Snowy Day Art

After reading "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Keats, I talked with the class about cool colors. We talked about our favorite things to do on snowy days and then created drawings based on those memories. We outlined our drawings in oil pastel and did a resist with watercolors. At the end of class the students used glitter to show how the snow sometimes sparkles.

Sea Creatures: Second Grade

Second graders created sea creatures through collage. First we studied the images of the sea creatures and then we drew our sea creatures on a regular piece of paper. After our creatures were drawn I showed the class how to "draw with scissors." We worked on cutting out the main shape of the fish and then adding little details and patterns with other pieces of paper.

Sea Creatures: Fist and Kindergarten

We studied many different types of sea creatures for this project, including the Hairy Angler fish who has a light on her head. Students then took their favorite aspects from the sea creatures and created their own.

NYC Bridges

The Second Graders learned about warm and cool colors this month. We studied images of the NYC's Bridges, and created our own art based on those images. We drew the bridges with pencil, outlined them with warm colored oil pastels, cut them out, and then painted our backgrounds using cool colors. Once the backgrounds were complete, the second grade artists added details to their backgrounds with cool and warm colored oil pastels. Take a look at the final results...

Water Lilies

The Kindergarten classes collaborated on creating two giant (70" X 40") murals based on Claude Monet's Water Lily series. After looking at images of Monet's water lily painting in the MoMA, the Kindergarten class decided they would like to try and create a mural of their own. We are planning on using our mural for a backdrop at our school's Winter Wonderland show. It's dramatic, peaceful, and delicate. Here are some images of how we got to the final product.

Plein Air Fun

Thanks to the donors at Donors Choose, our art studio is now equipped with Plein Air Sketch Boards! We got to take those boards for a spin this month, and it was really fun getting out of the art studio to make observations...just like Claude Monet.

Face to Face with Frida Kahlo

After watching a presentation about Frida Kahlo, we all created different styles of self-portraits. I taught the artists a secret way to divide your face up and where to place your eyes. If these self-portraits do not make you smile, I don't know what will. There is such a playful and happy spirit with these, they make me so happy every time I look at them. My favorite part about teaching art is getting to see the student's personality come through in their work. You can really see that happening here.

Face to Face: kindergarten Self Portraits

The second group of Kindergarten Artists drew their faces on one piece of paper and then they drew their bodies on a second piece of paper. Students then glued their figures to a piece of paper that had a background of their choice. I love how some of them look like super heroes.

Face to Face: Self Portraits with Kindergarten

As many of you know, getting Kindergarten students to draw a neck and shoulders can be a bit problematic. I discovered a little trick. I have two Kindergarten classes. The first group of students drew ONLY their faces. I really encouraged them to make their faces large. They then cut out their portraits and colored in a big bus. The scholars put their faces on the bus, and then we put the two buses up in the school.

Bus Mural:

Soft Pastel Self Portrait: First Grade

Looks like I completely underestimated the mess 26 First Grade students could make with vine charcoal and soft pastel and no sink. Was it worth it? I'm still contemplating that questions. We began our drawing with vine charcoal, and then the young artists went over their portraits with soft pastels. We tried very hard to match our skin color. The class made interesting observations abut the way the soft pastels looked on the paper, mainly they said that they looked like velvet and cotton balls. I love that, and couldn't have said it better myself. Students got a little disappointed to see their under drawing disappear, so for the final class I let them outline their drawings and color in the background with oil pastel.

Maybe it was worth the mess...

Self Portrait with Complimentary Colors: Second Grade

After watching the Frida Kahlo presentation artists began sketching themselves using pencil. They then went over their lines using complimentary colors. In the beginning I told the class that if they used one color, the complimentary color had to be touching it. We played a quick game in class (read: not enough time during transitions for me to set up the tables) where the tables worked together to organize their baskets so that all the complimentary colors were paired together. Check out their work, I am VERY impressed, as usual.

Leaf Art: Kindergarten

After reading Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf with the Kindergarten class, we looked at various types of Maple and Oak leaves at our desks. The young artists studied the leaves very carefully using their artist eyes, and created these lovely wax resist paintings.