Grade 1 Hot Chocolate

Cozy up over break with a cup of hot chocolate like the one Dylan in 1st grade drew! 

This one-day project focused on how to draw a cylinder and practice with patterns.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Grade 5 Winter Landscapes

Grade 5 students put many elements of art to use for this winter landscape project. We began by drawing LINES to create a FOREGROUND, MIDDLE GROUND, AND BACKGROUND.
Masking tape was applied to block out where we didn't want paint. Those would be the trees and branches.
We painted using different VALUES of blue to create a MONOCHROMATIC COLOR SCHEME. To make the blue darker we added black to create a SHADE. For lighter blue we added white to create a TINT. 
When all the paint was dry we peeled off the tape to reveal white birch trees. To make the image more realistic we added some more shading to the trees and branches, then a touch of falling snow.

Have an awesome break!! 

Grade 4 Symmetrical Snowflakes

SYMMETRY is easily found around us in nature and man-made objects. Fourth graders made snowflakes with symmetry for their winter project. To make symmetrical snowflakes they folded a piece of paper in half, opened it up, and painted half of a snowflake. From there, they folded the up again against the wet paint to transfer it to the other side. We added some sparkle with glitter for fun. To complete the snowflakes students used LINES to paint a border. Types of lines could include straight, zig-zag, dotted, wavy, or any other type the student could think of. Here are some all together!

Grade 2 Cardinal Collages

With winter upon us grade 2 created a COLLAGE that incorporated a cardinal in a tree. Cardinals always stand out in the snowy winter since they don't migrate. The first thing that the students had to do was add a little extra blue in their background. They then began gathering strips of brown paper to build a tree and nest for their bird. 

I always tell students to use DOTS, NOT LOTS when gluing. The paper strips were sometimes very thin, especially when it was time for the pine needles. and so students really needed to control how much glue they were using. 

After drawing and cutting out their bird it was time for the snow using a little touch of white paint. Happy Winter Grade 2:)

Grade 1 Mondrian Windows

Does this piece of ABSTRACT art remind you of anything? 

The title is Broadway Boogie Woogie and it is appropriately part of the collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Piet Mondrian was inspired by the city and created this piece that represents the city's grid, traffic, and bright lights.

Grade 1 students looked at this piece and used a ruler to create straight LINES to represent streets. They then painted using the primary colors, just like Mondrian did, leaving some spaces blank. We hung these in windows and display cases around the school. 

                                                

This is personally one of my favorite pieces and I have had the pleasure of seeing it in person while in NYC for the National Art Education Association Convention 

Click the link to learn more about this painting.

MoMA The Collection

Grade 3 Mittens

Grade three students worked on some winter 

COLLAGE

mittens using construction paper, tissue paper, and rope. They each made an individual mitten by using glue to make a pattern or use a color scheme of their choosing. Some classes used paint to create a winter snowflake background and others, like the ones in these images, cut out snowflakes to fill the page. We then went into the hall to connect the mittens into a group display.

Kindergarten Snowmen

Kindergartners are using the letters in their name to determine how many snowballs they need for their snowman. They began by counting the letters in their name and tracing that number of circles on their vertical paper. We had to add one extra circle for the snowman's head. 

Veronica, Samantha, and Benjamin have the tallest snowmen with 8 letters!

After they were finished with their circles they wrote their name inside one letter per circle. They could dress their snowman any way they pleased and also add a background.

          

We then practiced being Calm, Straight, and Quiet in the hallway as we hung the snowmen from shortest to tallest. Short snowmen had very few letters while tall snowmen had a lot of letters!

Jake and Aidan have two of the shortest names in the class. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Grade 1 Goldfish

Grade 1 students made a  COLLAGE based on a piece of art by Henri Matisse called "The Goldfish". Instead of painting paper like he did, we used wallpaper cut into all different shapes and sizes. Goldfish appear in nine of Henri's paintings!

Henri Matisse, Goldfish, 1912. Pushkin Museum of Art, Moscow

Students had the most fun adding some googley-eyes as a finishing touch. Here are a few examples!   

Grade 4 Abstract Self Portraits

Picasso, Pablo. The Weeping Woman. 1937. Tate Museum, London, UK.

 This odd portrait was created by Pablo Picasso in 1937. Grade 4 students studied this portrait and described it as "weird", "crazy", and "colorful". Since we determined that this painting is not realistic, we added ABSTRACT to our list of descriptive words. This portrait is not a SELF PORTRAIT because this is not a painting of Pablo Picasso, the creator of this piece. However, we used it as inspiration to create our own self-portraits using the art elements LINE and COLOR.

We began by using a ruler to draw a self portrait using only straight lines. This was a challenge because most of the details of the human face are curved lines! Using the ruler gave everyone a self portrait that was clearly abstract. We then added some extra lines to break up the composition further. Here is one in the first stages of line with a bit of color added to the student's braid. 

The color scheme for this project consisted of ANALOGOUS colors, those that are beside each other on the color wheel. Students chose three to work with.

Green, blue, and purple are analogous colors and used in the student's portrait above.

Not only did we learn about analogous color schemes, but also about VALUE. Value is the lightness or darkness of a color. When a color goes from dark, to medium, to light that is called GRADATION. In each fragment of the self-portrait the student was required to include gradation with colored pencils using one of their three chosen colors. 

Here is the final piece of art! 

Hi, Isabella! 

Hi, Milton!

Grade 3 Rotational Symmetry

Third graders already know about symmetry (when something is the same on both sides), so it's time to step it up and introduce some math concepts with ROTATIONAL SYMMETRY. With rotational symmetry the shape of image can be rotated and it still looks the same.
How many matches you get as you go around is called the ORDER. 

This design can be rotated 5 times and still look the same.

Students used their name or initials to come up with a unique design with rotational symmetry. Then, we chose a pair of complementary colors to brighten up our drawings. COMPLEMENTARY COLORS are those across from each other on the color wheel. 

Pairs could be 

yellow and purple

blue and orange

or

red and green

Here are two students working on the final stages of their finished design.

Hi Hailey and Aden!

" I Am" in Grade 1

     First graders have been looking at this piece titled "Self Portrait" by Judith Leyster and searching for clues about the woman through the painting.

Leyster, Judith. Self Portrait. 1630. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Web.

     To begin we simply worked on describing what we were seeing. Some observations were very keen. Others were just too funny. One student remarked "there's a napkin on her head!" and another believed she was holding a magic wand. Two students thought that she might be the Mona Lisa's sister. After a bit we realized that she was from a long time ago ( 1630 to be exact ) and that she painted this picture of herself... a SELF PORTRAIT! Not only is she showing us that she likes to paint, she's also showing off! We can tell that Judith has a lot of confidence because of her smile and how she is leaning back in her chair.
     To learn more about this painting visit
     http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/highlights/highlight37003.html

     Since Judith showed us that she likes to paint we were going to have to show Judith what we like to do. Here is one example by Erin along with an "I Am" poem she completed when she was finished.

I am Erin

I like dancing

I am beautiful

I try doing my hair

I am a nice person

Evan playing soccer in his self portrait

Dylan fishing in his self portrait 

Grade 5 Science Integration

I received this lesson from Mrs. Benjamin which outlined a way to integrate art into the science curriculum on the topic of planets. After looking at some books of the planets in our solar system, the students found they could relate some describing words of these planets to the elements of art. For example, when a students said that the planet they were looking at was red and orange we realized that would fall under COLOR. Some planets had rings or craters. We could draw those using LINE. They could put lines together to make SHAPE, or simply look at the shape of all planets...spheres. Others may appear to be made of rock or even look smooth. These are kinds of TEXTURE. Finally, some planets were hidden in shadow, which is achieved by adding VALUE. 
After looking at the planets in our solar system it was time for students to make up their own. Planets incorporated the elements of art we had previously discussed...

COLOR

LINE

SHAPE

TEXTURE

VALUE

Here is a phenomenal planet created by Jed

And another by Nolan

Even our backgrounds added to the illusion of a real planet in space. After setting up a special "splat box" students came up one by one and with assistance got a nice white-splattered paper that added some dimension to their background. 

These planets were on display at the Celebration of Learning at the end of the year. Here are even more planets! 

Thanks for stopping by!

October in Kindergarten

Brendon's Pumpkin Patch

Dylan's Pumpkin Patch

At first glance this project may seem like a typical cut and paste pumpkin lesson. However, students actually took two weeks just mixing their own primary colors to make the secondary colors.

red + yellow = orange pumpkins

blue + red = purple background

yellow + blue = green grass

We then had to cut out our shapes (circles, ovals, rectangles, and a big zig-zag) and assemble our pumpkin patch. This took another art class. On the back of each painting there is also some "Color Math" which the students filled out to show how they made their secondary colors. Overall, this is a four week lesson! These paintings were inspired by some pumpkin patches the kindergartners had seen on a recent field trip to a farm. Happy October, Kindergarten!

Show Me the Mona!

This classroom management strategy includes auditory, visual, and kinesthetic prompts. When I ask students to "show me the Mona" they will put down their materials, fold their hands, put their eyes on me, and stop talking. I have had great success with this and often times hear students saying it even when they're not in art class! I try to keep the Mona on my cart as a visual of what I expect when I say this as long as I don't need the space for other visuals.

SHOW ME THE MONA!

Another visual that I use is a noise level poster including famous works of art that represent how loud our speaking voices should be at any given time. This is a super helpful tool for the first couple of weeks of school but since it is HUGE I can't bring it with me every day.

Welcome

My name is Kerri Fletcher and welcome to Smartest Artists! I am a second year K-5 Visual Art Teacher in Rhode Island. Here I will post what I am teaching, lesson processes, images of student work, and my adventures in elementary art education. As a first-time blogger this site is a work in progress as I strive to accommodate for students, parents, and educators. Thank you for visiting!