It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I don't know what's going on this year, but I am so excited about Christmas!  I mean, I always am, but for some reason this year I just can't wait!  :)  In the art room we seem to run out of time to finish our Christmas projects, so this year I'm determined to get them completed before Christmas!  Here's a little preview of what we're starting!

Fourth grade began their poinsettia paintings by sketching the flowers.  We started with a star in the center and then drew leaves from each point.  Also on the first day we painted the first five petals with a dark burgundy red.

3rd grade began their "shiny bright" Christmas ornaments.  We traced the circles onto white paper, drew a highlight, then painted each circle to make a sphere using analogous colors.  Analogous colors are beside each other in the color wheel and they blend beautifully!

More pictures to come as the projects develop! :)

Halloween, pumpkins, and witch legs, oh my!

I'm a little out of season posting this, as Halloween was last week, but my kids have been busy working on various Halloween and fall projects!  Fourth grade at Millingport learned about shading and analogous colors while working on their oil pastel pumpkins.

 Fifth grade also had a review of analogous colors and we learned how to make a twisted stem!

Some of them got a little carried away with their twisting... and they ended up looking a little like Dr. Suess pumpkins

3rd grade created "witchy legs" with construction paper and black tuile for the bottom of the skirt!  I got this idea from a friend and fellow art teacher Michelle Osborne!  Check out her blog here:  http://tinyartroom.wordpress.com/

Grant Wood Pumpkin Farms!

I found this unique lesson plan from Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artists!  She has a fantastic blog that I love to visit often! Check it out here.  We discussed the artist Grant Wood and looked at several of his rural landscape paintings.  We discussed depth and many of the elements of art, such as line, shapes, colors, space, and value.  We also learned how to show perspective and point of view just by placing objects in certain places on the page and making them smaller or larger.

First we drew our pumpkin farms together and traced over our pencil lines with permanent marker...

 Then I had students color only specific parts of the picture with crayons, encouraging them to color dark and heavy.  "COLOR IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT!"

Last we painted with an acrylic wash of three shades of green, one for each hillside and blue for the sky.

Third grade giraffes

Art By Me 2012 is complete!  Finishing up with third grade's giraffe drawings!  We used something new for these, Crayola Color Sticks.  I was quite impressed with the durability and brightness of the colors.  They are basically colored pencils without the wood, so there's no sharpening!  The only drawback is the limited colors, so we mixed in regular color pencils for variety!  We also painted the background with a watercolor wash for a beautiful blue sky!

Leather from paper?!?

I love doing this project with students, it's so easy and tons of fun!  We made "leather" from paper!  This idea comes from my own education experience!  I remember doing this many years ago as a kindergarten student!

We spent the first day just creating the leather.  We'll add more decoration to it later and I'll post pictures again.

4th grade lighthouses

4th graders have been working hard on their North Carolina lighthouses in art.  We discussed lighthouses and looked at many examples, focusing on the ones in North Carolina since they will also be studying North Carolina history in their classroom.  I let students choose the design they wanted for the stripes after looking at many examples.  They had to make their stripes black and white, but I let them choose whatever color they wanted for the top of the lighthouse. Lastly, we painted the sky with a watercolor wash.

The diamond pattern is particularly difficult, this student did an excellent job on the diamond pattern!

5th grade "Art By Me" parrots

Fifth grade is doing an awesome job on their parrots for Art By Me! We discussed blending with colored pencil, something they've been doing with me for years, and they are getting good at it! We also talked about layering objects to create the background Here are few for you to enjoy!  There were so many great ones I wish I could post them all!

Second Grade "Art By Me" project

Second grade's hummingbirds turned out spectacular!  We read Little Green, by Keith Baker and our drawing is based on that.  I got this idea from a wonderful fellow art teacher and friend, Betsy Lewis!  Thanks Betsy!

Art By Me fundraiser is underway!

I am always excited this time of year about the Art By Me fundraiser.  Art By Me is a fabulous program that turns my student's artwork into beautiful keepsakes!  It makes great gifts for Grandma too!  Who doesn't love a 5 year old's handprints?!  I'd cover my house with them if I could, though I'm quite sure my neighbors would think I'd lost it! :)  Here are a few of Kindergarten's stamped handprints.



I love the bumblebees in this one!

 This student REALLY got it when I asked them to make their stems thick!  Perfect for the size of these flower tops!