YAM Art Show at TAF 2016

This post is several months late....but in March, 12 of my students had the special privilege of displaying artwork in a gallery at the Tippecanoe Arts Federation in Lafayette for Youth Art Month. Here is their work.

6th grade:

5th grade:

4th grade:

3rd grade:

2nd grade:

1st grade:

Kindergarten:

1st Grade Patterned Landscapes

My 1st grade students recently learned about artist Justin Vining, who grew up on a farm in northern Indiana. The landscapes of rural Indiana greatly influence his work. Bold patterns and bright colors set his landscapes apart.

Here are a few examples of 1st grade students' landscapes, inspired by Justin Vining. The students used crayons to draw their landscapes the first day, and watercolors to complete them  the following week.

These are the paintings by Justin Vining that the students looked at before beginning their own artwork. You can see more of his work at his website, justinvining.com.

2016 Bug Bowl Artwork

Well, I sure haven't been posting much lately! I've been very busy this year, and just haven't been taking as many photos of my students' artwork as I used to.

Well, for my first post of 2016, we only have 15 more days of school! I'll try to post a few more times before summer.

Here are photos of some of my students' submissions for Purdue's annual student art contest at Bug Bowl. The last picture received an honorable mention award. Last year, we received 1st place and 2nd place, in addition to 2 honorable mention awards. Bug Bowl was April 16 and 17 this year.

4th Grade Paper Cutting Lesson

This is a lesson I've posted about before. It is based on artwork by M.C. Escher, and introduces the concept of negative and positive space, as well as negative/positive space reversal. One thing that is really awesome about this lesson is that there is no trash! Every single piece of paper that gets cut out of one side gets glued on the other side. With many other paper cutting lessons, the paper scraps all over the tables and floor take some time to clean up, but with this lesson, the only reason we would have any paper to recycle is if someone messes up and starts over.

Here are a few student examples.

This student created a car:

Another student noticed that when turned upside down, it looks like a cow face! Everyone thought that was pretty awesome.

This year, I put every single student's work on my bulletin board. I love how they look in a group! I think they look stronger together than individually.