Leaping 2 New Heights: 3rd Grade April/May 2013

3rd Grade: Winter Landscapes

3rd Graders learned about Claude Monet, famous French Impressionist. They viewed many of his impressionistic paintings, including beach scenes, train stations, his famous water lily pond and his winter landscape titled "The Magpie". A magpie is a little black bird with a sweet song. Students viewed photographs of birch trees as well. They viewed them in the spring and the winter. Birch trees are decidious and have no leaves in the winter.

Process:

Students learned how to paint birch trees with a shadow. I also did a step-by-step of a house. The trees and house were drawn and painted on a separate watercolor sheet from the sky/ground watercolor sheet. Students designed their house with a permanent marker and then added watercolor to it. They painted their sky after they divided the sky from the ground with a wavy black line (also drawn with permanent marker). The sky was done with liquid watercolors. Student used various colors of their choice to create a sky. We talked about blending one color into another. Students sprinkled pinches of salt onto the damp sky to create "snow". The next week, the trees and house were cut out and glued into the scene. Students drew a fence and magpie into the scene with a permanent marker. To complete these landscapes, students sprayed white tempera paint onto their scenes from a large spray bottle to add more "snow" into their landscape. (This was extremely fun for students! Messy, but fun...)

Here is an art project before the spray snow is added..this project can be done with or without the "spray snow".

Here is another project before the spray snow.

3rd Grade: Illuminated Letters

3rd graders enjoyed learning about Ancient Illuminated Letters and manuscripts. Students learned that this ancient craft dates back to the Egyptians! Illuminated letters continued to be popular into the Middle Ages. Ireland and England made them even more popular. Royalty would commission books with Illuminated letters with special gold leaf and inks.An Illuminated Letter is much larger than the rest of the text on the page. It is highly decorated and can many times tell a story all by itself! Students tried their hand at doing this ancient art. Students drew out one of their initials on white paper rather large. The letter was "bubble style". Then students used references of various motifs, such as, butterflies, dragons, fruits, insects, and nature to enhance their letter. Students added more abstract designs around and within their letter and then traced their design onto transparency film with permanent markers. Foil was added behind to create the illusion of an illuminated letter. Silver and bronze permanent markers that I'd ordered came in while we were doing this project..how wonderfully convenient! They added a nice touch.

These look fantastic 3rd graders!

Here is the same art, with foil, and then paper behind:

Here is the same art work with foil behind and then white paper behind.It is neat to compare the 2 different looks.

3rd Grade: Self-Portraits Inspired by Lois Mailou Jones

3rd Grades learned all about the famous artist and teacher, Lois Mailou Jones. Ms. Jones was as African-American artist who traveled the world creating art in the 20th century. She met many presidents, both in the U.S. and abroad. Some of the presidents she met were: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. She also painted President Paul E. Magloire of Haiti and his wife. Lois enjoyed traveling to France and Haiti and was inspired by the settings she found in those countries. She also received many artistic awards. She created textile patterns, stained glass windows, masks for theatre, giant murals, and portraits. She was a college professor at Howard University from 1930-1977.

Ms. Jones just loved painting portraits. 3rd graders set to work creating some self-portraits inspired many of Ms. Jones' portraits.We talked about correct facial proportion and using guidelines to assist us with the placement of our facial features.Most students were surprised to know that eyes our halfway down the center of our face!

Students drew their face in pencil on black cardstock. I encouraged students to draw the size/shape of their facial features that resemble their features, as long as the feature was on the guideline. Students traced all pencil lines with a black oil pastel. Students then added color using pastel chalks.

I love the diversity of faces at Davis Elementary. These portraits are absolutely AMAZING! Go DOLPHINS!!