Fourth Grade Blends Oil Pastels To Create Sunflowers

Fourth grade students got a lesson in blending oil pastels to get realistic effects for their sunflower pictures. They were also taught a few different ways to draw sunflowers and we discussed how things in the foreground (front) of a picture appear larger and things in the background appear smaller.
Here are a few sunflowers in progress and a couple of finished ones as well. Sunflowers are some of my favorites each year!

First Grade Makes A New Picture From Random Shapes

I gave first graders a sheet with various shapes and told them that they had to color, cut and glue the shapes to form a new picture that they invented on their own.

It was a great way to include extra practice for cutting out shapes properly and a fun way for them to use their creative minds to develop their own picture using those shapes.
Here we have a few robots and a birthday party for starters:

Fifth Grade Paints In The Style of Edward Hopper

Fifth graders learned about artist Edward Hopper and viewed a picture of his painting, "The Long Leg" on the Activboard. We discussed how his paintings usually depict a calm, serene environment and how his style of Art is Realistic. We also discussed how to make highlights and shadows in the painting by adding more water for lighter areas like where the sunlight would be hitting something and less water/more paint in areas where there should be shadows. The students then did an amazing job on their versions of "The Long Leg."

Third Grade Makes Tints of Blue

Third graders learned that to make "tints" of a color you add white to the color. We first added just a little blue to a lot of white. Each time we added more blue to the white making the blue darker each time until we got to just blue without white.

Later we are going to add a night-time cityscape to our blue sky.

Kindergarten Makes The Color Green

The first color we mixed was Orange and now we've moved on to Green. Yellow and Blue make Green! Here are a few Green paintings from this week:

Kindergarten Line Paintings

Kindergartners need to be able to recognize a line and tell what kind of line it is...so we first drew lines in the air with our fingers and had different sounds to go with each type of line. We drew zig-zag lines, wavy, squiggly, dotted, and straight lines. Afterwards, the students painted pictures using the various lines any way they wanted.

Third Grade Draws More Trees

To reinforce what we learned on the tree painting, third grade did another tree project. This time there were no leaves added so that you can see each and every branch. I remember learning how to draw these trees in fifth grade Art and how great I felt once I finally "GOT" it. To boost their confidence, I told the students that there are some fifth graders and even adults that have never learned how to draw these trees.

I think the results we got from this project might be my favorite for the year so far....you will definitely see some of these in this year's Art show! :)

Kindergarten Learns How to Make Orange

Kindergartners learned how to make the color Orange just by mixing two of our Primary colors, Red and Yellow. They watched me drop a couple of drops of yellow food coloring into a container of water and then watch as the red poured in magically transformed the water from yellow to orange. I got LOTS of applause for that one! :)

After the demonstration, they were given only Red and Yellow paint at their tables to create different shades of Orange. Some of the students painted suns and others painted flowers.

Kindergarten Dot/Circle Paintings

Kindergartners and I discussed dots and circles and how you could paint a circle around a circle or inside of another circle.

They are doing a nice job of using the brushes properly and learning how to not splash water out of the containers when cleaning their brushes. They've also learned that we never want to give our paintbrushes a BAD HAIR DAY because this will hurt our paintbrushes and we won't be able to paint anymore.

Third Grade Realistic Tree Paintings

After reviewing warm colors, third grade needed a cool colors project. Cool colors are opposite the warm colors on the color wheel. The three main cool colors are Purple, Blue and Green. Students used Purple and Blue to paint a sunset/almost nighttime sky, then painted a realistic tree black to look like a silhouette.

They were a little nervous about not doing lollipop looking trees like they are used to. But practice paid off and these are so great!

Second Grade Ant Invaded Picnics

YIKES! Ants invaded our picnic! Second grade students drew a checkerboard tablecloth, then painted the tablecloth using an A, B pattern. After that was finished, they painted tasty fruit that would attract our ants! The ants came last by painting their thumbs for the body of the ants and their pinkie finger for the heads. The students LOVED the part where they could paint their fingers!

These little ants still need legs, but other than that they are done and look great!

Fourth Grade Optical Illusions

Fourth graders learned how to create an optical illusion artwork just by using triangles and curved lines. The triangles with curved stripes and the curved lines around the triangles give the illusion that the triangles are really 3-d cones coming off the page along with lines that appear to be moving around.

It was a little complicated to "get" at first, but after a few tries the students got the hang of how to draw it so that they would get a COOL effect.

First Grade Zebras

These zebras were too fun! I laugh every time I look at the expressions on most of their faces! To get these zebras looking so fantastic, we broke down the shapes and drew an oval or letter "O" for the head and two curved lines for the neck. Then we drew the stripes and painted the black outlines. For the grassy green background, we dabbed our paintbrushes up and down to create a neat textured look.

Fifth Grade Peter Max Liberty Heads

Fifth grade students learned about artist Peter Max and how he has painted a painting of the Statue of Liberty every July 4th since 1976! One year before Ms. G. was born!! They also learned that his style of Art is Expressionistic, with lines and colors that show a lot of movement and expression. After learning so many facts about Peter Max, it was time to create Liberty Head pictures of our own.

We broke the drawing down step by step into shapes that would not overwhelm anyone, and when the drawings were complete, painted them using thick tempera paints. I think the students gained a lot of confidence during this project and the results are awesome!



This one was in progress, but too great not to share

Second Grade Symmetrical Butterflies

Second graders learned about symmetry and how to determine if something is symmetrical. If you divide something down the middle and it is the same on both sides, it is symmetrical. After drawing and pressing down very hard on the crayons to color the butterflies, the students were SHOCKED to find out that we had to crumple their artwork up like we were going to throw it away! But we didn't really throw it away, but made creases in the paper, then unfolded it, and painted the entire paper blue. We then washed the blue paint off and the blue paint stayed in the creases to create a very pretty crayon crackle painting.

Third Grade Warm Colored Sun Designs

Third grade reviewed what they learned about warm colors in second grade. The warm colors on the color wheel are Red, Yellow, and Orange. Also Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange, and Pink are considered warm colors. To help the students remember the warm colors, I always suggest they think of things that are hot--like lava, fire, the sun, etc...and think of what colors they are. They are usually warm colors.

For the project they designed their own sun design, then pressed down very hard on crayons to color certain areas so that they could paint sunrise/sunset colors over the top of the crayon.

These were a lot of fun to make and are all beautiful!

Suns Colored With Primary Colors

First grade did these awesome suns and colored/painted them using the three Primary colors: Red, Yellow, and Blue. The Primary colors make up all the other colors in the world. Without these three colors, you would not be able to have the others.

We also discussed how to draw eyes using football shapes and more realistic ways to draw noses and mouths. I think they did a really great job! :)

This sun is by Brent:

Tour The Art Room

In case you haven't been to our Art room at Stark, here is a little photo tour so that you can see our BIG, new room! We love it!

The entrance

The bulletin board area

My desk area

A few of our tables and sinks

The bookcase with most of the supplies we use

The back of the room with our awesome windows and drying racks for wet projects