School-wide art show

I know I haven't blogged in a while, my friend Ted (www.artwithmre.blogspot) has been bugging and bugging me about it, but I have been very busy and a little forgetful! Anyways, now that some big things have been taken off of my plate, now I have time to post some pictures. One of the major things that I was dealing with was a school-wide art show. There are two art teachers here at my school, but with almost 900 students, this is still a lot of work. Most of my classes displayed their prints, but the kindergarteners displayed their bugs, and the third graders had photo collages up.

                    

Circle Weaving

My third graders have been circle weaving, and they love it! It is always a fight every year to get them to stop, and throughout the rest of the year, they will ask if they can do another one. This year, I let the students decorate the outer edge of the weavings and explained to the children that they should use colors that they used in the weaving portion. I am still in the process of grading them, but I got a picture of this one, which was super successful!

I stole this idea!

So have I mentioned lately, that I love Pinterest? I have found some amazing lesson ideas, and this is one of them that I have very cheerfully "borrowed". My 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders worked on monochromatic self-portraits the last 2 weeks. They were assigned to use the "color" of their table (each of the tables in my room is assigned a color, so that I can call specific tables to line up, get their supplies, etc). I have a red, blue, yellow, green, orange, turquoise and a pink/purple table (the basket on the table is one of those colors that could be either pink or purple, I insist on calling it purple, since I detest the color pink, the kids call it pink, just to spite me I think! :P ). Anyways... once the students were done, they placed their papers into basket that were labeled with the colors, this saved me from pulling each class and having to separate them. I hung them up in the hallway today, what do you think?

Chihuly Chandelier

Here in Nashville, we have been very lucky to have multiple Dale Chihuly installations to inspire our students with. My friends Ted, Tina, Daryl and I were in charge of the elementary art teachers inservice (at the beginning of the school year) and we planned the whole thing around the exhibits at the Frist Center and Cheekwood. One of the things that we did was to challenge the teachers to have their students create a Chihuly inspired instillation at their own school. My students have been very busy creating these installations. So far, my third and fourth graders have finished their chandelier/tower (well, at least one of them). Here is is hanging outside of the school from a tree. We created an armature out of chicken wire, and the students brought in hundreds of water bottles. The bottom and labels were cut off, and the students painted the inside of the bottles in the school colors. When dry, the students cut them into spirals and then the bottles were glued into the chicken wire, starting at the bottom. Finally, the top layer of bottles were cut and curled like flowers and added on. A wonderful parent came out and hung it in the tree for me.

Glue and Pastel Fish

My students love to play with messy materials, and pastels are definitely messy. One way that I keep the pastel situation under control is through the use of glue. I start out by reading a book to my students, such as Rainbow Fish and then give each student a piece of black paper. The students then draw their fish or other undersea creature using pencil. Once the drawing is finished, the students trace over the pencil lines with glue, and then the glue is left to dry. Once the glue is dry, the students color in the fish with pastels, and then I spray hairspray or fixative on the artwork to seal the pastel. When dry, the glue acts like a wall or barrier, which helps keep the pastels from smearing everywhere. I have done this lesson with second and third graders.

Interesting artist... TR Mack

While working on a lesson plan for third grade, which encompasses the big idea of change, I settled on the specific idea of changing seasons. I then started to look for contemporary artists that used this theme in their artwork. I finally found an artist on the Etsy site named TR Mack. I have not been able to find a lot of information on the artist himself, but the artwork he creates is amazing, and just what I was looking for. The specific web address for his Etsy shop is http://www.etsy.com/shop/TRMACKSTUDIO







When I showed the images to my students, they were soooooo excited! The plan is to create a "Forest of Seasons", with each student creating 4 trees, each being 4x6. The students will have to create a tree for each season, utilizing both design and color to portray a specific season. The students will create each tree using a different medium, which include collage, mixed media, acrylic and watercolors. When we get this project done, I will post some pics.