Inspired by Matisse- Third and Fourth Grade Collages

Third and fourth grade artists looked at examples of collages by Henri Matisse.  

We also watched two short videos about Matisse.  The first is a collection of Matisse's collages with a song by Greg Percy.  The second is a beautiful clip of Matisse working with paper cutouts. 

Students chose themes based on the collages and began working with colorful paper scraps. 

Inspired by Van Gogh's Sunflowers-- Kindergarten Watercolor Paintings

Kindergarten artists looks and one of Vincent Van Gogh's famous sunflower paintings. They used Sharpie markers and liquid watercolor paints to make their own watercolor paintings. The colors are beautiful!

Motivation

“Artists work from big ideas, but to motivate and sustain their interest and to make their ideas worth pursuing, they find personal connections to them. Student artists also need personal connections to big ideas.”

Sidney Walker, Teaching Meaning in Artmaking, Davis Publications, 2001.

Van Gogh's Sunflowers

Students know that I love Van Gogh's Sunflower paintings.  I have a reproduction hanging in the art room and I love to bring in flowers from our school garden to paint.  Here is a series of videos about Van Gogh's famous sunflower paintings that truly brings these paintings to life. 

Self Portraits

Technology in the Art Room

“Teachers value digital media as instructional resources that empower them to engage student interest promote creativity and differentiate instruction.” 
– PBS Grunwald & Associates 2011 Survey


This year I am so excited about exploring ways to integrate technology into the art program.  We are lucky enough to have a brand new SmartBoard in the art/music room, as well as a new iPad cart.  The possibilities are endless!  I have started a page of technology resources, which I am excited to draw upon and add to!  

Blind contour drawings

Fifth and sixth grade artists learned about blind contour drawings. The biggest challenges for them were keeping their pens on the paper and not peeking at their artwork. After making several blind contour drawings with different partners, students chose one to color. They looked for closed spaces within their contour line drawings and colored the spaces with colored pencils. This is preparation for working on self portraits. I am trying to get students to draw what they see instead of what they know. Hopefully this exercise helps students draw more freely.

Art room expectations

Fifth and sixth graders chose key word or phrases from our classroom expectations to make into posters.  We used crayons, liquid watercolors and sharpies. I am excited to have these beautiful reminders decorate our art room! 

Our classroom expectations fall into four categories:

Respect yourself and others

Respect materials and surroundings

Be safe

Do your best!

Chickens!

First and Second graders read "The Chicken Chasing Queen of Lamar County," by Janice Harrington. This book has fabulous mixed media illustrations.  

Our artists started by "collecting" textures by making crayon rubbings around the classroom and the playground.  We painted over the rubbings with watercolors to observe the watercolor resist technique. Then we used these papers and other painted papers to make collage chickens on painted backgrounds. These chickens have been placed in frames around our school to welcome students back in the fall.