Piet Mondrian Abstract Trees

My 5th grade students recently looked at some tree paintings by Piet Mondrian. The ones we looked at got progressively more abstract, until you could not even tell what they were supposed to be. Then, my students created their own trees using Elmer's glue on black paper. The students had to decide if they wanted an abstract tree or a realistic tree. They colored in the background area around their trees with pastels, using analogous colors. I have seen a lot of projects with glue and pastels on art education blogs and art lesson plan websites, but the glue we had did not dry as clear as I'd expected. Some of the students' trees have large white spots where the glue was thick. Nonetheless, they had fun using glue in a different way! 

The clay has arrived!

A month after the arrival of my new kiln, the clay has arrived! All 500 lb of it is stacked up in the corner of my classroom.

And 12 new glazes!

No matter what grade they are in, students new to ceramics always doubt me when I insist that the pink-looking glaze will actually turn red in the kiln. Boys are especially nervous about the outcome of their pink-looking creations. So, I am making some little round test tiles to try my new glazes out on. I am going to glue gun them to the lids of my glazes once they are done. It will also help a lot when I am trying to explain the difference between colors like "evergreen" and "chrome green".

Kandinsky Circles with 1st Grade

1st Grade recently saw the painting Several Circles by Wassily Kandinsky. We had a wonderful aesthetics discussion on why Kandinsky would choose to make a picture that wasn't really of something (nonobjective art). Some of the students really got it, with suppositions like "maybe he just wanted it to be about the colors." Other students suggested that he might have run out of ideas of things to draw, or maybe the circle was his favorite shape.

After our discussion of Kandinsky's work, the students traced some round objects I had in the classroom to make their own nonobjective circle artwork. We used crayons to color the circles, and then watercolors later to add a background and complete a few of the circles however they wanted. This was a really fun project because the students had complete freedom of color and composition. Also, I didn't have to hear "I can't draw that!" or "I'm not very good at making that," once, since it's just circles, and the only way to make perfect circles no matter how good of an artist you are is to trace something or to use a compass. 

I got a Promethean Board!

Our janitor just installed a brand new Promethean board in my classroom! I'm so excited. A new kiln last month, and a Promethean board this month....what other great things does this school have in store for me? (This picture doesn't do it justice....it's a bright new white, not a muddy shade of yellow.)