Third Grade Pollack Inspired Owls

First Grade Collaborative Fall Trees

Fourth Grade Fall Trees

Fourth Graders completed trees by only painting with the eraser end of pencils:

First Grade Reflective Fall Trees

Kindergarten Kandinsky Inspired Art

Kindergarten created abstract paintings based on the works of Wassily Kandinsky. They first used cardboard tubes to stamp black circles all over their paper. They then added implied texture by printing small circles on top with bubble wrap and peach paint. Once these had both dried, the water colored the inside of the circles and painted over the rest of the white space. The use of water colors on top of the peach tempera paint allowed the bubble wrap design to still show through.

Piet Mondrian Paintings: Fourth Grade

All grades have been learning about the famous artist Piet Mondrian to reinforce the concepts of lines, geometric shapes, primary colors, and to incorporate art history. As a part of their study, Fourth Grade painted pictures inspired by Tableau No. IV, 1925. But instead of creating vertical and horizontal lines on a diamond created by diagonal lines, they did the opposite. The students used rulers to draw various intersecting diagonal lines. They then painted in the shapes created by those lines with primary colors leaving some spaces white for a pop.

Piet Mondrian Paintings: Third Grade

All grades have been learning about the famous artist Piet Mondrian to reinforce the concepts of lines, geometric shapes, primary colors, and to incorporate art history. As a part of their study, Third Grade painted pictures inspired by Composition London. Using rulers, the students drew vertical and horizontal lines and painted them black. They then painted in the squares and square rectangles created by those lines with primary colors leaving some shapes white.

Dinosaurs: Third Grade

Third Grade performed "Dinostars" for the monthly PTA program. To go along with their program, they created dinosaur art. They first painted the sky background using orange, yellow, and purple. They then added a dinosaur in black construction  paper to the sky background to create positive and negative space.

Cool Color Birds: Second Grade

Second Grade students created a sky background with grass by painting only with cool colors. With the help of tracers, they cut out various sized and shaped black birds. They also cut strips of black paper to represent grass. They glued their birds and grass to the sky and grass background to create positive and negative space silhouettes.

Second and Third Grade Murals

On Fridays, we have "Collaborative Art Fridays." Monday through Thursday, I teach the main focus lesson and the students create artwork individually. Each group will visit art on average about one Friday per month according to our rotation schedule. So, on these days, the students work on a collaborative project that incorporates the art elements we have been working on during that month. For this lesson, the students worked to trace various geometric shapes on white bulletin board paper. They then connected the shapes to one another and the edges of the paper with various lines to create organic shapes. They then painted in the shapes. As they worked, we talked about balance and the need to space the colors out in work like this. These really add a pop of color to our neutral back hallway!

Fourth and Fifth Grade Murals

On Fridays, we have "Collaborative Art Fridays." Monday through Thursday, I teach the main focus lesson and the students create artwork individually. Each group will visit art on average about one Friday per month according to our rotation schedule. So, on these days, the students work on a collaborative project that incorporates the art elements we have been working on during that month. For this lesson, the students crumpled pieces of white bulletin board paper into a ball. They then worked to trace all of the wrinkles, or lines, with black Sharpie Markers. They then painted in the organic shapes created by the lines with Tempera Paint. I love how these turned out!

A Rainbow of Friends: First Grade

First Grade read A Rainbow of Friends by P.K. Hallinan as a connection to creating our class Social Contract and as an introduction to the color wheel, primary colors, and secondary colors. Each student used various shaped foam stamps to paint shapes in color wheel order. The next week, once the paint was dry, they used multicultural markers to add heads, arms, and legs to the shapes. They then added basic facial features, hair, and shoes to match the shapes.