Metal Tiki Masks

5^th graders learned about the history of Polynesian masks through a Power Point Presentation. Tiki statues have been around for hundreds of years. They have their roots in Polynesian culture. They are most prominently found in the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Hawaii and the most famous Tikis tower over Easter Island.

Tikis usually featured a human head carved from wood or volcanic rock. The large cylindrical shape of the trees formed their basic shape. All of the features are exaggerated especially the nose and mouth. Most ancient Tikis have little painted decoration.

Fifth graders created their Tikis by doing a drawing  for Square 1 Art. Students then traced their design to onto metal tool and used the repousse technique of pressing out the metal on one side to create a popping out effect. They then colored in parts of mask with Sharpie and decorated with feathers and beads. Lastly they fastened them to wooden stands.

Symmetrical Nutcracker Drawing

5th graders watched a short video of a woodworker creating a nutcracker from hand tools in a time lapse video. We have been discussing symmetry for the last few projects, so this was somewhat of review for them. I had a hand out with several different nutcracker images for them to reference for their drawing ideas. They folded their manilla paper in half, and were only required to draw half of the nutcracker. Once they were done, they needed to darken the pencil lines, fold their paper in half the other way, and then roll over their drawing with a roller/brayer. The other half of their nutcracker then showed up ever so lightly on the other side. They then traced the drawing in Sharpie and painted in with tempera cakes.

(*Lesson taken from A Faithful Attempt Blog*)

Paper Shred Snowman

2^nd graders watched the video The Snowman, which is based off the story The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. All year second graders have been learning about recycled art, and most of our projects have been including recycled materials. So we kept on with the recycled theme and used recycle paper shreds to make our snowmen. We also used scrap orange paper for the nose, and scrapbook paper to create the hat and scarf. Lastly, I glued on googley eyes to bring our snowmen to life!

(*Project was inspired from Pinterest)

4th Grade Art Element Mittens

4th graders reviewed the art elements of line, shape, and pattern. They also reviewed the term overlapping. All of these elements had to be included in their initial mitten drawing. This mitten drawing was crazy though, because these are not pairs of mittens, they had to design FOUR different mittens. Each mitten had to have a different design, using pattern, lines, and shapes. Two mittens had to be overlapping  as well. Once the drawing was done they painted them in with tempera paint, painted the background with liquid water color. And finally once everything was dry, they used oil pastels to add outlining details.

(* I saw a painting sample on thepaintbar.com for the inspiration for this project.)

Aaaaaaand we're back!

Sorry I haven't been posting as frequently. My school camera was stolen out of my classroom last year:( So it makes it more difficult to keep up with my blogging. But I'm so lucky to have a wonderful PTO at my school. They've given every teacher $250 of wish list money to spend on anything we want for our classroom. So I'll be getting a new camera very soon!! THANKS BAIRD PTO!

Holiday Crafting

I had to post this cute picture of me and my daughter working on her felt Christmas tree over the weekend. She's gonna be two on the first of the year and has already shown a lot of interest in art, YAY! She helped peel off the bar code stickers on the felt and then placed them all in piles for me. She's my little helper:)

Picasso's Guitars

Second graders learned about the artist Pablo Picasso. We discussed and looked at his artworks from the periods of his career: the Blue Period, the Rose Period, and Cubism. We also noticed that Picasso had a lot of musical things in his paintings. They looked at all different types of guitars and got to draw any type of they guitar they wanted and then painted them in with blue paint. They then added details using black and grey paper, and newspaper.
(I saw this project on Dali's Mustache blog, thank you:)

Van Gogh's Chair

Third graders learned Vincent Van Gogh through a short video. We looked at all the paintings that had his chair in them. We paid close attention to the special relationships between the legs of the chair and the corner of the room. The third graders did a pencil drawing first, then painted the drawing in with tempera paints. On the last day of the project, I gave them small paint brushes to do all the small details and outlining.

Kandinsky Portraits

First graders learned about the artist Wassily Kandinsky. We looked at all the lines and shapes in his artworks. They were able to point out all the different types of lines used in Kandinsky's artwork. They also learned about the difference between a line and shape. They drew 7 different types of lines and 5 shapes on their drawing paper. They then painted over it with water color. I took their photographs, they posed like they were pretending to shout. During their work time I had them come up to my computer and they told me 3 things about themselves that we turned into I statements. Their portraits are shouting all the wonderful things about themselves.
(I originally saw the portait part of this project on Pinterest)

Paper Mache Pumpkins

Fifth graders reviewed three dimensional shape. They made the paper mache pumpkins from recyclable materials- plastic grocery bags, old newspapers, and rubber bands. They covered the armature with two layers of paper mache. Then painted it with a glittery orange. Once dried, they added the lines with Sharpies.