6th Grade Weaving

This winter, I saw a wonderful lesson on weaving on There's a Dragon in my Art Room. I really liked the idea, especially since students are often more willing to try hard on something they can use, as opposed to a picture they can put on their fridge. I contacted Phyl with a few questions about the project, and she said her students had been doing weaving every single year, so they were already quite adept at weaving by the time she introduced this challenging project. Phyl suggested that I do a more simple weaving project with my students, who have never done weaving before. So, I started with the simplest form of weaving: paper weaving. After my students mastered that, we jumped right into weaving with yarn. It was quite a struggle for a while, but looking at these finished pouches makes it all worth it!

5th Grade Hatching with Pen

I think learning to do hatching, cross-hatching, or stippling are very important skills when working in pen and ink. My students, for the most part, understand how to get a variety of values with pencil, colored pencil, or charcoal. However, with something like ink, it is impossible to get shades of gray. It's either black where you use it, or white where you don't. I found a wonderful idea for hatching or cross-hatching on Stuck in the Mud Pottery. I believe this lesson is for high school students, but I was able to adapt it to the 5th grade level. 

3rd Grade Art Inspired by Wayne Thiebaud

My 3rd graders recently studied art by Wayne Thiebaud. We looked at some of his ice cream paintings, and then I taught the students how to mix tints and shades to make light and shadows. The students did a wonderful job using tints and shades to add dimension to their ice cream cone paintings. I let the students make as many scoops as they wanted....a few students went a little overboard :).

After completing the ice cream paintings, I showed the students some of Thiebaud's cupcake paintings, and we made cupcakes out of clay. The top and bottom are both pinch pots, but we rolled the bottom pinch pot on corrugated cardboard to make ridges. The students learned to slip and score in order to attach a cherry to the top of the cupcake. It serves as a handle, since the cupcake is actually a lidded jar.

The students did a great job glazing.

Here are some completed cupcakes:

Kindergarten Architecture

I think it is important for young students to learn about the many different career paths an artist can take. Students who enjoy art have many options for what they want to be when they grow up. Last week, my kindergartners learned what an architect is, and how important it is to plan out what a house will look like before building it. We looked at many different famous houses, including Fallingwater, and several castles. Then, the students used their imagination to pretend to be architects and design their own house. Below are a few examples. Several students were inspired by Fallingwater and have a waterfall near their home; but, none of them designed a house on top of the waterfall like Frank Lloyd Wright did!

This house has a lovely rose window:

This house has a balcony on the roof:

This house has a tower:

This house is really colorful!

This house is located between two waterfalls:

This house has one waterfall:

This house looks like a castle and is located in the mountains:

This house has two balconies:

I find this house slightly confusing....but I think it has a couple of fire escape stairways on the exterior:

This students designed a log cabin:

This one comes with a dog house:

This orange house has a purple chimney:

This house has a lovely stained glass window in the door. Also, I think it might have a garden growing on the roof:

This house is really big!

Here is a house with a price tag attached to it:

This house has some flags on the roof:

This house has a waterfall on the property, and some sort of bridge or something over it:

I like the assortment of windows on this house: a rose window on the third floor, rectangular windows on the second floor, and arched windows on the first floor:

This house has three levels with balconies. I would enjoy living in a house like that!