Pretty Purple Flowers

Every week, I pick a student to be “Artist of the Week.” Someone who did an extra nice job in art class will get their artwork displayed in the glass case near the entrance of our school. Usually the “Artist of the Week” is someone who followed directions really well, was creative, and had wonderful craftsmanship and great attention to details. In a very structured art lesson, sometimes it is difficult to choose between similar pictures; in a less structured lesson with more freedom, sometimes it’s hard to choose between pictures that are very different and brilliant in different ways!

This week, 1st grade did an art project with a lot of room for creativity. This is the point where the difference between talented students and kids who are struggling becomes apparent! My 1st graders have been learning about secondary colors, and each week, we mixed a different color to make a new picture. This week we did purple, and the assignment was the draw the flower stems and any details with crayons, and to paint the petals with purple paint that we mixed from red and blue.

Some students made flowers in a garden. Others put their flowers in a bouquet. Some students put their flowers in a vase or flower pot. With lots of variety, there were many nice pieces of artwork. But, this week, one student really stood out to me.

This little girl used creativity to color the wall behind the flowers with the side of the crayon, giving it beautiful texture. She also used a great analogous color scheme. Different shades of blue, blue-violet, violet, and red-violet appear throughout the picture. And, she didn't leave anything white that shouldn't be white! Wow. I am very impressed. 

Perspective with 6th Grade

My 6th grade students recently studied Da Vinci's The Last Supper. We talked about why the painting had become so famous. Other artists had painted the same subject before him; other artists were good at painting people. But, the painting became so famous because Da Vinci created the illusion of a real room (instead of just a flat wall). He used one-point perspective to do this.

I used my Promethean board to trace all of the converging lines to the vanishing point, which is just above Jesus's head. I think Da Vinci purposely made a striped carpet and checkered ceiling to add more converging lines!

The students were very excited to see this! For those of you who also teach K-6, you know how 6th grader's attitudes are, so I was very happy to be able to impress them.

Next, we looked at some photographs with converging lines on them. We looked at a picture of some railroad tracks, and an aerial view of a city. This time, I let the students find the converging lines. We traced them until we got to the vanishing point. In the city photograph, the vanishing point was off the edge of the page.

Next, the students made their own perspective pictures of an aerial view of a city. I let the students choose if they wanted to make a realistic city, with details such as windows on the buildings, or if they wanted to make an abstract city that was basically colored 3-D boxes. If the students wanted their vanishing point to be off of the edge of the page, we attached a Post-It note to the edge of the paper, and drew the dot on that. The students used crayons for small details and lines, and painted large areas with watercolors. Here are some student examples:

What I Do When I'm Not Teaching

I've always been interested in writing and illustrating a children's book, but writing something unique and creative enough to get published doesn't seem feasible in the near future. But, my niece turned 1 this week, so I wrote her a book for her birthday. I drew all of the illustrations by hand, scanned them, and uploaded them to Blurb. Blurb has lots of nice publishing options, with paperback books at reasonable prices, and lots of size options to choose from. I chose a smaller book (8" x 8"), but I did choose a hardcover with "image wrap" (the cover design is printed on the hardcover, instead of on a removable slipcover) which is a more expensive option. But, I was very happy with the results, and my niece received a one-of-a-kind gift with a few inside jokes in it she couldn't get elsewhere.

This is my sister reading the book to my niece:

And here is the whole book, including the front and back cover. The best way to read it would probably be to click on the first image and then use the arrow keys to "turn" the pages.