Picasso Portraits

3rd and 4th

Have you ever since Pablo Picasso's wild and abstract portrait paintings? At the beginning of class I showed a power point with lots of abstract portraits created by Picasso. Some of the students first reactions were "strange" "weird, messed up, awesome, freaky, colorful, crazy". Then we all started drawing a profile view of a person's face. Next we blended the profile view with a front view of a total different face. Some faces happy, sad, excited, and many different expressions.

Next we learned colors that symbolize happiness and sadness. Students choose colors to match the emotions on their abstract faces. To make the artwork more abstract we added many patterns and colors into the background just like Picasso!

Haitian Tap-taps 2nd

I introduced the 2nd grade students to Haitian culture through sharing the book "Tap-Tap" with them. It was interesting to find out what students already knew about Haiti. A tap-tap is for the Haitians what a taxi is for Americans. These tap-taps take them to and from the market to pick up foods and goods. The tap-taps are brightly decorated with lots of patterns and designs.   We started by drawing the outline of the tap-tap together and drawing Haitian people sitting in the tap-tap. Next we shared ideas of different types of pattern and artwork you might find on a tap-tap. I absolutely love how unique each of the tap-taps turned out!

Painting with Scissors 2nd and 3rd

Matisse is an artist famous for "painting with scissors". His collages are created with only cutting scraps of paper into geometric and organic shapes. He doesn't even use a pencil!!  We started by looking at this circus artwork by Matisse ----->      Can you see the crowd? the animals? the trapeze?                

Students created with own artwork cutting out geometric and organic shapes. Some choose to make a scene others just created an abstract art with only different colors and shapes. We also wrote artist statements about our collages! 2nd grade is always so excited to write about their art and share with the class. It's so heart warming to see the students excited about the deeper meaning of art! 

Strike a Pose K-1st

Keith Haring is famous for his simple colorful figures. Students saw a variety of artwork by Haring and shared what they thought the figures were doing. Next we posed from one another and drew each pose step by step. You will see all kinds of silly fun poses!!

Skyscraper Cities 3rd and 4th

Students shared with me cities they have been to and the skyscrapers they have seen. We started by drawing 2 different cities that we would later use as a stencil. The city that appear in the background are done with warm colors. The city that appears in the foreground are created out of cool colors.

7th and 8th Pop Can sculpture

I received this lesson idea from an elementary school teacher. It was a lot of fun and the kids did not ever want to stop sculpting out of pop cans. However this might be the last time I use this lesson....pop cans seem to be more dangerous than they appear, although this time we only ended up with a few cuts.  Anyhow you can see how easy it is to transform a soda can into a work of art! (photos soon)

Cool Cats

Kindergarden and 1st

Students started by learning how to draw a cat shape by shape. Next I shared artwork where artists use only cool colors such as green, blue, and purples. Students used oil pastels to color their "cool cats" with cool colors.  Last students added cool watercolors as a final touch.