Hubble Inspiration...

I saw this neat post from Mary Making a while ago that linked back to this neat post from Make It... a Wonderful Life and I knew that my 6th graders would HAVE to do it when they studied the planets and space.  Well this week was the week to "explore outer space."

We started by watching this quick video from  National Geographic about the Hubble Space Telescope.  Then looked at images from the Hubble. 

 Then I showed them how to "play" with chalk pastels... blending, smudging, smearing, edging...

Then they got to work... 

They were required to make a background and at least one planet.  

(We popped the planets off the paper with a single piece of cardboard.)  

I think I might want to be an astronaut now! Here are a few of the first ones turned in...

Doodle-ing for Google

Doodle for Google is one of my favorite things every year... I am ALWAYS blown away with what my kiddo's come up with.  This year the theme is "My Best Day Ever" and the kids have amazed me again!

We start with a few video's....

• Last Year's Winners (plays while they come in the room)       
• Introducing a Matteo Lopez (a past winner who is about their age)
• This Year's Theme
• A Message from the Doodlers
• A Doodle Demo

And then they work on planning out their image.  I created a worksheet for them to start thinking about what to do.  They answered the who, what, where, when and why of their drawing and then sketched it out.  When they had a sketch ready, they could get their "official" doodle paper.  (download your's here)

Here is a peak at what they have done....

My best day ever would be seeing animals I had never seen before.

My best day ever would be spending time underwater with all the sea creatures.

My best day ever was spent riding bikes and eating ice cream with my friends.

My best day ever would be spent at Hogwarts.

My best day ever will be when I go to outerspace... with a pig.

My best day ever would be winning a gold medal at state swimming.

Feel free to check out some more on Artsonia.

p.s.  I do this with my 5th graders... 6th graders can choose to participate but it is a requirement for the 5th grade. 

Celebrating Creativity - Ellen Gallagher

photo courtesy

photo courtesy

When I was in New York last year I saw my first Ellen Gallagher images and was blown away.  Needless to say when I saw they were part of the Joslyn's traveling show I KNEW that we would be doing a project inspired by her after school during Celebrating Creativity Art.  

We started the night by watching the PBS Video Art21 about her.  

(linked here)   

The students then got to work.  I was a lot of fun listening to them as they worked.  They were really trying to add things to their images and take things from their images; like Ellen does.  They were very selective in what images they used so they could "say something" with their images.  It was a lot of fun and I am impressed with how they turned out.

My poor hands...

It seems some days in the art room are a little more laid back... and then some are a bit more "tedious."  Today was one of those that had ALOT of handwashing.

5th Grade is being introduced to negative shapes through this fun painting project.  

Watch the video here.

They loved the magic of the moment when we removed the "mask" and saw the negative shape.  

Today we did:

Orange with changing intensity. 

Red shades

and Red tints

Tomorrow we will tackle some other colors.  

6th grade started their clay flower project.  Check out the how to here.

And just to give a "shout out,"  Thank you Carol for the AMAZING treats today.  Yes they tasted as wonderful as they look.

Still Life...

My 6th graders just finished up their still life projects.  In an attempt to stimulate art discussion, I had the groups make 3 different kinds of still life projects.

standard watercolor still life with a focus on shading and layering paint

"painterly" still life of shoes with a focus on contour lines, shading and having fun with paint

photo-realist still life of candy with a focus on all the colors and details

We then were able to display finished examples of each and talk about the similarities and differences.  I was super impressed with all of them!  

Here are some more finished examples of each one...

watercolor

painterly shoes

photorealism candy

Invasion of the "Shape People"

I found this assignment that I had yet to post from back when Mr. Koehn was student teaching...

He started by introducing the 5th graders to the idea of a person being "in proportion."  He had them complete this worksheet to create a shape person who is drawn in human proportions.

Then they had to draw their person doing something... keeping it in proportion!

Then they had to paint them using a monochromatic color scheme. 

... it was really a great lesson for learning for Mr. Koehn.  He realized that something that is simple to us adults who have gone through art college is challenging to 5th graders.  He did a great job of adjusting to keep the lesson interesting to the students.  

Here are some of their final shape people...

 We finished the project by creating a city for our people and displaying them all together.  

I would love to have the students write "a day in the life of..." to finish this project if I reuse it!

The Little Things...

Sometimes we get so caught up in the "big" stuff that we don't stop to enjoy all the little things that make us smile during our days...

Things like...

  finding and appreciating a really cool floor... paint mess and all!

like having an art show ready to go (okay it is kind of a "big" feeling) 

but as my son will tell you the feeling of being selected is amazing. 

and finding one of your mannequins dancing "gangman style." 

Here is to parent teacher weeks... may everyone have good conferences.