Love Birds 2003

1st grade student work

 This original work by James Rizzi was the inspiration for the following works by 1st grade students the past couple of weeks.  They had been exploring the many works by Rizzi and had already create smiling buildings in a Rizzi type city.  Students followed a directed draw to create the birds and then embellished their work based on "Love Birds.  They were completed with watercolor.  I am so in love with these sweet little paintings and the endearing way students created their interpretations.

student work

student work

student work

student work

Chameleons in mixed medium

I'm developing a love for bleeding tissue paper this year.  Seems like each year I get stuck on some medium and explore it unreasonably.  This year it seems to be becoming project with that tissue paper.  Here is the latest, done quite successfully with first grade students.   They drew with a black crayon and then watercolor for the background and the little chameleon was glued on top.  This was a two week lesson.  I was really please with the results.  We also paired this with some factual information about Chameleons found in the book. 

Winter Cardinals

Sharing some watercolor painting done by 4th and 5th grade Art Club members over the past two weeks.  Working toward understanding transparency with watercolors to achieve varying hues from a singular color, watercolor wash, and managing brush use in a more professional way.  They used a tracer to place their bird but the rest of the composition is free hand.  I'm proud of these kids, they worked really hard!

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.

Arctic Animals - Connections with the Curriculum

student work

As a part of our PLC groups, I was task to connect with Science standards in Kindergarten and 1st grade.  I have searched everywhere trying to locate the source of my inspiration for this project so apologize to the person who posted it first for not referencing you here.  Students cut out shapes to form the polar bear to connect how geometric shapes are combined to create organic shapes.  Shapes and lines were used to add the small penguin friends.  The back ground was created with watercolor and a little Kosher salt.

student work

student work

Directed draw for penguins

Shapes for bear

Watercolor Floral and Ink

Students painted a visually balance work with a focus on analogous colors.  Their flowers were to be recognizable and realistic in nature.  Negative space was accentuated through the process of tracing the lines formed by the paint colors.  This was to create depth and improve the impact of the design.  Thanks go out to Mrs. Kain from Lenox School District for sharing this lesson with teachers at our State Conference this fall.

Charley Harper Winter Cardinals

I posted about this project back in 2013 here.  This years projects are turning out so sweet, I just need to post a few new ones.  I made a small change in the lesson this year as well.  Students drew the vegetation and bird during day one prior to applying the watercolor background with the kosher salt.  That was allowed to dry and week two they returned to the project using watercolor pencils to add color to the bird.  I think this gave them better control over the coloring of the bird and it gave me the opportunity to introduce them to an additional medium, which they loved.  This is alway a WOW lesson that I make certain to post on the bulletin boards and share with everyone in the school.  This is done with 2nd grade students.

Making Home Made Liquid Watercolor NOT using old markers

I really love using liquid watercolor with the little ones in my school.  It is so convenient and easy, especially when you are not needing to use a multitude of colors.   Yesterday my 2nd graders were doing a watercolor/crayon wash with blue and I knew I did not have enough precious liquid water color to do the job.  My options were limited: 1-only give them a small amount and hope it was enough,  2-water it down some more and dilute the color, or create a choice 3.  Here is how I came up with choice #3!  I always have those trays of watercolor where the little oval only has a little paint left in it but being the thrifty one, I just can't bear to toss them out until the last little bit of paint has been used.  Hearing lamenting students: "But Mrs. H, the container is empty."  I gathered up a couple of those almost but not quite empty ovals and dropped them down into a jar of warm water and SHAZAM liquid watercolor!  And yes, it was great!  The color was vibrant, it painted just like the stuff I had previous bought and you could not tell the difference!

You can bet, I'll be stockpiling those "almost empty" containers for now on and tossing them into a jug of water.  Oh, and the little ovals from the paint, saving those, too!  The art club is planning to create with recycled materials next week.  I can't wait to see what they come up with using those things.  I'll be sure to post something and let you know.

Print making with Payon Watercolor crayons

 Thanks to Aimee  over at One Happy Art Teacher.  This week she had a post about printing with Payon watercolor crayons.  I am in the middle of a printing lesson with my students so it could have not been more timely.  Her idea was to print with foam that had been incised.  I had just made plates with my fifth grade students and intended to do traditional prints with them this week.  Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any photos of their prints so I will post about that success next week.  However, I immediately hit the classroom and began to experiment with the payons with hopes of discovering other ways I

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 might use them with my students in the other grades, primarily with first graders for mono-printing.  First I tried them on plexi.  I used wet payon by dipping into a container of water and drawing directly on the plexi.  It worked well but no pictures of those because I haven't yet given it a try with the kids.

 But, I planned to use kutz-it and water based makers with my first graders that afternoon and grabbed the payons for that experience instead.  All these examples are student examples with the kutz-it plates.  The kids loved them and were thrilled with their successes.  I had encourage a more abstract approach rather than realistic drawing as you can tell from most of the prints.  We even achieved ghost prints by sprinting with water after the first print was pulled.  The students did dip in water and draw with a wet payon not a dry one.  I did have to scrub the plates to clean them and they are stained.

This is only the products of one class.  I look forward to seeing the results of my other first grade students as we continue with this week.  And, for those looking for you own set of payons, I found them on-line.  It looks like Prang has reintroduced them.  So Aimee, someone is listening!!!!

Charley Harper Cardinals in the Evergreens

This year second grades placed their cardinals in evergreens.  Connections were made to science as the discussion was opened up about what an evergreen was and where we might see them.  The birds were drawn with black crayon and the evergreens were made with shades of green.  If you haven't purchased liquid watercolors for your classroom, they are wonderful.  Younger students can use them much more easily that the semi-wet watercolors in a tray.   I can better focus the lesson on technique and brush use rather than concentrating on the water/paint ratio.

American Artist Charley Harper Bluebirds

Last year I introduced my students to the work of American Artist Charley Harper.  They created some wonderful cardinal paintings.  This year I decided to try his bluebird with second grade students.  First off I need to share, this bluebird was pretty hard.  I only did this lesson with one class and returned to the cardinal for the others.  This was our first day back after Thanksgiving break.  We had a huge snow storm that took down a lot of trees and one of my favorite trees outside of the Art room suffered a huge loss.  I stepped outside the room during my prep and picked up one of the fallen branches and brought it inside of the room.  It is still hanging on my whiteboard.  I decided to have the second graders observe the branch and attept to see it like a scientist.  They started the lesson by first practicing on a small sheet of paper and then they drew a larger second drawing.  To this one they added the Charley Harper bluebird.   All the drawing was done with black crayon and they painted with watercolors.  Students chose to make the night sky a dark purple or to make an orange early morning sky.

Just let them paint

Third grade students have also been working on a unit about native Americans.  For their project, I had the paint a pattern on one piece of  paper to create a warp and then a second sheet of paper to be cut into strips for weaving.  For the second paper, I told them they could paint what ever they would like.    I'm now sad we will be cutting up these wonderfully spontaneous paintings.   I think I'd like to give my students more opportunities to freely paint.  I think I see a future abstract artist in these!