Kindergarten Peacocks

My kindergarten students got their introduction to printmaking by printing their thumb on these peacocks' tail feathers! Then, we added a little bit of sparkle by gluing a sequin in the middle of each thumb print to complete the "eye" pattern on the peacocks' tails. Gluing the sequins took so much more time than I expected it to! But, the students did a really nice job, so I'm pretty pleased with the results.

5th Grade Batik Mandala Bulletin Board

Since all of the students did such a wonderful job on their batik mandalas (not a bad one among them!), I decided to put them all up on my bulletin board for the whole school to enjoy. I love it when every single student is successful on an art project!

Wet-on-Wet Homer Seascapes

I have been wanting to teach wet-on-wet painting techniques to my 5th and 6th graders all year, and I have a post-it note on my computer suggesting wet-on-wet seascapes as a future project. But, I never got around to it, and part of the reason is because when students reach a certain age, they have a fear of failure, and a fear of painting without sketching first. In kindergarten and 1st grade, if I hand a student a paint brush, and tell them to paint, they will do it! By 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, they're scared to try because it might not look right. So, as our last two weeks of school are winding down, I decided to give wet-on-wet seascapes a try with my 1st graders, using Winslow Homer as a visual reference. It was a great success! We'll add a sky and some birds or boats next week. Here's what we did today:

Grade 6 Ceramic Mugs

6th grade made slab-built mugs from clay this year, just like last year. I generally try to switch up some projects, but this one is pretty popular, and all of the younger students keep asking when they can make mugs. I keep saying, "when you're in 6th grade!", so I guess this project is here to stay for a while. Here are a few from this year:

This one says "kitty kat" on the front, and "is what you can get me anytime" on the back. It's a hint for her parents....

Brandon is her brother or cousin or something; I don't let students profess their love for their 6th grade boyfriends or girlfriends on their art because chances are very slim they will still love that person a year from now!

Basketball on the inside:

Nike swoosh on the inside:

Spring and fall; words are a little hard to read.

I'm not a fan of IU (Purdue's biggest rival), but this girl did a pretty nice job on her IU mug:

And here is a Purdue one! This student does diving, so the back of her mug says "Dive".

This student is very interested in wolves, and created a wolf on one side of the mug, while the other side says, "okami", which means wolf in Japanese, if I remember correctly.