Clay Picasso Portraits

5th graders learned about the artist Pablo Picasso through a Power Point presentation with a focus on his Cubism/abstract portaits. Students then went to the website www.picassohead.com. Here they were able to quickly brainstorm ideas for their clay project. I explained to them it was like sketching out and brainstorming their ideas for how they wanted to build their portairt digitally. Once they had some ideas they liked, then they drew out their design on paper. ( I could only get our Chromebook cart for a week, due to testing, hence the drawing out their ideas hard copy). The following two classes were used for reviewing clay attaching techniques and rolling slabs, and building their clay portraits. I usually prefer to glaze with my older grades, but we were in a time crunch with it being the end of the year, and goofy schedules with field trips, concerts, graduations, ect. They still look wonderful painted and glossed with Modge Podge.

Flower Weavings

Another end of the year favorite. I teach paper weaving in 2nd grade to get the kiddos ready for yarn weaving in third grade. Students also learned about positive and negative space with this project.

O'Keeffe Metal Tool Flowers/ Skulls

I'm always looking for a new way to teach an artist I like to cover year after year. 4th graders learned about Georgia O'Keeffe through a video and Power Point presentation. They first did pencil drawings and then traced their drawing onto metal tool. Originally in the lesson I was only going to have the student's do flowers, but I had a few boys in my first 4th grade section ask if they could do cow skulls instead. I said absolutely, what a great idea and I loved they were thinking about the artist but also what they wanted to do. Students who did a flower used colored Sharpies to color in flowers and students who did skulls used black acrylic paint to create a patina.  Lastly they added wire and did some beading at the bottom of their art piece.

Circle Weavings

One of my favorite end of the year projects! Students LOVE to weave! I love fiber arts, it's a win win art project.

Primary Color and Line Review

End of year review on a two concepts we learned at the beginning of the year: various kinds of lines used in art and primary colors. We also reviewed painting skills and techniques. Students were assessed on primary color knowledge before the painting lesson for the second time this year as well.