The First Full Week of School This February!

Sometimes you just need to go off track and just play....  :)    One of my 5th graders was having fun decorating his hand while finishing his landscape...

My Smartboard covered with directions and student examples... inspired by this pin and this pin.
4th grade is working on the 3-D cityscapes...

3d grade is working on Op Art hand forms....

They just started them this week... next week I will have them add visual texture to the background with rubbing plates.

Anyone who was done early took a circle sheet ( warm or cool color ) and designed a circle. I'm saving them all in a box to create a large collaborative piece. I will have different grades do different size circles or different shapes, haven't decided yet...

2nd grade has been fingerprinting hyacinths! We added details with oil pastel and a border from painted paper scraps.  

Sorry for the glare... I took the pictures after they were hung on the bulletin board in the front hallway at school.

Kindergarten is creating tulip fields... they are printing the tulips with the tines of a plastic fork, inspired by this pin.  I showed the classes a short video about the tulip fields in the Netherlands.
Next week they will add details with oil pastels.

They had so much fun they wanted to keep printing tulips on activity paper! This sweet Kinder worked carefully around her wet tulips to add details! It was too wet to take with her so I will give it to her tomorrow to take home. Isn't it beautiful? 

Well, that's what we have been up to this week, it is the first full week of school we have had the entire month of February!  Next week it will be March ( yeah! ) sorry February, but I'm so done with Winter this year! It's not over yet though... there may be flowers in the art room but it is going snow again here Sunday into Monday,  6 to 12 inches ( oh yeah...)  

Oh well, for now I will just have to live Spring vicariously through my students Spring flower creations! 

Hope you all have a great weekend! 

Mrs. "C"  :)

Jim Rizzi inspired Cityscapes and Buildings - 3rd & 4th Graders

James Rizzi - (1950 - 2011)  

My third and fourth graders recently finished working on some pieces that were inspired by the art of Jim Rizzi.  Fourth graders created cityscapes that involved at least three buildings and the third graders designed their own individual building that we combined in a class mural to create a large cityscape.  These are still works in progress as classes are still adding individual details to them.  I had never developed a lesson around Jim Rizzi's artwork before, so I developed two separate lessons, two different ways to see which one was more successful.  Both my third and fourth graders loved the project.

I think next year I will only do this lesson with third graders and I will have them do the cityscape lesson, as the students enjoyed making several buildings as well as adding all the background details.  Each class spent time looking at and discussing the art work of Jim Rizzi before they got down to the work of designing their own buildings "with personality". Once the children finished sketching their picture they outlined them in black Sharpie marker and finished by painting their pieces in with watercolor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1st Grade Cityscapes

 

My first grades created cityscapes at night to go along with their unit on communities that they have been studying in their homerooms.  We started with oil pastel to create the sky design.  They then painted them with watered down blue tempera I mixed.  In the second class I demonstrated how to "build" their cities using geometric shapes they cut from either purple, gray or black paper.  They used painted paper scraps for windows and doors.  Any finishing details were added with oil pastel.  They did a great job!