Cartoon Posters

This quarter the Aftershock kids are focusing on cartooning.  They have spent some time developing their own personal cartoons.  For today our focus was on creating a "poster" for their cartoon character.  Here are what a few of them came up with...

**pictures were snapped "in progress" and then kiddos took them home.

Lego Mania

A while back I saw this awesome post by Abby Schukei over at Exploring Art: Elementary Art.  She had done these cool Lego people with her 5th graders.  (Check out the post here)  Since my Afterschock kiddos are focusing on cartooning I thought this would be perfect for the class I would miss when I took kiddos to the Joslyn Art Museum for Celebrating Creativity.

Miss P works hard at everything she does and really wanted her picture with her Lego person... happy to oblige!

I printed off some Lego guys so they could really see the shape of the awesome little people.  They drew them out and colored them while I was gone... and they did a pretty good job!  I could really see their personalities coming through!

I love these so much I think this will be going into my sub file as an awesome sub lesson! 

Thanks for sharing Abby!  

... now go check out her awesome blog! 

Exploring Art Mediums

One of the first projects my 6th graders did this year was inspired by the one and only Nic Hahn over at MINI MATISSE (if you haven't checked her out - go there NOW!).  Anyway... Nic spent the summer making these awesome "Medium Monsters" to help her mini's know more about art mediums.

I shared a few of Mrs. Hahn's monster and then challenged my students to create something equally awesome using art mediums.  They were given a lot of freedom (in retrospect too much freedom for a first project). 

Their project requirements were to create an image using a minimum of 4 mediums - NEATLY!

We started by creating stations around the room and the students filled in their medium books.  

Then they filled out a proposal for their idea and got to work.  While many of them had each medium represented, they didn't use them in all their awesomeness!

Feel free to stop over at Arstonia and check out more of what they have done. 

More Circles

After students finished up their circle (dots) with clay we tackled some fun "Cassie Stephens" inspired sewn dots.  I will admit it took me watching her how-to video on YouTube to feel comfortable tackling this project.

The students did a great job of following directions and I am thinking some sewers have been born...

Dot Day in Clay

So the first day that I was teaching Aftershock art just happened to be September 15... International Dot Day!  The class had been challenging; students were working to find the balance between fun after school activities and showing classroom behavior.

So I started with clay...

Students were told they had to create a circular design with texture.  All else was left open for them to decide.  We were using up old clay left from last year so I wasn't getting too worried about what they wanted to make.

and of course a few finished early and got to "play" until clean up time. 

Lunch is Served

This year our school is piloting an after school program called AFTERSHOCK.  There are several different "classes" offered for our 5th and 6th graders to keep them busy until their parents get off work at 5.  Due to a conflict in times, the first quarter aftershock art teacher was unable to finish teaching and I jumped in to finish.  These lessons were really informal and a lot of fun...

During this time the lunch ladies got rid of a few old, stained lunch trays.  They asked if I wanted them and of course the answer was yes.  We took one Aftershock art class to create these fun projects. 

a little school lunch surf and turf

a few students "made" their food rather than drawing it on the tray 

some students did not even do food...

Shape Collages

Last year when I saw Tatjana Knudsen's Post "Meet the Creative Part of Me" I fell in love.  These simple shapes, bright colors and creative idea sparked something.  While my project is a pretty close copy I made a few changes...

A triangle dinosaur playing basketball

Students started by defining the element of Shape.  Then they selected 3 numbers between 1 and 9.  The first number was the shape they would have to use.  The second number was the animal they would have to make.  The third number was the action the animal had to be doing.  After they found out what they had to create I gave them some time to plan.

a circle cat texting

While they were planning we also painted our background papers.  We looked at the images by Karin Olsen and agreed that the backgrounds were filled with colors and not details.  Students worked hard to finish their colorful backgrounds before tackling the collage the following week.

a circle cat walking

As students entered the room they were given back their background paper and they worked really hard to finish their images.  Our last steps were to add sharpie details as needed and to write a short story about what was happening in the images.  The stories were pretty awesome!

You can see more at ARTSONIA.