Chagall inspired Story Art

My service student put together this great display of some of the Marc Chagall inspired artworks created by my 5th graders this semester. 

We started off our lesson learning about Marc Chagall and characteristics of his style of abstract art. We watched a great short video on Biography.com that the kids loved, and also looked through two storybooks on Marc Chagall.

Using liquid water colors, students created a colorful background.

I showed a sample of artwork I had created and told a story of my memories behind the pictures-the kids love this! Then I asked each of them to use the back of their paper and brainstorm a list of words that communicated a story or memory they wanted to tell. Then students drew images for each word, turning the page each time so the images floated around the page. Students drew in pencil first, outlined in Sharpie, and then colored in with construction paper crayons.

If you would like to see more samples of student works for this project, visit our gallery over at Artsonia.

Mixed Media Hearts

I wanted to share these Jim Dine inspired mixed media hearts made by my fifth graders. They are are colorful, fun and unique--just like the kids who created them. We made these on recycled cardboard tiles, approximately 4 x 6 inches in size.

First we applied a layer of gesso, and then used tempera paint for the heart and background. I instructed the children to use a contrast of warm and cool colors. We spent a day painting papers with tempera paint, texture tools, and foam stamps.

We used our papers to add a collage element to the entire piece. After the paper was added, we added some more color with oil pastels and sharpies. Last, but not least, we sealed with a glossy coat of Modge Podge. 

I'm planning on putting up all 85 of these on a bulletin board in the 5th grade hall. I'll be sure to post pics on Facebook when I get it done. My only regret was that it wasn't done in time to enjoy the entire month of February. There's always next year, right?!

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Strike a Pose and Learn about Lines

Here's one of my first fifth grade lessons I taught this year. Keith Haring has a great kids website with some fun lesson suggestions, but my inspiration for this came from Cheryl Trowbridge over at Teach Kids Art. I've used the aluminum sheets before for art projects, and they always yield great results, but they are a little pricey when you have 75 kids. So instead, I used heavy duty aluminum foil and it worked just fine, and the kids thought this project was the "coolest thing ever"!. 

For this project, we were learning about the Elements of Art, and specifically focusing on lines. First, I asked for volunteers to come to the front and "strike a pose"- of course, there are always a handful of class clowns who love helping out here. On the white board, I showed the children how I would draw each pose in a stick figure form. Then I showed them how to use a contour line to draw an organic shape around the stick person.

 Next, I had the children get into small groups of two's and three's and "strike a pose" and draw three stick figures on a piece of scratch paper. Then, I instructed children to draw their stick figures larger onto a piece of paper and trace around them with the contour line. Then we traced the three figure design onto a piece of tracing paper.

I had prepared ahead of time, a piece of cut poster board covered with heavy duty aluminum foil. Each student taped their tracing paper over the top, and secured down to the desk. They traced over their tracing paper design with a pencil or sharpie pen lid and it leaves an imprint into the foil.

The last step is to color in with sharpie markers. It's hard to tell in these photos, but make sure the children leaven the silver imprint lines silver (or showing) to divide up the colors.

Painting Monet

Here's the last set of paintings from the Copy Cat Workshop. If you have missed the other three paintings completed in this series, click HERE to see the first post in this series.

While the subject matter seemed simple, this proved to be the hardest in the series, because of the soft subtle tone and Monet's painting style.

To find some great books for teaching kids about Monet, click the above photo.

These were painted in acrylic on an 11 x 14 hardboard canvas.

We worked a little on these each day, for four days at 2-1/2 hour sessions.

The ages of the kids in this workshop ranged from 8-12.

Click on the above photo to see books that can help you learn Monet's techniques.

Painting Pablo Picasso

Looking for kid friendly books on great artists, click picture above for information.

If you missed the first in the Copy Cat Workshop series from last week, click here to see our Van Gogh paintings. 

This painting, "Asleep"(1932) by Pablo Picasso looked like it would be a simple one to copy, but it turned out to be very challenging. It was another great exercise in using "lines", and painting what you see, instead of what you think you see. It also helped the students practice looking at negative and positive space. This is, of course, is a great example of abstract art.

These were painted in acrylics on a 12 x 12 stretched canvas.

For kid friendly facts on Picasso, check out this website.

Check out this site when teaching kids about famous artists!

O'Keeffe Inspired Acrylic Paintings

Using Georgia O'Keeffe as our inspiration artist, my homeschool girls painted these beautiful flowers in acrylics on a 12 x 12 canvas. I printed off around 7 different photos from the internet and let them select which one they wanted to paint.  

They started off identifying the basic shapes, starting with the center and working their way out. They completed these in 1-1/2 hours. Beautiful work!