Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Kinders Paint!

Last week the Kindergarteners had their first painting experience in the art room! This is always exciting for both the students and myself. I was very impressed! There were no major spills, messes, or mixed up paints in the paint cups! HUGE deal here because this shows me that they are ready for all of the messy fun to be had in the art room at school. The project they are working on is their self-portraits. They start by tracing a head shape, painting it and a neck by choosing and using the right skin tone for their self-portrait, and then using other colors to paint their background and shirt.





This week we went over what we began last week. The kinders had such a good memory and were able to tell me what a "self-portrait" was in their own words. This week we talked about our hair and facial features such as our eyes, nose, and mouths. I showed them how to use the art materials such as oil pastels, glue, and scissors to create facial features and hair for the self-portraits. Below are some of the artworks in progress. I can't wait to see them completed next Monday when we create shape patterns in the background! 






*If your student has not brought in their art shirt yet, please do this ASAP so that they are ready for the art room each week. Thank you!!*



Monday, September 10, 2012

Back At It!

Today was my last day of introducing students to all of the new routines in the art room. This means that everyone in the whole school has had their first art class of the school year! The first art class is a good time to go over introductions and expectations but it is also important to get them started on creating artwork. As I have mentioned before, I love doing collaborative art the first week to show the students how important they all are individually and what awesome things they can get accomplished when they all work together.

"Meet Our Colorful Students"
For this lesson, 2nd through 5th grades created self-portraits. The catch was that they had to use the color of the table they chose to sit at for the year. So people who sat at purple table used purple markers, purple crayons, and purple colored pencils and so on. We discussed what a self-portrait was and then got started on a little color theory. Second and third grades learned about color value. Their challenge was to experiment with the different drawing materials at their table to make both dark and light values of their color. Grades four and five took it a step further and learned about analogous color schemes. Analogous colors are colors that are neighbors on the  color wheel. Ex. Purple and red, green and blue, etc. They had to start with the color of the table they sat at and then they could choose one analogous color to go to and finish their self-portrait. These analogous color schemes helped the large mural transition from one color to the next. Ex. Green, green and blue, blue. This was an awesome lesson because it introduced new concepts while also reviewing art vocabulary that I knew some of them had already learned last year.


Kindergarteners and first graders also have to use the color of the table they sat at, however, they did line drawings. For first graders, this was an awesome review of different lines that we discussed last year. For kindergarteners, it helped me to see what they already knew about color and lines and determine each students' fine motor skill development.



I worked with a few students after school putting this mural all together. I am so thrilled at how it looks and can't wait to hear about the students reactions when they go to school tomorrow to see it for the first time all together. It sure has a "WOW" factor to it!! Parents please come by to see it in person!

*Special "THANK YOU" to the blog Elementary Art Fun for this awesome first week lesson idea!*