Pumpkin Heads!

Yellow + Red = Pumpkin Head! The first week of the project, the students learned how to mix yellow and red paint to make orange. Focus was on painting the whole page, holding the paint brush correctly and mixing colors. In the following weeks, the students cut out pumpkins from their orange painting and decorated using black, green, and brown paper. The class discussed the use of facial expressions to tell how someone, or some pumpkin, was feeling. 

Apple Trees

This mixed media project started with painting the blue sky "like the breeze." The students were introduced to Mr. Paintbrush and the ways that we treat art materials. After painting the sky, the students used glue water to create tree bark out of tissue bark and brown construction paper. At the next art class, they were introduced to printmaking, using sponges to create the leaves and corks to print the apples.

Matisse Madness

Using Henri Matisse as an example, students cut out a variety of shapes (some defined and others self-defined) to create a collage. The shapes were glued down to create a collage that allowed students to draw on their knowledge of colors, shapes, and fine-motor skills. Emphasis was placed on creating excitement and movement (aka PIZZAZZ); therefore, the end results have an abstract feeling. The students learned about the importance of the primary colors: Red, Yellow, and Blue.

And all that jazzzz.....

Second graders looked at Wassily Kandinsky’s compositional paintings. The classes discussed the layers that he used to create a mood. His paintings express rhythms and patterns to express energy and movement. As the students listed to Jazz, they created layers of paint, paper and glue that built into a completed work. The class discussed how the similarities between musical and visual compositions. Go ahead and listen!

Seeing Music

Inspired by the artist Wassily Kandisnsky, first and second-graders drew lines while listening to Bach. We discussed how lines can be used to “draw” different types of sound and music. After drawing to the music, the students used tissue paper and watercolors to fill in the background, allowing their lines to “sing!”