We are reviewing symmetry in art and in nature. I demonstrated how it is very difficult to draw something exactly the same twice or on both sides. Then I showed the class how to draw half of a butterfly and then trace it with black crayon and rub it to the other side of their paper. I stressed that they needed to press hard with their crayon and then press hard with the end of the ruler when rubbing so the black crayon would transfer easily.
Then then retraced the second half of their drawing making sure to keep it symmetrical. Then they painted it symmetrically with watercolor.
This is one of my favorite lessons. I think every piece turns out beautiful. Thanks to Sherry Sanning for sharing this lesson idea with me nearly 15 years ago!
With this lesson we reviewed all the different types of lines we have practiced this school year on one layer in the app Brushes. We then added a second layer to color between each line. We then moved the line drawing layer to the top to "clean" up our piece. Each child then "played" back their piece in the Brushes gallery. All my students love this feature of Brushes!
Our school turns fifty this month and my teaching partner, Jayme Durrwachter (left) and I were asked to paint a mural where every child in the school could be a part of creating it. My first thought was to use everyone’s thumb print to create an image. I quickly chose Van Gogh’s Starry Night because of his use of broken lines and movement. As an added bonus it’s a piece that most people are familiar with.
Jayme sketched out the piece, I mixed up the colored tempera and added some gloss medium to make it more permanent. We then took every class on a “field trip” to the hall to stamp their thumb repeatedly until the paint came off their thumb. We struggled to get the students to turn their thumb in the direction of the lines and movement but most had their thumb following our vision of what the mural should look like.
The kids loved being allowed to paint on the wall and use their thumb too! It prompted a discussion of graffiti art vs. having permission to paint on the wall. Most all the classes recognized it as Starry Night. Each morning while we worked on it, as the kids came in off the buses they would say how great it was looking or “Boy, that’s really taking shape, Mrs. Jackson!” They were very proud of their work.
Our staff really got into it too and we invited them to add their thumb prints as well. The teacher’s loved being a part of it! The mural turned out to include the entire school!
Jayme had the perfect idea of adding some base trim around the mural to frame it. She spray painted it a bronze color and our maintenance department hung it. This really finishes off the mural. I added a clear pray gloss to the top to protect it just a little more. We are very happy with the final product!
This is our second piece using the Brushes app. We took a photo of our shoe, imported into Brushes. We added a second layer to create a contour line drawing using black. I encouraged the class to use a variety of line thickness to create visual interest.
Then a third layer was created to color our line drawing. The class could use any colors they wanted but I encouraged them to use some colors in more than one place on their shoe to create unity within their piece.
This piece came very easy to most students with this lesson following right behind their dessert landscapes. Their new knowledge of layers and using the color wheel in Brushes was easily remembered.
With this lesson we were reviewing the learning objective "I can create a landscape showing correct landscape proportion with size placement". Simply, this means we place smaller items in the back and larger items upfront. We created a dessert landscape using the Brushes app.
This was their first time using Brushes, so I introduced them to the layers and how they can help create a landscape showing correct proportion. We first created a black line drawing of mountains. Then added an additional layer to color in the background and moved the black line layer on top the colored layer to create a neatly outlined piece.
We repeated all these steps with the middle-ground of small cacti and then the foreground of larger cacti. Each piece was then downloaded to Dropbox.
With this piece we focused on all the different color families we had talked about through our years in art. The students chose the color family they wanted to work with. Unfortunately most chose cool colors so there isn't much variety in the pieces.
Each student then created an asymmetrical geometric shape composition. The drawing was traced heavily with black crayon and rulers were used to break up the space. Finally they used watercolor to paint in their piece completely.
During this lesson I was focused on introducing Kindergarten to using the iPads and the Brushes app. I first made a sundae cup template and uploaded each to Brushes directly. This way I could skip taking up class time showing Kindergarten how to import a photo on the first class. I will show them how to do this on the second piece they create on the iPads. To save some teacher time I had some "expert" fourth graders upload the template to iPad and into the Brushes app when they had finished their work and had a small amount of down time. This saved me a lot of time and they love getting their hands on the iPads and helping me at the same time.
Each child found their assigned sundae cup in the Brushes app and opened it. I then demonstrated how to create layers and what the layers can do to their work. Each student then added a third layer to "color" on. This way we could move our template to the front to keep the neat black line outline.
I then reviewed the primary colors and asked the class to color the three ice cream scoops each in one primary color. Finally they got to create their choice of color for the syrup and cup using the color wheel. I had just a few extra minutes with my second class so I showed them how they could "play" back their piece in the Brushes gallery. The room exploded when they saw the steps "playing" back! If you haven't showed your students this feature, do it. All grade levels love this.
I can't tell you how excited the Kindergartner's were with their pieces. I had some students jumping up and down in the hall when they saw me today, because it was art day and they got to finish their sundaes.
Second Grade created a radial design using the Brushes app on the iPad. I created a three circle template for the students to import into Brushes as a photo. I have included the template below.
They then added a second layer to use a black line to create their radial design. They then added a third layer for the color. We finally merge all the layers together to get a clean black outlined radial design.
This is Second grade's first experience using the Brushes app. I think they did a terrific job!
Radial Template
For this project we were focused on the learning objective: I can identify and create African Art. We looked at many African Masks and discussed the similarities and differences in them. The similarities we focused on was the use of simplified facial features and geometric pattern.
The second learning objective we covered was to cut a symmetrical shape from a folded piece of paper. Then we drew half our mask with pencil and then heavy black crayon and then rubbed it onto the second half of the paper to create a symmetrical mask. We added raffia to the bottom.
The last learning objective we worked on was to create an additive process by looping yarn around a wooden block to make a printing block or stamp. We then dipped our block into white tempera and stamped around the edge of a large black paper for a frame.
The final step was to glue our mask to the center of our printed frame. The students really enjoyed the printmaking process. I think their line designs from the printed frames are beautiful!
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