around on her bottom (aka when-the-kids-scrub-their-brush-into-the-paper. Funny story, I used to call this Paint Brush Grinding until I realized that "grinding" was a form of dancing that shouldn't be mentioned in the art room. Ahhhhh-em).
The following art class, we blabbered about those ole Elements of Art and reviewed our chats about line from last year. Then I gave the kids what I like to call The World's Smallest Ballerina Paintbrush so they could create their delicate designs. I also gave the kids some watered down India ink which was ridiculous as one sweet girl promptly spilled the ink and ruined her top. Thankfully her mama wrote me a kind note saying, basically, "no worries!" and sent me a bag of chocolate. Shoot, I'll take that kind of punishment any day! To insure no more spillage, I placed the cups of ink in aluminum pie pans thus catching any spilled ink. Duh, why do I always get these ideas after the fact?
For the flowery-petal portion of our dot-flowers were created on the following art class. The kids were given a folded piece of paper. On one side, we created a texture (you see how we keep hittin those Elements of Art? I'm tryin', y'all. I'm tryin'.) with my fave art room tool, the texture comb. On the other side, we used shape which, in this case, was a dot stamp.
Once those dried, we did a lil math-ness. The kids were to fold their papers in half, trace two circles and magically cut out four (and it truly is magical in first grade which is why I love 'em so). From there they were to create eight half circles which stumped 'em for a hot minute before one of 'em realized (after doing some super cute simple math on her fingers), "you cut the four circles in half!" Once those were cut out, we glued 'em to the rim of our plate.
For the following art class, I had precut several squares of bulletin board paper. On each, I painted the start of a pattern with either black or white paint (for example, on this sheet, I painted asterix with dots on the tips). I gathered the kids around the giant sheets and asked them to pick a partner and pick a paper they'd like to continue pattern painting on. The sheets were just large enough to take up half table. The kids and their partners set to work.
And at the end of each class, we ended up with something that looked a lil like this. Which I've decided I'd like to have made into wall-to-wall carpet. Super cute, riiiiiight?
Next came the assembling. I was a little worried that this might take me forever but it actually went by quickly once I figured out what in the world I was doing. Because I have four first grade classes, I went with four different trees. From there, I picked one of their patterned papers for the top, sky, back-, middle- and foreground. One that was decided, I curve-cut the tree and the landscape and proceeded to hot-glue 'em to each other. After that was assembled, the flowers were lightly glued into place (I want to be able to remove them at the end of the year to return them to the artists).
Once all the pieces of the landscape and flowers where in place, I used that aforementioned, stain-your-clothes ink to outline the land and add a tree. I love their happy patterned papers, they made the perfect collage pieces! And the scraps, oh! Stay tuned as the kids have been using those to create paper bunting for our upcoming Mexican Fiesta!
And there you have it, our Crazed -n- Colorful Flowery-Dot Candyland! This mural was truly fun to make and brightens my day whenever I see it. I've loved seeing the many Dot Day murals y'all other art teachers have shared. What other murals do you have up your art-teacherin' sleeves? Lemme know, I'd love to hear. Until then!
