Chalk Pastel Warm/Cool Landscapes

4th Graders learned about warm and cool colors and how to use pastels when they made these landscapes. First we talked about what kinds of things you find in a landscape, such as hills, mountains, trees, and other things you find in nature. Next, I demonstrated how to draw the landscape. We did these on 9"x12" black construction paper and drew everything with regular glue. You don't even have to draw it with a pencil first. Just draw your landscape on the black paper with a regular glue bottle, making thick white lines. The three things that make up the landscape are:

1. Rolling Hills (Bottom)
2. Rounded mountains (Middle)
3. Concentric circles (Top)

The rolling hills are easy, just make wavy lines, starting at the bottom, and put them all the way across your paper. You can make as many as you want. Next is the rounded mountains. These are just curved lines. they should touch the wavy lines. I like to make them rounded because everything else is rounded or curved, and I think it looks better than pointy mountains. Finally the concentric circles will go in either corner. This will be the sun or moon, depending on what time of day you want it to be. I started with a small circle, and then drew about four more around it. Drawing all of this with glue will take one day. After the glue is on the black paper, you have to be really careful not to let it drip or bend your paper on the way to the drying rack. The glue will be completely dry by the time they have their next art class.

On the next two days, students will color their different parts of the landscape with chalk pastels. They will use both warm (red, orange, yellow) and cool (green, blue, purple) colors in an alternating pattern. For instance, if it is nighttime, the moon or circles will have to be colored cool colors. Then the mountains should be colored warm, and the hills should be cool. Nighttime is easy because you can leave the sky black.
The chalk pastels or soft pastels can get messy, so I always demo how to use them first. I keep them in plastic bags at their tables and at the end of class, I have them clean up with baby wipes or wet paper towels and hand sanitizer. After they are all done I spray them with Aqua Net (cheap hairspray works the best!) so that the pastels stick to the paper more easily. I always send home pastels in a manila paper folder or tape a manila paper cover page on top so that it doesn't get as messy.

I usually get great results with this project. Take a look...

One of the reasons I love doing the glue on black paper with pastels is because they turn out so bright!

Art Book & Book Character Dress Up

Every year for Children's Book Week, at one of my schools, we have a book character dress up day. Our librarian gave me the idea for a great book for me : Bridget's Beret!
I LOVE this book. Not only does the main character have my name, but it is a really great art book and it has information about real art in it. The only thing that would make it better would be if her name was spelled the same as mine :)
 

I recommend getting it for your classroom. I know I will!

Robots

Towards the end of the school year, I had two different grade levels were working on robots at the same time. The 3rd graders did the robot drawings and the 5th graders made the metal robots. One thing I learned is that kids love robots!

These were the rules they had to follow for the 3rd grade robots:
1. Fill up the page
2. Include a background (No robots floating!)
3. Draw big (Must draw more than one if you draw small!)
4. Include details
5. Outline all of your pencil lines with a sharpie and don't leave very much white space when you color it.
6. Make the robot different from everyone else's

If I had to include another rule it would be to not have a triangle sun in the corner of the paper and not to color a blue line at the top of the page for the sky! :)
This was good practice for them to learn to fill the page, add details, and make a complete drawing. I think they were creative with their backgrounds and details. Here are some favorites...

Robot in Space!

Dancing Robots!

A lot of kids went with a space background

Robot and scientist working on him! love it!

Next are the 5th grade robots. This was the first time I did this. As with any project, I may be making some changes for the next time.

Here are the things they used:
1. Aluminum tooling foil or regular foil.

2. Coke can tabs or pop tops 

3. Brads

4. Scissors

5. Elmer's glue or tacky glue

6. Plastic baggies

7. Rulers

8. Hot Glue 

9. 9"x12" black construction paper

These were made from aluminum tooling foil that comes in the roll. You can cut it with regular scissors. It's copper on one side and silver on the other, so students had the option of making it one color or two. The great thing about the metal is that its thick enough where it won't rip and you can draw on it with a pencil to make designs, but its not too sharp where they are going to get cut. When we ran out, I used regular foil which was easier to glue, but also easier to rip.

They were given the same size rectangle of the metal to make all of the robot parts (body, arms, legs, head, neck), and four coke can tabs (two for hands, two for feet), two brads for eyes, and a plastic bag to keep all of their pieces.

On the first day they were given all of their materials and the black paper. They used their rulers and pencils to draw the shapes on the metal and cut out their pieces. They laid out the pieces on the black paper to see how to make the robot fit.

On the second and third days, they glued the pieces on with regular Elmer's Glue. You could also use tacky glue, but all we had was Elmer's and it worked fine. Going over it with a ruler helped and wiping up the glue that comes out the edges was important. One thing I emphasized with this one is good craftsmanship. The gluing can get messy if they don't take their time and clean it up. Next they poked the brads through the head of the robot to make the eyes (some needed help with this) and used all of their extra pieces for the details.

Finally I helped them glue on the hands and feet with hot glue. This part took some time, but I managed to get them all done on the last day they worked on it. Check them out...

Plain and simple robot

Robot and friend!

Business man robot!

Robot with top hat and cane!

Who doesn't love a robot, right?

4th Grade Aboriginal Art Animals

These cuties are part of an Australian Aboriginal art lesson I do every year. They always turn out great and the kids have so much fun with the painting. First we talk about the Australian Aboriginal Dot paintings- I give them a world map, we locate Australia, and then we talk about the different animals. I've printed out several different animal color pages for them to use as a guide. They pick which animal they want to draw, and take a copy of the color page to look at when they are drawing it. The color pages work well as a drawing guide because they are usually easy to draw and they are just simple black lines. Then I keep the copies and just use them each year. The students are given a small piece of brown construction paper (half of a 9x12) to draw the animal on, and we talk about how the real aboriginal paintings were made on tree bark.

Next the students begin painting the dots with tempera paint. The eraser on a new unsharpened pencil works the best for painting the dots. I have learned that letting them practice making the dots works a lot better in the long run. That way they don't go too fast and make a big blob. They start with a black or white outline of dots on all of the pencil lines. Then they fill in the animal, and finally the background. When they are switching paint colors, they just wipe the end of the pencil on a paper towel. It takes an average of three days to paint the whole thing, so I have been using clear paint cups with lids that come in a set, and I fill them up with all of the colors. Its much easier than getting the paint out on plates each time.

Overall I love seeing the results of this project and I enjoy the process as well. Check out these awesome ones below!

Last Art Show

These few photos are from the last art show we will have up for the school year. This is our annual vertical team show that features artwork from Elementary, Middle and High schools in our districts. We are broken up into teams based on our feeder schools. Our team's theme is portraits. I have our falling back self-portraits by 5th and the crazy hair self-portraits by 6th. This year it is at City Hall, which I think is pretty cool. I'll have to take some more photos of the portraits and the other teams' work. There are some great things that our students can do!

More Falling Back Self-Portraits!!

 Here are some more examples of the 5th grade Falling Back Self-Portrait. I think they turned out great!

 

 

Happy Friday!!!!

New Show!

These are the two boards for the next art show! Go art!

6th Grade Food Project

Here are just a few pictures of my latest 6th grade project. This is a fun one I do every year. They get to pick their picture of food and also their background of plate or paper. On top they glue down only construction paper and they have to use small tiles like a real mosaic.

New Stuff

On to bigger an better things! Our first two shows are over and now its time for another.

I got some new art supplies this past week just in time for a new project! One of the things I am excited about trying is my new SCENTED paint for our Australian Aboriginal Dot paintings that 4th grade is doing. I just love getting new art supplies!

Fine Arts Festival

Tonight is our Fine Arts Festival art reception. Here are my two boards:

 

I am so proud of my students!

First Show

Our district's first show was last Tuesday and we had a great turnout. Three of my students' artworks were chosen from both of my schools.
Here they are:

 And here are some of the other pieces that were on display. I work with so many talented people (and look how talented their students are too!)!