1st Grade Newspaper Owl paintings

First grade students just finished forming owls out of clay. While we waited for them to dry out and cycle through the kiln, we read Jane Yolen's book Owl Moon, studied characteristics of owls, and created a 2D project using watercolor resist and newspaper collage.

Class 1: students prepared a background by drawing a full moon, stars, and snowflakes on a piece of 9x12" watercolor paper with white oil pastel. We used dark colors of watercolor paint to fill in the night sky. Students were impressed that the white pastel still shows up after the paint is brushed onto the paper!

Class 2: Using a black crayon, students drew owls on a piece of newspaper (after discussing how the texture of the words reminds us of the stripes on an owl's feathers). We glued our owls to the background, then added yellow eyes, a brown branch and owl feet. We added the textures of feathers and bark to complete our work.

Next week we will glaze our freshly-fired ceramic!

1st Grade Fall Tree

Now that the season is rapidly changing from fall to winter, the first graders' lovely tree is coming down! For the past month, our tree has stood in the front entryway to the school.

Materials:
coffee filters (I used the large size)
washable markers (red, orange, yellow, brown)
black crayon or oil pastels
pre-cut leaf tracers fit to size of coffee filter
Spray bottle with water
scissors
tree branch & base (I used a big bucket filled with bags of clay scraps)

After our study of warm and cold colors, 1st graders each wrote their name on a coffee filter with a black crayon, then colored the opposite side with warm-colored washable markers. We placed newsprint beneath our work while we colored since the ink easily bleeds through the paper. Students were encouraged to fill the circle with as many shapes of color as possible, but if they missed some places, the work turns out beautifully regardless. As they finished, students held up their work to pass through the "mist machine..." otherwise known as Ms. Jabs with a spray bottle of water. Much giggling. I stacked the damp filters together on a tray and let them sit over the week to blend and dry.

The following class period, students traced a leaf shape to their paper (I don't like to use tracing for very many projects, but it can be a difficult skill for the younger students and this is a great short project to gain practice). They cut the leaf out, which was more difficult than you might expect due to the thin paper and complex outline to the leaf shape. When complete, students helped choose a spot on the branches to hang their leaves with masking tape.

Artist of the Week

Artist of the Week

5th Grade Pop Art Shoe Project

5th grade students viewed the shoe drawings of Andy Warhol, completed earlier in his career as illustrations for advertisements. We discussed how Pop Art developed as a reflection of the culture of mass production in the United States. Pop Art frequently uses repetition of images, bright colors, and everyday images as subject matter.

Students made contour drawings of their own shoes (how VERY exciting to be allowed to take off your shoes in Art class!!). We used textured stamps to create repetition in our backgrounds, painted our shoes with bright colors, and added bold outlines with permanent markers.

Artist of the Week

Artist of the Week!