Dino Art

1st Grade: Dino Art

1st graders listned to me read the book What if the Dinosaurs Came Back by Bernard Most. We looked for shapes in the illustrations. This is a really great book that is very imaginative. 1st Graders imagined what life would be like if dinosaurs came back and lived on earth in 2014. Students drew a setting with Sharpie marker on  12" x 18" paper. During the next art class, I did a step by step of a dinosaur with them. Student could draw a brontosaurus, a T-rex, or a Plesiosaurus. Students added line designs to their dinosaurs (which were done on colored paper). Students cut and glued them onto the background. 

These came out very fun!

Amate Bark Painting

1st Grade: Amate Bark Painting

I have seen Amate Bark painting a number of times on other art blogs and really wanted to try it this year. Students watched 2 videos on the tradition of making bark paper in Mexico. The process itself is pretty fun to watch. Strips of bark are taken off a tree, then boiled down in a HUGE vat of boiling water. Then paper might be dyed a color. (sometimes white) or left un-dyed. Bark strips are then set out on a large table and pressed down with stones. As they are pressed down, they "flatten into each other" making homemade paper. The paper itself is very beautiful. Sometimes a special design is made into the paper. Other times, nature scenes (many times with birds) are painted onto the bark paper. I showed students some authentic nature paintings on bark paper on the white board.

Students then set to work on their own bark paper painting. We used brown kraft paper in place of bark paper, as it had the look of bark paper. I ordered pre-cut paper (as opposed to the large rolls of it), which helped. I gave some examples of border designs for students, and then they set to work creating their own border. I had to emphasize and demonstrate placement of border, as I did have some students drawing a small rectangle for their "border" in the middle of their paper. 

I then did some step-by-step bird drawings with students. Students drew out their picture in black sharpie marker. Students could draw whichever birds they liked best ( I did about 5 different birds-a mix of "flying birds", sitting birds, a duck, pigeon). Students added trees, branches, nests, a sun, baby birds, and whatever else they believed would make a great nature scene. 

I gave them green and yellow paint the first day. The next day, was red, yellow, blue, brown, violet, and white. In some cases "snow" was seen in their paintings (this is what happens when you give students white paint!). The trickiest part of the project was going back over sharpie lines after the paint was dry with marker. Most of the original lines students had drawn got buried under paint, so I assisted students in re-tracing them. Not sure how to prevent that? I even watered down the tempera, but that did not seem to help much. However, I do like the way many of these came out. They are so cheery, colorful and creative!

Perhaps these birds have visited the circus?! I do love the color!

Apple Baskets

3rd Grade: Apple Baskets

3rd Graders explored the works of Paul Cezanne (his many fruit still life paintings). We looked for value, organic shapes and overlapping. We talked about ways artists make apples in a basket look realistic. Overlapping the apples was a concept that most 3rd graders were familiar with, and I think this project was overall very successful. I did some examples of drawing apples in a basket using overlapping and not overlapping and students could instantly see the difference of which one was more realistic. I also drew some various examples of baskets and buckets on the white board, and hung up some posters with basket drawings on them for students to see. 

Students drew a basket with pencil on 12" x 18" black Riverside construction paper. (their paper could be vertical or horizontal. I did have to emphasize drawing the basket pretty big. Some students wanted to draw quite small. Students added apples to their basket. I also let students draw a tipped over basket with apples that had fallen out if they wished. They still had to show overlapping, though. Students glue traced over their pencil lines. Next art class, students filled in with soft pastel chalks. I demonstrated how to create values by tinting with white and how to add highlights. I also demonstrated added the sky first and grass last (so any grass blades would be over the sky and they would not have to color "blue sky" between grass blades). Basket was a free color choice.