PEZ

PEZ dispensers are a favorite of mine.  I've been collecting them for entirely too long and am in a constant battle with myself not to purchase yet another one.  I think it came out of a need to validate my purchases that I started bringing PEZ to school for my students to draw.  The first experience was in a Warhol lesson so many years ago that I don't even remember.  Students selected a dispenser and drew it large from four different angles.  I wish I had work to share with you but that was in the days prior to this blog and also prior to Artsonia where most images are now stored.  The latest number of years, the dispensers have made their way into my lessons to demonstrate Space in art.  Students have total freedom to select which PEZ they wish to draw with the vision of demonstrating space.  The focus is on overlap, size, placement and linear perspective.  Fourth graders have previously exposed to Space in earlier grades but with this project they take the reins to plan the composition.  Let me just say, it is a home run every year.  Something about those PEZ dispensers that they can hold in their hands and play with as they draw makes this an instant success in popularity.  I'm still working on getting them to see and understand shadow so forgive any striking errors you might note.  It is a work in progress.  What do you love that you can bring into your classroom for an engaging lesson???  Think about it, telling your students you love something seems to really spark interest.  Oh, and the other positive was all the PEZ gifts I received after the fact!

Student Work 2019

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

Success or Failure??

student work

I wanted to attempt something a little different with first grade students this year to introduce them to warm and cool colors.  After surfing through some blog post and perusing Pinterest, I decided I wanted to try the bleeding tissue paper to create a background for a winter tree composition.  This would be similar to a project I have previously done with first grade but with a new twist.  I pre-cut squares and rectangles of the tissue paper in the warm colors and had students to cover their papers with any pattern they chose.  Meanwhile, another piece of paper was painted only used cool colors with watercolor paint.  Week two I supplied students with triangle tracers in a variety of sizes to use on the cool color paper.  They needed three trees in three different sizes.  When I peeled away the tissue paper from the warm color work, I was disappointed with the coverage or I should say lack of coverage.  I couldn't imagine how the project was going to turn out to be anything near to what I had envisioned in my planning.  Here are a few of the results.

student work

student work

I decided to shift my focus to perspective and introduced students to creating space in their composition.  They could overlap or use size to demonstrate the illusion of space. They began by drawing curved lines on the tissue painted paper to create three different lines in space.  We talked about the outline of mountains and imagined what that might look like.  Then students glued their trees, one on each of the different levels.  They were reminded to place the smallest tree in the background and the largest in the foreground.  They finished up by adding black crayon lines to create the trunks and the limbs of the trees.  This is definitely not what I anticipated this project would turn out to look like but I am really drawn to the abstract qualities of the work.  The goals and vision changed but I do feel like the project is a success.

Back to School with International Dot Day Projects

We just completed our first week of school, 2 1/2 days with the students and we are off and running with projects for International Dot Day.  My teaching focus for this year will be writing artist statements using great artistic vocabulary and connecting and understanding the Elements of Art.  My older classes experienced a few AHa moments as we reviewed the elements of art and reflected on how our art making projects had incorporated multiple elements throughout their years. The students caught on as they began to remind me of their favorite projects and what they had done to represent the various elements.  The big one was Form and the realization their clay projects from previous years were classified as forms. I planned to have each grade connect to the elements in a conscience way with their "Dot" compositions.  The one on the left is from a fourth grade student.  The assignment was to demonstrate space in their composition.  We review past concepts of placement on the page, overlap and size to show space.  The small works (4" x 4 1/2) were then framed in a swirly frame as in the book "The Dot" by by Peter H. Reynolds.
I will share other projects as they are completed.  Fifth grade students are being challenged to create a composition that will reflect three of the Elements.  They will then write an artist statement defending their choices and explaining why they chose the Elements.  Third grade students are creating a dot based on something they might have experienced during the summer based on the dot shape.  I was particularly amused by some of the ideas they came up with for their dot.  I will share when they are completed, you must see the ferris wheel!  Second graders have turned their dot into a symmetrical image reflecting positive and negative spaces as they practiced effective use of scissors.  First grade classes have analyzed color mixing, some by creating a dot only colored with the primary colors and others by designing an original color wheel.  They used the primary colors to mix the secondary colors on the wheel.  I am hoping to have bulletin boards full of dots by September 15th for International Dot Day and prior to Meet the Teacher night.

Snowmen in Perspective

I found multiple references for this form of perspective on pinterest in the past along with this very helpful poster.  I generally do a lesson on space or perspective with first and second graders at this time of the year using the terrific books of Caralyn Buehner, illustrated by her husband Mark.  If you haven't check out the series, it is a must have in the art room.  The short rhymes are catchy and cute and I am in love with Mark's wonderful illustrations..  Most all of them are done without using the color white even though most of the pictures are primarily of snow.  It's a great way to get students to expand their thoughts concerning color and to maybe explore what they see in a new way.  After the reading, we study the illustrations to identify the colors that are actually used for the snow and then investigate our own snow outside the windows to see if we can really see colors in our natural landscape.  The discussion leads to shadow, reflection, and light and color.

First graders explore the multiple ways to show space.  We use the words "Near and Far" in art so the poster is a very good visual.  I decided to try the aerial perspective approach with second graders.  First they cut three "snowballs" from white paper to form their snowmen.  Oil pastels were used to colored around the edges of each circle so they would be visible when stacked to form the snowmen.  Constructions paper was used to collage the features of the snowmen.  Consideration was given to the direction the snowman would be looking.  You can see from the student works, some look forward, some look up.  Finally, snowmen were glued on a dark sheet of construction paper and splatter painted using white tempera and a toothbrush to create the appearance of falling snow.  The students really enjoyed this project.  First graders are still working; I'll post some of those when they are completed.