Desert Texture

Oops, I was lazy with the camera and didn't get many pics of our Desert Art.
But since knowing how the smallest image can inspire you educators to create something interesting & fabulous with your students - I'm posting anyways.....

We used the back end of our paintbrushes, by drawing and scratching into the wet paint, to create texural designs in the sand.

Mondrian Art

Image via Wikipedia

Piet Mondrian, Netherlands 1872-1944

Materials: white paper, thin strips of black paper, paint, glue.
First - We glued the black strips onto the white paper.
Second - We drew the design on a scratch piece of paper, and placed Y's, B's, R's, and W's in the shapes we wanted to be Yellow, Blue, Red, and White.

(It was very fun watching students puzzle over the decisions of where they wanted their colors. Erasing and rearranging. Seeing brains ticking makes me giddy.)

Third - We painted the shapes.

This picture shows the student's scratch paper too, where he noted his color choices for the shapes. (Great exercise for the older students, not necessary for the wee little ones.)

Giraffes

This giraffe project was inspired by a lesson found at http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/lessons.html. The lesson was Submitted by: Tracy Albert May, Lesson Idea: It's a Jungle Out There (Henri Rousseau) .

For our version of the project, we did not use the black ink for the batik effect because we didn't have time.

First make a frame for the picture.

Draw giraffe.

Outline with black marker and add jungle leaves, etc. and border decorations.
We colored ours with pastels. The pastels really pop on colored construction paper.

Super Thanks to summer art students: Clio, Molly, Brigido, Jennifer, Julia for sharing their artwork below!

A giraffe miracle at the San Francisco Zoo.

Nature Sketchbook

Image by cobalt123 via Flickr

Nature Sketchbook Lesson:

We started by talking about shadows and looking for an object's shadow when placed on white paper. We discovered that the shadow is darkest at the point where it touches the object and the shadow gets lighter the farther away it is from the object. Then we experimented shading, hatch and cross-hatch lines for shadows. Nature objects were given to each table group. We make a big deal about respecting the objects because they're real and fragile. (By the way, the lizard below is dead. I live in the country and flat dead lizards are surprisingly easy to come by??? The boys love them along with the bird and gopher skulls. I also make a point of sharing with the students that I never "steal" a nest or an egg. All my objects have been found on the ground and obviously abandoned.)

Beautiful feather with fabulous shadows, Clio!

Super thanks to summer art kids:

Clio, Bijou, Julia, Jennifer, Paige, Lizzy, Sam, Kahler, Leilanna, Johnathan, Michelle,

Molly , Drew , Haddie

Kandinsky Art Lesson

Image via Wikipedia

Wassily Kandinsky 1866-1944

Materials: lids, cd's, etc. for circles & tag board geometric shapes for tracing.

I usually have kids use black crayons for tracing, which provides a black resist line when using watercolor paints. (Black crayons are easier on the budget too in a 25+ classroom.) But this time, with fewer kids, we used sharpie markers. Some painted with watercolors, while others used tempera.



Trace lines and shapes.

Then paint.

Special thanks to Mrs. Smith's summer art students: Joshua, Riley, Haddie, Drew, Julia, Jennifer, Bijou, Sienna, Devin, Paige, Michelle, Lizzy