Valentines for Veterans

In between projects this week students had time to create some Valentine's Day cards for the veterans in RI. This February, Congressman David N. Cicilline invited the area's schools to take part in this initiative for the veteran community. The Rhode Island Veterans Home, VA Hospital, and the Rhode Island National Guard’s Family Assistance Center will help distribute cards to Rhode Island veterans and service members on active duty. 

Some lessons have been taught to multiple grade levels. Not all schools participate in the same lessons due to budget, materials, student needs, etc. Please leave a comment with praise, questions, or ways to polish.

Grade 4 Abstract Chalk Art

If you could title this piece of art what would you call it? 

That same question was posed to fourth grade students. After discussing some title ideas they learned that the artist called this work Beasts of the Sea, and it is on the bottom right of the canvas in French. This paper cut-out by Henri Matisse makes use of GEOMETRIC and ORGANIC SHAPES. After learning the difference, students folded a piece of paper into quarters and cut out a shape of their choosing. They traced their shape many times with chalk, turning and overlapping as they went. Chalk was also pushed outwards of the shape to add more color to the paper. These works are ABSTRACT and just like Matisse they had to think of what they would call their art once it was finished.

                           Ducks in the Pond by Brianna

                                                              Beautiful Galaxy by Kayleigh

Grade 3 Gothic Architecture

This image and many others were some of the inspiration for third graders' GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE castle. They were required to pull at least two common attributes of this style of building when drawing their own in SILHOUETTE form. All students were required to have a ROSE WINDOW. To make the rose window, I used an X-Acto knife to remove the area where the students had drawn their windows. Students then taped an overhead projector sheet to the back of their building and drew on their window with colorful Sharpies.

Some students chose to make their castle haunted (note the ghosts, hahaha!)

Grade 5 Your Shoe and You

Focusing on the element of LINE, grade 5 students spent several weeks drawing their shoes and two meaningful objects to them. Here is their handout and rubric, created by Ms.Villanova!

Some finished products

And a visual of the rubric...

Thank you for stopping by!

Kindergarten High-Fives

WARM and COOL colors were the focus of this activity in which kindergartners practiced either of the two color schemes. After learning the warm colors and the cool colors students chose any color from red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple construction paper. At their group was a container of chalk including all of the colors listed above. If a student chose a warm color construction paper they had to outline their hand with the chalk of the two other warm or cool colors. 

Here are some students who chose to work with the warm colors

RED

ORANGE

YELLOW

Jayden (bottom, right) chose to use red construction paper so he then had to choose the orange and yellow chalk to trace his hand

Grade 5 Op Art

Op Art is a nickname for Optical Illusion art, popular in the 1960's. Op Art works are ABSTRACT and most of the better-known pieces are in black and white. 

BRIDGET RILEY is an English painter who is one of the first and best Op artists. She is still alive and making art today. 

This piece, Movement in Squares, was completed by Bridget in 1961.  

The pieces below are created by 5th grade artists on 9 inch circles!

Want more Op Art? Check out this excellent video from YouTube!

Grade 1 Lines that Wiggle

This is a favorite book of mine to introduce students to the element of art, LINE. The book's silly illustrations get them to notice lines in every day life and how to describe them. 

After reading the book to the first graders they completed a worksheet with nine different lines to practice. 

  

Using the worksheet to remember the different lines, students used sharpie on some large drawing paper to practice further. Later, they cut out some black frames and chose a section they thought was most interesting. Only what was in the frame was then colored in. Here are some examples!

 

Kindergarten Ladybugs

Kindergarten students got an introduction to SYMMETRY in the form of ladybugs. 

They were given this handout from artforkidshub.com showing only half of a ladybug. Students took their time and looked for shapes and lines to help them make their ladybug symmetrical. They were told to DRAW LIGHT UNTIL IT'S RIGHT with a pencil, then trace the pencil lines in sharpie. Coloring was done in crayon and did not have to be realistic. 

Due to the very small legs, students cut around their ladybugs in a circle to ensure no limbs were accidentally cut off. Then everyone took a piece of green construction paper and folded it in half, drew half of a leaf, cut on their line, and opened it to reveal a full leaf for their ladybug to live on. Students were amazed at the easiness and perfection of their symmetrical leaf. 

Hi Casey, Evan, Dylan, Alana, Allie, & Andrew!

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!