PreK "Ain't Gonna Paint No More!"

This book and art project are both just plain fun! We read the book "Ain't Gonna Paint No More!" and talked about the rhyming and the patterns in the book. The girls drew themselves in sharpie, and then painted all over their drawn self-portrait. They loved repeating the title chant!

PreKinder Aquariums

This idea came from a presentation at the Texas Art Education Assoc. conference several years ago, and I have always loved it. The PreK went for a walk to the library and observed the fish in the huge tank. We talked about the similarities and the differences, and what other items they observed in the aquarium. Back in the classroom, they drew a fish and cut it out. That cut out fish became the template for a clay fish that they cut out from a slab of clay. After the clay was fired, they painted the fish - now they have 2 fish, a paper fish and a clay fish. The students painted a piece of matboard in cool colors, added rocks and seaweed, and then added the fish to create their own aquariums.

a 7 year pen giveaway..

go here to try to win a cool pen!:http://artisandesarts.blogspot.com/2012/02/giveaway-seven-year-pen_19.html

Kandinsky for Kinder/Primer

Our Kindergarten and Primer students are creating artwork based on Kandinsky's circles artwork. These will be photographed by a parent and made into a class poster. The girls loved painting these! As they laid them out to dry, the entire classwork was wonderful, I had to take pictures of their work. I can not wait to see the finished poster for the Benefit!

A close up of one of the squares during creation.

8th grade ceramic vases

8th grade students used the slab method to create a tall vessel. They decorated the surface with textures and added items to enhance the vase. These are awesome! They are glazing them now, more pictures after they are fired!

Chess Set by 1st Grade

For the annual benefit, each 1st grade class is creating a chess set out of clay. I usually do not help with the benefit class projects, but I have been intrigued by this idea. The benefit has a western theme this year, so the classes read books, brainstormed, and came up with chess pieces in their homerooms. They came to my room and created the pieces in clay. There are 16 students in each class, so they each made a pawn and one larger piece. Here are some examples, as greenware.

The armadillo in the front looks like he was already run over by a truck! The armadillo are pawns for one set, hearts (the heart of Texas), and horses are pawns for the other two sets. Some pieces are cowboy hats, boots, bluebonnets, horseshoes and horse heads. They are pretty darn cute!

Kinder - Eric Carle continued

An almost completed collage!

Kinder and Eric Carle

Eric Carle is used a lot as the basis for many art lessons, and it is easy to see why! We watch a video - "Eric Carle, Picture Writer" which shows how he paints and prepares his papers from which he creates his collages. It looks so fun! Sooooo, the next class is for making papers. wow. I set up four stations - one for stamping, another for adding texture with some great mittens, one for layering color and then scratching back into the paint with the other end of the paintbrush, and then the absolute favorite, splatter painting. The girls spend about 8 minutes at each station, painting a base layer of color then applying the station techniques. No names on the papers, just working! They have a blast and decide, then and there, that Eric Carle has the best job in the world. I think I do, but his job is a close second.

These mittens are great- they have all kinds of textures on them. They are quite small, I can not wear them (drat). They were in the art closet when I started here. No idea where they came from!

The next class, they draft some ideas, get huge pieces of paper, and I pass out the papers. I try to balance colors out between the tables. The papers are for everybody to use! After a class or two of cutting and gluing, they use oil pastels to add details. They are not finished yet, I will post a few when they are done!

PreK painting - color and black and white

I love PreKinder paintings.... they are little abstract-expressionists! Here are just two examples, but I love love love them!

The Cave....

Our first grade scientists are learning about caves. The science teacher constructed this huge cave for the kids to tour (really all the kids are touring it!). Besides the usual cave items, the 1st grade learned about the cave drawings from Lascaux, etc. Their cave artwork is included in this cave. Pretty cool!

PreKinder goes in circles

I just happened to have TONS of cardboard circles in my school closet that were screaming to be used. Each prek student got a circle and a ton of pieces that I cut on the paper cutter (due to thickness, it would have been hard for those little ones to cut up.) They tore some of the paper off to reveal the corrugated board and then glued the pieces to the circle. We talked about layering, bigger to smaller, etc. When they were dry, we talked about warm and cool colors and the girls painted their work with acrylic. After that was dry (yes, class session 3) they used oil pastels to add details, rub over the corrugated sections or whatever they wanted to add. They are so awesome and very Prekinder-like!

First Grade Hearts

First grade looked at Jim Dine and created their own artwork with a heart theme. They created stencils and used oil pastels to create the hearts, adding patterns, overlapping, etc. After finishing with oil pastels, they painted over the entire work with black tempera paint (some hand dish detergent added to it), then rinsed it off gently in the sink. Loved em!

First Day Feb 1, 2012

Welcome to this blog! The purpose of this blog is to share the creations of my wonderful and glorious art students... Prekindergarten, Kindergarten, Primer, 1st Grade and 8th grade (yes, 8th grade)!