A Winter Wonderland

The focus of this lesson was to demonstrate an understanding of the illusion of space in an art composition.   First grade students enjoyed creating the crayon/watercolor resist and salt technique to create the background.  I have done a similar project with my students for years.  However, we added a new twist to the project in the way we created the trees this year.   Students first colored a coffee filter using markers in an analogous color family.  The filters were spritzed with water and laid aside to dry.  Once everything was dry and the extra salt had been wiped away from the watercolor background, the coffee filter was cut into a variety of sizes of triangles.  These would become the trees in the winter wonderland.  Students review the important methods for visually creating the illusion of space and attempted to include as many as possible in their composition.  These examples demonstrate size, placement, linear perspective and overlap.  Final touches were added to the trees using a drawing marker.

Spot the Panda...thank you Gergerly Dudas

Spot the Egg

You've most likely seen these "Where's Waldo" type photos all over Facebook and other social media links over the past year. They are created by the Hungarian Artist Gergerly Dudas.  You can find more of his work on his Facebook page, here.  With just two more days with many of my classes, I was stuck for an idea to carry my third grades classes through the end of the year but also be something they could reasonably finish.  It occured to me that I could incorporate the work of Dudas and empasize repetition and the concept of Space for an end of the year review.  I started by searching and printing out several of the images.  I projected them using my document camera as I introduced the artist with a little background information about his work.  I couldn't find much because he is a current artist and I only found a twitter account and a facebook account for him.  The kids were so excited to search for the hidden items in each picture.

Spot the Panda

Here are a few of the images that I used.   I told the students we would be creating our own "Spot the Panda" project.  They were so enthusiastic and creative in their thoughts.  I will share some of their work next week once they have completed them. Today they drew the images, next week they add color.  Just a few simple instructions...use overlap, keep your image simple and easy to repeat and hide something.

Spot the cat

Creating James Rizzi Cities in First Grade

My students love learning about more current artist.  James Rizzi was a great hit for a current lesson with first graders.  I began the lesson by concentrating on shapes and creating space through overlap.  Students then built their cities in the style of the examples I had shared of Rizzi's work.  I encouraged them to take their time and draw all those many windows necessary to create the buildings and also not to hesitate to have fun by creating some wacky faces on a few of the buildings.  Color pencils were used to add color with my again stressing Rizzi's use of color and that the buildings should not look like "normal" buildings but instead we would be working for wacky and fun.  I was pleased with all the variety and individuality students brought to their Rizzi Cities.

Student Work

Student Work

Student Work

Student Work

Student Work