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.

Dali Melting Clocks

Rene Magritte Man in the Bowler Hat Portraits

4th Graders have been studying Surrealism art in art class. The surrealism art movement looked to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images (putting impossible combinations together). Most of all the Surrealist artists wanted those who are viewing their artwork to THINK!!

4th graders looked closely at the work of Rene Magritte. He painted in a realistic style. While the objects appear to the viewer to be recognizable, the composition of those recognizable objects appears fantastic.

4th Graders recreated Magritte’s self portraits Son of Man and Man in the Bowler Hat.  Students first sketched their portrait, painted it in, and then outlined in black. They then choose an image that had meaning to them in some way as the object placed over their face.

Aztec Suns on Metal Tool

Snowman Mosaic

Learning Targets:

• I can identify a geometric shape.

• I can glue pieces of paper flat to the background.
• I can evenly space out the geometric shapes I am gluing to create a mosaic.

Romare Bearden Collage Portraits

The month of February is Black History Month. During this month of remembering African Americans in history, students in art class learned about African American Artists.

4th grade students learned about the African American painter and collage artist, Romare Bearden. He spent much of his career as a painter, but is most recognized for his collage work.

A collage is when artists use several different materials to create a new one. Bearden often used photographs, magazines, and newspaper photos in his collage art.

4th grade students used magazine ads to create and assemble a portrait using all different types of facial features and other details. They were very creative in their process and they turned out very interesting!

We also discussed how artists display their artwork in museums and public places. Artists mount, frame, or mat their artwork to make it look nice and ready for public viewing. 4th graders worked on matting their artwork to colored paper for their final display.

Quilts of Gee's Bend

Guitars

4th graders learned about the city of Paracho, Mexico; a city located just 2 hours south of Guadalajara. The interesting thing about the city of Paracho is that it is said to have more guitar-making artisans within its population of approximately 17,000 people, than in the entire United States!

Guitar making is a tradition passed down from generation to generation and is a source of income for the people of Paracho. The guitar-making also attracts a bit of tourism for the city as it hosts a Guitar Festival each year.

Students learned about the parts of a guitar through Smart Board matching game. Next they reviewed the warm and cool colors of the color wheel. Students choose one color scheme and sponge painted their paper with those colors. They then used the opposite color scheme to add the details of the guitar.

***Wonderful lesson and background info from Art with Mrs. Nguyen blog***

FLW Spooky House

The 4th grade students studied Architecture.  We talked about what the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and learned what an architect does.  Students were able to learn what an arch, vault, cantilever and a post and lintel are.  Students had to use at least two of these characteristics when they were designing their house sculptures and had to identify them.  Students were able to learn what a sculpture is and we talked about the various materials a sculpture can be made out of.  Students worked really hard using various recycled materials to create a unique haunted house sculpture.  Finally students were able to add patterns using metallic paint to complete their sculptures.

Op Art

I always save op art for the end of year for my 4th and 5th graders. They love seeing all the examples of op art. And I love it because it is an easy clean up project for the end of the school year when I feel like all I'm doing is cleaning ;)