Op Art Weavings

So I'd like to start off this post by letting everyone know I have done it! I have finally solved the mystery of where all the art supplies disappear to. Well not all the art supplies but the glue sticks at least. Which while I'm on the topic of glue sticks let me say that I love how they are NOT elmer's glue, thus being much cleaner, but I loath how quickly my kiddies find ways of destroying them. But back to the case of the missing glue sticks. Check out where all mine have been sneaking off to...

Do you see it? . . . . . . . . Here I'll zoom ya in.

There you are! This is the kind of thing that makes me laugh and sigh all at once. Ah well, onto some art work.

My second graders recently finished an op art weaving project. First we learned how to weave paper, but instead of making it all straight we cut our warp paper so that the completed weavings looked all wavy and such. After the weaving were complete we learned how to make optical illusion circles, or as my students called them disco balls. The finished products came out super swell. Plus this project was great in that it was able to incorporate a lot of math in a tricky way that students didn't even realize was that boring old math stuff,  all that compass drawing and ruler measuring! 

The Gravity of Space and Art

So I just finished watching the film Gravity for the fourth time. I know some find it a snooze fest, others think its only good to watch it on a gigantic movie screen, but I am a space addict and its about as close as I'll ever get to actual space soooo.... Gravity has found a little spot in my heart next to Contact. Anyways all this space watching inspired me to post a few more of my students space themed artwork from about a month back.

I regards to what is currently going on in the art room; lots and lots of clay (which as soon as the Face Jugs are complete I'll post an update), paper weaving and portraits. All of which I'll be sure to share on here for my audience of one. *Waves at Emily*

Anyways on to some space art. First I have some chalk pastel solar systems by third grade. We talked about blending and such.

Happy Valentine's Day

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day with some perfectly timed heart drawings from the art room. Now, now these are not those type of heart drawings. These actually introduced my students to a new artist and to the art concept of batik. See now everyone is happy!
I showed my students work by Jim Dine of course and then pretty much let them draw hearts however they felt moved to do so. With the only rule being color in all of the paper. They mostly followed this rule. . . mostly.

Happy Valentine's Day from some of my first graders!

Astronauts

Recently the science specials teacher at my school had StarLab set up and I will freely admit that I spent some quite time relaxing in there gazing at the fake night sky. This also meant it was a perfect time to create some space themed projects, not that I really need an excuse I love all things astronomy. Hopefully after these cool art projects and StarLab some of my kids have also caught the astronomy bug. I did an astronomy/space project with each grade but I have to admit that the astronauts made by my fourth graders are my favorite. I have seen a couple different astronaut projects on line but most of them had the students draw his/her face in the helmet. I wanted to take a slightly different approach. Instead of a face in the helmet we added the reflection of either the moon or the earth.

To begin I showed some pretty cool videos of real astronauts in actual space! I will say it completely blew some minds. We watched an astronaut eat in space, sleep in space, how to wash your hair in space, and what happens to a wet towel in space <-- (my favorite one). Once we got drawing students were given a large circle template to trace for the helmet. From there students were shown how to draw the rest of the astronaut suit. The following week we talked about how lights and shadows typically look in space, very strong raking light from one side. Students shaded his/her astronaut with black and blue colored pencils and then could add patches to the uniform.

The final week each student was given a black piece of paper and we went over how to draw either the moon or the earth. This part was done with chalk pastels and they could also add shooting stars and the like around the edge. Once this was completed we actually cut out where the face would be in the helmet and glued the black paper behind the astronaut. This resulted in the final look of the earth or moon reflecting in the helmet!

Clay!

Well we finally made it! My school just had its first full five day week since before winter break! As promised I wanted to show a bit of the clay work that has been happening among all these shortened weeks. My fifth graders have been making Face Jugs. Here is a link to a PBS video we watched before we got started.  This art form originated with the slaves being brought over from Africa and really sparked some interesting discussions in my room. For the remainder of the hour I had the students sketch out his/her idea.

The following week we dove in. I demonstrated how we would be making the jugs by combining two pinch pots together and cutting a hole in the top for the jug opening. From there students could use any combination of methods to make the face for the jug; coils, slabs. . .

Now we have finally reached a point where all the jugs are complete and drying on the shelves, for which my hands are thankful. Being allergic to the clay and working with it for days on end are no fun for my dry, incredibly itchy hands! Anyways I hope to have them all fired and ready to glaze when we return from mid-winter break. That's right in another week my school has another break! Craziness. Here are a few jugs waiting to be fired.

Kindergarten has also been working on making clay fish which they just got to paint this week. I simply used liquid watercolors, much cheaper and much easier. The kids loved them and they always have such personality.

More Than A Month Later!

Well after a 21 day winter break, Martin Luther King Jr Day and four additional snow days we are trying to get back into the swing of things in the art room. Here we are already at the very end of January! Where did this month go?

Since returning from break I have started clay with my Kindergartners and fifth graders. Unfortunately for the fifth graders due to cold days their clay projects have been bagged up for nearly two weeks! Yikes! Hopefully by next week I will have some progress shots of what they are working on and some nicely painted Kindergarten clay pics.

For now I want to show you some projects I wanted to upload long ago but honestly I was just to lazy to do.

Back during my Ancient Egyptian unit my fifth graders learned about King Tut and the mummification process.  I found this video about Tut which I edited down to a little ten minute video that really got the kids thinking and asking really great questions. I liked this video because it focused on the art that was found in the tomb and the sarcophagus design. Really cool stuff.

Anyways after that I had students lay down on pieces of paper and trace around the outline of his/her body. Many chose to have a friend help with this part. They also traced over their own hands. This gave them the basic mummy outline. Then I demonstrated how to divide the face into proportions and add the facial features. From there they could choose how to decorate their Egyptian sarcophagus. These were outlined in marker and colored with crayon.

This was a very successful project and the students really liked it, although I think one reason they liked it so much was because they got to work on the floor.

         

Pyramids

Okay, okay so I'm a huge liar. I did not post right away. Well I'm posting now! I recently finished up a unit on Ancient Egypt which the kids were really excited about. For my first graders we learned about the pyramids; how they were built, why and so on. We also looked at a lot of different pictures of the pyramids at Giza and talked about the art word perspective. I wanted them to understand the concept that when things are in perspective they get smaller the farther away they are and larger the closer they are. The three pyramids right in a row were a great example of this. After that we drew our three pyramids in perspective. We also included a camel and the Nile river.

The following week we outlined the drawings with permanent markers, and I'm proud to say no tables, clothes or hands were drawn on! Then we completed the pictures by painting them with watercolors. To make the sky different than the river we made it look like the sun was setting.