Ist Grade Impressionist Landscapes

First graders have been studying Impressionism. We talk a lot about how Impressionists painted light and reflections. We also learned about warm and cool colors. For this activity, we began by folding our white paper in half and only painting one half using purple, blue and green. Then, we folded the paper to create the reflection. The next class, we used oil pastels to make tree trunks. I told them to draw the letter "Y" for the trunks and we used to different shades of brown. Then, we used sponges to paint our warm colored leaves and folded the paper again. This was a nice, quick activity and it had a very high success rate!

2nd Grade Thiebaud Inspired Donut Collages!

This is my favorite project that we have done so far this semester. Thiebaud is one of my favorite artists. I thought these collages turned out great and the kids really enjoyed this. We began by studying the art of Wayne Thiebaud, focusing on his use of repetition. We also talked about neutral colors, geomteric and organic shapes. The students used a template to cut perfect circles for their donuts but they had to create their own organic shapes for the frosting. Then, they were able to embellish their donuts using hole punchers and glitter. Lastly, we added a smaller circle in the center that was the same colored paper as their background (also using a template) to be the donut "hole".

Painted Ladies: Victorian Architecture

My 5th graders created these beautiful contour line drawings using elements of Victorian architecture as inpiration. We looked at lots of examples from the San Francisco Painted Ladies (by the way, I was shocked to know that 5th graders watch Full House reruns and are familiar with these homes from the opening credit sequence) to some examples from hotels in Walt Disney World and then even some in our own community. We learned architectural terms like turret, pediment, dormer, widow's walk and molding. The kids used pencils and Sharpies to do the line drawings and then created a background using liquid watercolor. We sprayed the liquid watercolor with water to make it run and bleed a little more. I think they turned out great!