After School Art Club Watercolor Paintings and Some Reflection

My current after school group consists of six 3rd and 4th graders. They are a pleasure to work with. We created these flower watercolor paintings in the style of Georgia O'Keefe.

 Monday morning, with no school! We have a "snow" day today. Trying to decide what I will accomplish on this extra day. Will be cooking for the week with my son this afternoon; making chicken marsala, beef stir fry, portobello mushrooms with peppers and onions and some type of red sauce for pasta.

 Spent some time with a friend last night and received some good advice on my life situation. I need to take care of myself which exercise is going to become a top priority and look for and enjoy the positive things each day.

I've been so down and need to re-focus. So, while I do some clean-up and cooking today I am going to find 3 things to enjoy!

I think I know one of the things I will enjoy - the outdoors! Going to check on my garden and maybe find some time to clean out one of the beds.

4th Grade Birds

The last of the birds. 4th graders could choose any bird that I had a photo of.  We practiced the bird in our sketchbooks and then created a final drawing on drawing paper using colored pencils for color.

Winter Birch Trees

I've done this project before with my 4th graders and just love it.  Got this idea from:  www.artprojectsforkids.org/search/label/winter Use liquid watercolors and kosher salt for the background, tagboard for trees marked with pencil and glitter.

Paint Splatter Abstract Art

4th graders have been looking at abstract art.  They used liquid watercolors with droppers to create their paint splatters.  In the next class they used a fine tip permanent marker and outlined the paint paying attention to where there where color changes.  I love the colors that were created and how the marker makes this stand out.

Elementary Christmas Bulletin Boards

3rd Grade

This project is from deepspacesparkle.  

Love this and the kids really enjoyed the sponge painting.  

4th Grade

Students said this was their favorite art project ever.  Who wouldn't love to throw, spray, drip and sprinkle paint randomly?  We checked out Jackson Pollock and his action paintings.  I used this audio from MOMA to introduce Jackson Pollock.

Drawing, 4th Grade

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We had our whole family together which the last time was 1 1/2 years ago.  It was nice to have my three brothers together.  

I took pics but they didn't turn out very well.  So, any advice on a camera?  No more than $300-.  I want one that doesn't have such a delay and has better focus.  The camera I have takes great stills but everything else, bleck.

4th graders were so excited when they saw one of the tables set up for a still life.  I usually only do this with middle schoolers, but now I know better.  They were happy to draw the entire class time!  I also turned out the overhead lights and put a spot light on half way through.  "Oooh, shadows!" one of them said.  Love when I can get them to actually observe something.

Van Gogh Inspired Still Life, 4th grade

Students looked at Van Gogh's Sunflowers.  We talked about what was included in his paintings:  background, table top, flowers, vase.  Students created their own still life including those items.  We used watercolors for the background and table top and tempera paints for the flowers.  Next time I would like to add some modeling paste to the temperas to create texture.

Gustav Klimt, 4th Grade

4th graders looked at the Tree of Life from Gustav Klimt.  We talked about his use of gold and all the ornamentation.  For their projects they first drew the trees and outlined them with markers.  They drew ornaments with metallic colored pencils and used a wet paintbrush  to blur the marker lines.  They added gold watercolor paint and the last touch, dots of glitter.  

Piet Mondrian, cont.

These projects are from my 4th graders.  We talked about this painting of Piet Mondrian's, Red Tree.  Students were instructed to draw a tree, any style and than choose complementary colors.  One for the background and one for the tree.

Radial Designs

This will be my last school post.  School is officially over, though I still have some grades to do, two rooms to clean up and a class I am taking starting next week.  These photos are from my 4th grade class.  They learned about radial designs and used knowledge from a previous lesson on blending to create their artwork.  For an extension of this lesson we went outside and created radial designs in groups using chalk.  Messy, fun and great review.

These photos are from 4th and 5th grade art. The 4th graders created these birch trees with watercolors from tubes. This was their first time using paint from a tube and they saw how much color such a small amount of paint can create. This idea comes from www.artprojectsforkids.org/search/label/winter. Kathy Bar bro has a great sight with lots of lesson plans.

The 2nd project is from my 5th graders. This is my sample. They create "stained glass" with tissue paper, mod podge, a sharpie, and duralar. Students have been learning about architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright. The windows imitate how FLW changed organic items into simple geometric shapes in his stained glass.