Kindergarten Pumpkins

Kindergarten artists spent two classes working on these pumpkin collages. The first class we learned about mixing colors. We used red and yellow liquid water color paint. We painted  our entire 9x12 paper orange by mixing red and yellow together. After letting these dry, we discussed how shapes are used in art to draw things. We used triangles, ovals, squares and circles in our collages. We used lots of different colored construction paper, cutting them into different shapes to create our expressive pumpkin portraits.

The Longest Line 5th grade

5th grade artists looked at the artwork of Keith Haring. We looked at how he uses lines in his art. For our project these were the rules:
1) Line starts at stops at the same spot (a dot in the corner of paper)
2) Line must stay within half of an inch of itself
3) Line must never cross itself (that'd be a shape)
4) Line can change as often as you like from wavy to zig-zag to castle, etc.

We then traced our hands over our drawings. The lines inside our hands now all turned to shapes. Using thin drawing markers, we colored the shapes.

Kindergarten Self Portraits

Kindergarteners learned what a portrait is in Art. A portrait is a picture of a person. A self-portrait is a picture of you. We looked at American Gothic by American artist Grant Wood. We discussed what we saw-two grumpy, old, wrinkly people, a pitch fork, a house, and a barn. What do these details tell us about these people? We figured out that they must be farmers and that life on their farm must be hard. We then began our self portraits. Our goal was to draw ourselves using mirrors to help us see our hair style and color, eye color, clothes, etc. In our self-portrait we had to include details that told other people about our lives. We also had to include a background. We traced a circle for our head and a triangle for our bodies. Students used the triangle in different ways. Some girls used it to create a dress or skirt, while some boys flipped it over and added pants or shorts. If you ask your kindergarten artist, they should be able to explain how their self-portrait reveals details about their lives.

3rd grade landscapes

 Third grade artists used crayons in a layering technique to create highlights and shadows and try to make our pumpkins look three-dimensional. We looked at photographs of real pumpkins and tried to recreate the textures found in the skin and in the stems. Lastly, we used liquid watercolors to paint our backgrounds a dark blue. Most students used this blue as a night-time sky; some chose to make it day time.

First Grade Alphabet

First graders read the book "The Missing Piece." We talked about the difference between a line and a shape. Lines are open. They begin and end at different points. Shapes are closed. The begin and end at the same point. Using the the letters of the alphabet as lines, we filled our papers with the entire alphabet.  The rules were that the letters did not have to be in order, they could be facing different directions and at different angles. However, they had to touch. When the letters touch they create shapes. After outlining in markers, we used watercolors to paint in the shapes different colors.