Summer Vacation Week: A Wrap Up!

Summer Vacation Week was so fun! And the perfect way to kick start summer. We wrapped it on Friday with this pop-up hot air balloon. Here is the video:

From there we made this Origami Ocean Collage! This one was a huge hit. Kids love origami!

Our last salt dough clay project (for now) was making this garden. It was so fun and the Art Class with Cassie kids got so creative!

We kicked off the week with this Summertime Selfie. I'm actually thinking of starting our school year with this one!

Have fun!

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In the Art Room: Springtime with van Gogh and Charley Harper

So here, in middle Tennessee, we pretty much decided to do winter for about 10 days and move straight on to spring. It's been a mix of rainy, muggy and/or sunny (sometimes all in one day!) every since! For that reason, the first graders and I decided to create these Vincent van Gogh/Charley Harper mash-ups!

Now, I'm sharing this lesson with you in it's in-between/van Gogh-y stage. We started it right before I was absent for several days and then we promptly entered into Spring Break-ville. For that reason, my firsties are actually finishing their Everybody is a Star project. Once that's complete (fingers crossed that we wrap it up this week!), we'll start the Charley Harper portion of the project. 

Ah, van Gogh. It was fun sharing with the kids that I'd seen his work in Chicago while at NAEA. I left out the part about the exhibit being so crazy busy that all I truly saw were the backs of people's heads. If you are like me, you have a coupla fave van Gogh paintings that aren't The Starry Night. Personally, this Almond Blossom painting is one of mine.

You can see the influence of my good friend and fabulous art teacher Laura Lohmann in this lesson what with the painted paper and textures. She's the best! 

Here's a list of supplies we used:

* 12" X 18" paper. We recycled our messy mats but you can use construction paper for added color.
* Paint. Because I see my kids for 30 minutes, I premixed the tints of blue. 
* Brushes, texture combs.
* Sponges or paint brushes for cloud texture.
* 1" X 2" pieces of cardboard for printing.
* Scrap paper for collage.
* Scissors.
* Glue

I created a video that introduces my students both to van Gogh and Harper as well as walks them thru the process. Feel free to use it! I've been creating weekly lessons here so all y'all should subscribe. Like, now. 

Because I see these kids for 30 minutes, I break stuff down into bite sizes for them. On the first day, we were able to get about this far.

Love all of the colors in this one!

The following day, we learned more about van Gogh and printed tree branches!

We did wait a day before printing out flowers and leaves. I thought they'd smear with the brown paint. 

Now, we totes coulda stopped here. But I have a sweet college student who comes to my room every Monday. She said, "Have you seen the Portlandia skit 'Put a Bird on It?' I think they should!"

We put birds on things!

This idea lead me to the artist Charley Harper. If y'all have not been to the Charley Harper website, you need to check it out. I can't wait to share the animated version of his work as well as the studio tour he gives Todd Oldham. I also plan to play this live bird feed from Animal Planet while the kids work. 

Funny/tragic story about Charley Harper: a frame shop was going out of business about 15 years ago and gave me a TON of stuff. Among that stuff, three Charley Harper prints. At the time, I had no idea who he was but I loved the prints. Because two were duplicates...I GAVE ONE AWAY TO A FRIEND (I knoooooow). Wait, it gets better. Then I CUT THE BORDER OFF ONE TO FIT IT INTO A FRAME (TRUST ME, I KNOOOOOOOOW). His prints are worth big bucks. Pretty sure his chopped into ones aren't worth squat. Now I can't even hang them in my house because every time the hubs walks past them he says, "Aren't these the prints that are worth a lot of money? Which one did you cut up again?" UGH. These are the things that happen when you are an idiot. Moral of story: Don't be an idiot. Now, let's move along, shall we?

Grace, the sweet college student, started collaging birds inspired by Harper. This here is a teacher sample. Cuz, if you were paying attention, you'd know my firsties haven't gotten this far yet. 

And here's the one I create in the video. I'll be sure to share with you the kids' creations as y'all know they will come up with so much awesomeness. If you decide to do this lesson as well, I'd love to see! Be sure to tag me here on Twitter or there on Instagram so I can check it out. 

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In the Art Room: The Art Show Part 1

A display of kindergarten abstract masterpieces. These paintings were created at the very beginning of the year during our line and color study. We coated them with glossy Modge Podge to help the colors pop.

Well, my helper moms and I can finally sleep in! The school-wide, hang-up-and-display-everything-we've-made-all-year art show is ooooo-ver. I'd like to thank the kids for their hard work, my amazing mom-helpers who put in countless hours hanging masterpieces, my former student teacher Lauren who worked for hours on the day of the show and my dear mom who drove down from Indiana to help and cheer us on. It was a huge success...one that will be hard to top next year.

I thought I'd share with you the two-dimensional artwork from the art show. This is a photo-heavy post...and just the tip of the masterpiece-iceberg. Stay tuned for the upcoming episodes of In the Art Room: Clay Display and, not to be missed, our Walk Like an Egyptian program performed by our Super Second Grade Stars!

But for now, sit back and enjoy these fabulous works of art. I'll provide a brief description of each. Feel free to leave a comment with any questions or thoughts below. Enjoy!

These sweet kindergarten self-portraits were on display along side photos of the artist. The self-portraits were created on flesh colored construction paper with oil pastels. These were cut out and glued on top of bubble printed paper the kids had made. Hair was then painted. Finally, construction paper that we had cardboard printed was placed on top as a shirt, complete with collar and name tag.

Kindergarten display of collage cats, winter landscapes, and fall printed trees.

For this kindergarten winter landscape, we began by learning about tints and shades and painting the sky and snowy land. From there we collaged trees and houses. Finally we used metallic oil pastels to enhance the sky, the trees and the house.

Because I have my classes for 1/2 hour, I had to think of a quicky project for my wee little ones. They were able to create this butterfly relief sculpture in just the nick of time.

Egyptian collage landscapes by my first grade artists. You can read all about this lesson here.

The idea of using the first grader's weaving for the body of a crocodile originally came from pinterest. But art teacher Lauren came up with the genius idea to create crocodile puppets. Here's the lesson.

Love those teeth.

The first graders also created these abstract collages at the beginning of the year. We did some leaf rubbing and painting. From there, we tore the painting into strips and glued them down to a larger piece of white paper. This was a great lesson on positive and negative space.

In the second grade gallery, we have our circle loom weavings which we attached our Sculpey beads to, our Egyptian profile portraits, leafy prints and our golden tree paintings (not pictured). I also have the students write an Artist Autobiography every year that is placed along side a framed photo of the artist.

Leafy Print Lesson can be found here.

Our third grade gallery includes our sarcophagus, foil leaf reliefs, cardboard weavings and our haunted trees. Not pictured are our photos and bios.

You can read more about our sarcophagus lesson here.

A close up of one of the third grader's cardboard weavings. This year we tried our hand at adding beads to our weavings. We attempted to hide the cardboard with some scratch art paper designs.

I hope this artist is able to find a good place for tacos while she's artin' it up in Paris!

When painting our sarcophagus-es (sarcophagui? We eventually took to calling them our sarcopha-dudes), some of the early-finishers tried their hand at optical illusion drawing. This lesson was pulled from pinterest and was so simple, that I just wrote out the directions on the board and the early-finishers followed the steps.

Fourth grade awesomeness: framed photos and bios, Mona Lisa group project photo (seen on the far left) Egyptian prints, cartouche, moon-light paintings, woven pouches, and Egyptian god portraits,

Egyptian god portrait lesson here.

The kid's all time favorite thing in the whole wide world to do: weave! Once the fourth graders get a taste of weaving, there is no turning back. I have one sweet girl who has woven 12 pouches now for her family members in Mexico.

All the time and hours spent are immediately forgotten when you get a sweet note like this the following day...love it!

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