Matisse Posting #2: Color Harmony

After the Black and White collage lesson I showed my students the video Dropping in on Matisse. It is a great video- about 25 minutes, and even if you don't have time to show your students its worth watching to get an idea of how to present Matisse to students and prompts for VTS.

We moved on to the concept of HARMONY- which is actually quite difficult to translate to young students in a way that they can apply to artwork and their own compositions. I begin it by asking them where they have heard the word "harmony" (they will most likely say music) and then we take it from there by drawing connections between musical harmonies and harmony in artwork.

This was a very clear-cut directional lesson where the students had to follow along rather than it being an exploration in materials.
Each student used a 9 x 9 square of white paper as the background.
Each student got three colored pieces of tissue paper, a scissors, and a glue stick.

1. The kids were instructed to choose one color to start with. They had to cut or rip one large piece and glue it down on the white.
2. The kids chose their second color- and could cut or rip 5-8 small shapes/pieces and glue them down.
3. The kids used their final color to cut one medium shape and glue it down.
** Then the students evaluated their composition and could add on other pieces they felt necessary to "balance" out their collages.

As a class we examined the artwork and identified which compositions prompted the viewer's eye to travel around the entire page- and identified the primary and secondary focal points of the compositions.

Matisse posting #1: Black/White/Gray Cut Paper

The first part of our fifth grade Matisse exploration was a viewing of various Matisse paper cuttings.
We focused on identifying the use of organic shapes and positive/negative space. We looked at how he used a variety of sized shapes and how his compositions prompt the viewer to look around the entire page.

The task was for each student to use a 9 x 12 gray construction paper as their background.
The pieces for cutting were black construction paper, white drawing paper, and newspaper (only b&w- no color pictures or text).

I think this lesson was very effective for the students. We were all pleasantly surprised by the range of compositions the students were able to create with limited materials. They all truly gained a better understanding of composition. As they worked I would emphasize using both organic and geometric shapes, a variety of sizes, and considering repeating or patterning elements, and overlapping (i.e. "If you have been using all small shapes, consider using a bigger shape." as they worked).

1st Grade Desert Habitats

I do a lot of lessons coinciding with the first grade study of habitats. I usually do ocean, arctic, and rainforest environments. This year I decided to add in a desert lesson. It took about six classes to complete but they came out really great. The book Cactus Hotel by Brenda Guiberson is a great resource as well.



Part one: The students and I talked about the attributes of a desert habitat environment and what types of animals live there. We discussed what a cactus is and I showed them images of some Saguaro Cacti.
We also discussed the concept of close up and far away. The goal for the day was for the students to draw one large close up cactus and one small cactus far away as well as a horizon/land line.


Part two: The students colored in the cactus using a variety of green-hued crayons. They then outlined the cacti in dark green oil pastel.

Part three: Glue sand along the bottom land area of the picture and watercolor the sky. (I used liquid watercolor.)

Part four: Animals! I discovered that there are TWO animals in the desert that have black and white stripe patterns (and we all automatically think of zebras and white tigers to have black and white stripes, ha!).
Students made :
Gila Woodpeckers-- They drew the woodpeckers on brown construction paper, colored the striped wings with black and white oil pastels, and put a red spot on the head with oil pastel. Then they cut them out.
Zebra-tailed Lizards-- They drew the lizards on manilla paper, used rubbing crayons and texture tiles for for the lizard skin and colored the tails with black and white stripes using oil pastels. Then they cut them out.

Part five: We arranged our elements and glued them together!

Daffodils! (and symmetrical vases)

My second graders finished up their symmetrical vases that I posted the beginnings of by drawing daffodils on watercolored yellow paper, and glueing them to a white background paper.
We did an observational drawing lesson with the daffodils.
I like to make the connection between daffodils head-on and profile views to head-on and profile views of people. We discuss points of view and identify the different shapes we see in the flowers before drawing. They came out really nice!

More Daffodils! :

The kindergarteners also participated in a lesson about points of view with the daffodils.
I built on my daffodil lesson from last year- each kindergartener needed to include at least three profile views and three head-on. They did a really good job, they are really sweet pictures.
The greens are various shades of green crayons, oil pastels for the yellow, white construction crayons for up in the sky and liquid blue watercolor for the sky painting.

Recycling unit: Batik-ed Grocery Bags

This is the middle piece of my most recent recycling unit.
My third graders began their investigation of recycling, re-inventing, and transforming materials with the styrofoam tray printing project.

I then moved on to a PAPER recycling lesson. I always begin a study of paper recycling by brainstorming a list of ways we use paper (newspaper, books, homework, toilet paper, egg cartons, gift wrap, labels, etc.) because it is amazing how many things are made out of paper and the kids form an immediate connection with the material and art process.
(I have a list of books that I use for recycling lessons- of course my pile is at school so I will post them next week when I get back there. )

This is one of my favorite art processes to do with kids.

We use cut down grocery bags as the paper for this lesson.
Step 1: Draw a design with pencil and trace with sharpie.
Step 2: Color the entire thing with oil pastels or construction paper crayons pressing down medium-hard.
(I usually use oil pastels but this time I used construction paper crayons.)

Step 3: Each student dips their paper into a small bucket of water and crumples it up. This is a very textural experience and very cool- the paper begins to feel like fabric when they do this.
Step 4: Flatten out the wet paper on to a double layer of newspaper.

Step 5: Using a big brush or foam brush paint over the entire paper with a dark watery paint. You can use highly concentrated liquid watercolor or a watered down tempera mixture. (Black, blue, purple work great. )
Step 6: Allow to dry right on the newspaper!

I often do this lesson as a recycled journal lesson. We create two of these batik-ed papers, and I have them paint over the back as well. Then we put them together with recycled paper from the copy machines as the blank paper filling.

(The ones above we went a step farther and did weavings as well.)

For this lesson in particular I was hard pressed for time so we did 9 x 12 pieces and I taught them how to draw the recycling symbol.

We followed this lesson up with the puppet project as we recycled clothing and fabric.