1st Grade Jasper Johns Names

The art show. Hours and hours and hours of preparation for show that lasts a few hours. Is it worth it? Of course it is. Do I look for ways to make it simpler and more streamlined? Oh, yeah. 

Enter Artomé. I had been contacted by art show companies in the past, but I was always a little suspicious. I would furrow my brow and think to myself, "I don't have the budget to pay a company to do what I can do for free." I got some information from Artomé and I realized that I could streamline the entire art show by using them. After talking to some colleagues who used Artomé last year and they were please with the results. I decided to give them a shot. 

Overall, I believe using Artomé will be a good move. They frame every piece of student work - 750 for me this year. It's free. In fact, I'll make some money from the show. I had two concerns. All of the frames are the same size. That means that all of the 2D artwork at my show will be 9x12. Ideally, parents will buy the framed work and I'll earn some money for the art room, so the artwork should be something that will appeal to parents. Hmmmm.... Well, that's a bit of a challenge. Most of my lessons are larger. It has been a challenge to come up with lessons that allow for a fair amount of student choice, but still conform to the required size. I also teach lessons that don't necessarily produce "pretty art." We explore science, history, and math. I design lessons to help students learn about art and the world, not specifically so they can have something pretty to take home. 

This is a new lesson that I decided to use for an art show project this year. It's based on the work of Jasper Johns. I really liked how it allows for some messiness, but the work still comes out super cool. I would include the lesson plan, but I borrowed it from For the Love of Art and I don't want to take credit for it. It's super simple. Take a page and have students carefully fold it in half four times. When they unfold it, they will have 16 rectangles. Students write their names in oil pastels as large as they can in each box. I found that using only capital letters worked best. Students then took a couple of classes to paint the areas around the letters, trying to loosely conform to the shape of the original rectangular fold marks. It worked perfectly for my needs and it is something that I'll definitely consider using again.

3rd Grade 3D Paper Landscapes

I love it when a plan comes together. Sometimes it doesn't. That's fine, too. 

This lesson originated as an amalgamation of two projects I've taught to 3rd grade in the past. One of my goals was to create more 3D lessons this year. This was my attempt for 3rd grade. 

Essentially what I wanted to do was have a paper landscape with individual pieces created for the foreground, middle ground, and background. The landscape would depict the habitat of an animal that would also be included in the work. The landscape elements would be combined with two accordion-like edges, and a little paper frame would finish the front. It would look something like this quick demo piece I did. 

The project went great. Then I demonstrated how to put the whole thing together. That's when I got the dreaded look of confusion from most of the class. I knew the way I had it planned was going to be kind of difficult, so I had my demonstration broken down pretty well. I was using a document camera and my projector to project my demo on the big screen so everyone could see. We worked step by step. A few kids got it, but it was mass confusion for the rest. Needless to say, I changed things the next day. 

I ended up making little springs out of 1x3 strips of card stock and having students attach attach several in between layers of their landscape. I still really like how the project turned out and it was MUCH simpler to teach to my other four classes.

Click here to download my lesson plan!

 

Dancing Giraffes by 1st Grade

One of my very favorite parts of teaching elementary art is demonstrating techniques and the work of the day. There are a few that really wow students and this project is definitely in that category.

This project is based on the book Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae. The book has a nice message about how everyone has their own talents. It also provides a platform for a really fun mixed media project. 

Each student gets to draw their own dancing giraffe. I alway get a few really inventive poses each year. The giraffes are drawn and colored pretty simply. The background is where the fun comes in. A wet on wet tempera technique is used to make the moon "glow." I then demonstrate how to make the grass. I always say that of course grass is usually green as I dip a brush in yellow paint and start painting on the bottom of the paper. The kids immediately tell me that I messed up. I shrug and just keep going. I then paint green over the yellow, flip the brush over, and use the handle to scratch off the wet green paint to reveal the "grass" below. Kids (who are easily impressed to begin with) gasp with excitement. It's hilarious. 

Click here to download my full lesson plan. 

1st Grade GERMS!!!

If you don't immediately see the irony in this post, then you don't know first graders. To top it off, I sit here writing this; my body full of Mucinex D (the big kid kind), nasal spray, and a bit of coffee for good measure. How ironic is this post? I don't even want to think about it.

On to the cool art. This project was super fun to work on and the results were almost 100% successful for all students. I've got a thing for incorporating science into my art lessons and I was intrigued by the look of different strains of bacteria and viruses. We discussed how some bacteria is good while other types of viruses and bacteria can be harmful to our bodies. Each student did several sketches and choose to create either a good or bad germ.

This is one of those projects that the students can just go nuts with. It's very open and allows a lot of choice. It also allows me to to talk to my first graders about proper germ defense. Trust me, they need it!

Download the full lesson plan here!

Cardinals - Charley Harper Style

If you're reading this, you likely know that I don't do holiday art. It's not my style. Winter art works just fine, though. This is the second year I've done this project with my students. It is based off of a few topics and comes together very nicely. 

The project focuses on the state bird of Ohio, the cardinal. Cardinals are a type of bird that stays around in the winter, so they make for a good subject of a winter themed project. We also study Ohio artist Charley Harper. If you're not familiar with Harper, his career focused on graphic artwork about animals. If you haven't ever seen any of his work, you should definitely check it out. 

The coolest part of this entire project had to do with my Instagram feed. I try to post something every couple of days on my classroom Instagram account. It's a quick and easy way of sharing when I don't have time to sit down and write a whole blog post. I posted the picture above during the school day. When I got home that night, I realized that the official Charley Harper Art Studio had commented on the post! Huzzah! At their request, I wound up sending them several more examples that were then posted on their Facebook fan page. My students were amazed that their work was being recognized by the studio of a famous artist! 

Download the lesson plan for this project here!

3rd Grade Aboriginal Art

Aboriginal artwork is fascinating to me. As an artist, I have always been fascinated with the process of making art as much as anything. I enjoy printmaking because of the preparation and thought that goes into a piece before final artwork is ever made. When I think about the process that went into the early Aboriginal art, I'm always amazed. Whenever someone makes their own paint simply to create art I'm impressed. 

I've taught this aboriginal project for several years and have changed it bit by bit every year. Originally, the students drew and painted an animal on one paper, then did a dotted background on the same paper. That later changed to drawing the animal on a separate paper and adding color with oil pastel before attaching that do the dotted background. This year, I went a similar route with the animals, but changed the background. First, I made it smaller. I went from 12x18 to 12x12. Kids get overwhelmed with the amount of dots they used to have to make. I wanted to simplify that. Second, I allowed students to create some decoration on their backgrounds with cut paper. This further reduced the amount of dotting that was required. I really like how the work turned out this year. I cut at least one full day from the project by making the dotting less complicated. I'll add that on to one of the new projects I came up for later this year. 

Download the lesson plan here!

3rd Grade Aboriginal Inspired Animals

I'm way behind on the blog again. Whoa. I've got several projects that are ready to go up. It's just a matter of finding a free minute to get it done.

This project isn't a new one for me, but one that is very successful every year. It's a pretty straightforward Aboriginal inspired piece. Kids get to select an Australian animal to depict as an x-ray drawing. The animals are drawn on construction paper and colored with oil pastels. The background are on a separate piece of construction paper that is painted (with long q-tips) prior to adding the finished animal. 

I make little changes to this lesson every year. In the past, I asked students to cover their entire background with dots. I could tell it was a little much for many students, so I allowed students to leave some background areas dot free this year. I liked the results. 

Check out my lesson plan here!

1st Grade Dancing Giraffes

This is probably about the fourth time I've done this project with my 1st graders, but it always turns out so cool so I keep doing it. This project is based on the book Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae. 


This project has two parts that I really enjoy. First, the kids love making the backgrounds. I show them how to do a little wet on wet painting to make their moon "glow." I also have them layer some green over a dried layer of yellow before scraping off some of the green with the back of their brush. Making the grass this way during the demo always gets a nice little collective gasp of surprise from my classes. The second part I really enjoy is the personality of the giraffes that the kids come up with. I try to give them as much freedom as possible and I get some really good results.


Check out the lesson plan here!