June 2018 – Art with Mrs Filmore

2nd Grade “Thinking of Summer Self-Portraits” and 1st Grade “Dream Houses”

June 28, 2018 No Comments

2ND GRADE- “THINKING OF SUMMER” SELF-PORTRAITS!

Every year, near the end of the school year, I’ve had my students do this quick, fun lesson!

We draw just a portion of our heads large along the bottom of a 12×18″ 80# sheet of drawing paper. I demonstrate on how to draw a “rainbow line” along the bottom and then add eyes and eyebrows.

We talk about different facial expressions and how our eyebrows go up when we get excited!

We went around the room and shared a variety of ideas! They then drew images on what things they wanted to do over summer break within a large thought bubble. They could incorporate words too, but I told them to focus more on drawing than writing.

I demonstrated on how to draw a few ideas (one being a pair of sunglasses that looked three-dimensional, which kids loved drawing and did a fantastic job!)

Once complete in pencil, they outline all lines with a black sharpie then colored and painted!

One year I had students create a cut out version of themselves. After drawing, they cut out the entire head and neck and then cut the top portion of their heads off and glued it onto separate 12×18″ paper hinged open with the thoughts/images coming out.

AND NOW FOR SOME CUTE PICS OF KIDS CREATING THEIR ART! ….

I LOVED her t-shirt so much I had to take a pic!

1ST GRADE- “DREAM HOUSES”

On the first day of this lesson, I read the book “The Big Orange Splot” by Daniel Pinkwater.

I LOVE this book!! If you haven’t read it to your child, or students you should!

It’s about a man, Mr. Plumbean, who paints his house to “look like all his dreams”. In the beginning of the story, a big orange splot of paint falls on his house. Instead of getting rid of it, he adds to the splot, and paints his home with a ton of bright, vivid colors, and pictures of fun, random things. His neighbors get upset at him and want all the houses to look the same. Neighbors one by one, try to have a talk with him to change it back, but…. instead… each neighbor gets inspired, and ends up changing all their houses to look like their own dreams!

After reading the story, we discussed how it’s important to be yourself and to not be afraid to stand out. I showed students examples of previous 1st graders dream home drawings, as well as a few of my own, then kids got started!

I had no rules for this art lesson except to add a pattern somewhere within their work! Kids could draw whatever kind of house they wanted! It didn’t have to be rectangular or square like most houses—it could be any shape! It could be a slice of cake, a puppy, a cookie, a robot, a spaceship, a boat, a unicorn, slides coming from the roof to a pool in the yard….you get the idea!

I just wish I took more photos of their artwork….It was on their last art class that they finished them up and time just escaped me!!

Below these kids pics, I posted some other dream houses created by my 1st graders from last year to make up for that!

LOVE THIS STUDENTS T-SHIRT!!! AND FUN MULTI-COLORED HAIR!

SOME PICS FROM LAST YEAR….

THANKS FOR STOPPING BY!!

TUNE IN SOON FOR 5TH GRADERS SUPER AWESOME GRID DRAWINGS!!!! ……

Uncategorized

SNAILS, FLOWERS AND BUTTERFLIES OH MY!

June 27, 2018 No Comments

In the last few art classes, before summer break, my special ed students made these lovely creations!

These snails were a cinch to make! We used model magic air dry modeling clay, liquid tempera paint, pipe cleaners, and large googley eyes!

It was a 2 day process since the clay needs more than 24 hours to dry before painting.

I demonstrated how to roll out the clay like a snake, then rolled one end on top of itself to create a large spiral for the shell.

We rolled out another “snake” for the body with another piece. We then curled up one end of the body creating a hook shape for the head, and wrapped it around a pipe cleaner that was made into two spirals on either end for the eyes. Students watched me demonstrate first and then we did it together as I demonstrated again.

The snail shell (large spiral) was then attached, by just pressing onto the body.

I love model magic since it’s so soft to work with AND STICKY! which adheres instantly to itself. Great for so many art lessons! —-A little pricey to to buy in large quantities if you ask me, but when you need small amounts per student or for small classes like this, it’s perfect!

I let them dry on tinfoil sheets on a paper plate, until the following class when they painted them. Kids could pick whatever colors they wanted. For a final touch, I hot glued the eyes on after they painted them!

These flowers came from Pinterest. I’ve seen many varieties on this easy paper strip flower and thought we’d give it a try! All it took was pre-cut strips of paper, punched out construction paper circles for the centers, and glue sticks. I thought it was a great lesson to strengthen students fine motor skills. They did a fantastic job! I wish I had more photos of kids art and of kids working on them- but at least there’s 1!

These butterfly beauties were all created with just cut up tissue paper and watered down white school glue!

I did a similar lesson with students using this method on fall pumpkins (these can be viewed here (then scroll down to see them) which I LOVE. I just love how the colors all bleed into one another. The centers were done with just smaller strips of black tissue.

Students each received a 9×12″ 80# sheet of drawing paper with a pre-drawn butterfly in black sharpie.

They used pre-cut warm colors and did the gluing themselves, overlapping colors as they glued.

On a separate sheet of 9×12″ they used pre-cut cool colors (just various blues really) to glue on the entire paper for the sky background while overlapping shades of blue.

It was okay to go beyond the black outline since they would be cut out later. Same with the blue background– they could go beyond the papers edges, since the edges would be trimmed off later as well.

*** …I DID cut out the butterfly for students and attached to the blue background to save a step (and save time!) for one special ed class, but for my other special education classes in my other school, we had more time, so students cut them out and glued them themselves. However…. I completely forgot to take photos of them before they snatched them up and took them home!!

For our FINAL art class before the break- they created a quick construction paper ice cream cone!

I had pre-drawn ice cream scoops on various colored papers as well as pre-drawn cones that kids cut out themselves, and assembled together. They added sprinkles and texture for the cones with crayons.

They also decorated their own cute white cotton baseball caps! I got these at Michaels art supply store. They used fabric markers for decorating whatever they wanted!

Thanks so much for visiting today! 🙂

Be sure to check back sometime tomorrow to see 1st-2nd grade final art lessons of the year as well as 5th graders AH–MAAA-ZING Grid drawings!!

HAPPY SUMMER EVERYBODY !!!! Especially to you art teacher friends out there!!! Woo-Hoo!!!

Uncategorized

ANIMAL DRAWINGS – 4TH GRADE

June 23, 2018 No Comments

I had JUUuuust enough time to squeeze in one more art lesson before the last day of art for 4th graders at Roosevelt—–so they created these wonderful animal drawings!! Students at Roosevelt had 4 (40 minute) art classes to work on them.

The goal for this lesson was to draw at least 1 animal within it’s natural habitat (kids could choose their own animal to draw), and draw them either in the foreground or middle ground, with objects drawn in all 3 areas- showing an understanding of the elements of art –space, and value, as well as foreground, middle ground and background.

I had a variety of “step-by-step” how to draw handouts on various animals (deer, sloths, pigs, horses, rabbits, foxes, owls, among others etc. ) for students to refer to, as well as packets of images of animals to refer to when drawing.

Students drew on 12×18″ drawing paper, and could draw on it vertically or horizontally.

I showed them my examples as well as students drawings from previous years on a powerpoint, and we reviewed foreground, middle ground and background. We discussed how objects in the foreground appear to be the largest, and are drawn large and along the bottom of the paper, things in the middle ground appear a bit smaller to show they are further away, and are drawn smaller and near the middle of the paper, and things in the background are the smallest to show they are the furthest away and are drawn smallest near the top of the paper—which creates the illusion of space!

After students finished drawing, they began coloring in everything with colored pencils.

Before coloring though, I went over the element of art VALUE and we talked about how when we see things in real life, objects that are CLOSEST to us, tend to look darker and have more detail and contrast than objects that are further away. Particularly things that are very far away. Those objects tend to look lighter in value, have very little detail, and appear blurry.

The goal for coloring their drawings was to color in the foreground with darker values, and show detail and texture, and students colored in the middle ground and background the colors should be lighter in value.

I showed them photos of animals in their habitat that depicted this to help them understand better, then we reviewed how we could change the value within artwork using colored pencils. In a previous lesson on Victorian Architecture (these can be viewed under “4th grade art lessons” under the drop down menu) students learned about “value” and created a monochromatic house with colored pencils. We reviewed how to change the value by simply pressing hard while coloring the color would appear darker in value. By pressing with a lighter touch while coloring- the color would be lighter in value. Another way to change the value is to select a variety of shades of one color (say dark forest green, a medium green, and lighter lime colored green).

Students did a great job! Take a look below!

I hope you enjoyed reading this post! Check back again very soon for 5th grade Grid drawings, 2nd grade “thinking of summer” drawings, and 1st grade “dream houses”!! Plus more!!….

Thanks for checking out my blog!

Uncategorized

KINETIC ARTWORK BY 3RD GRADE!

June 17, 2018 No Comments

This was my 3rd graders last art lesson of the year before summer break! Kinetic Piranhas (OR…. any other creature really!) In previous years I had students draw only piranhas, but decided to open the lesson up to anything the students wanted to draw! They came up with some fantastic and creative ideas!

Students learned that kinetic artwork is art that moves and depends on motion from someone or something to make it move, in order to reach it’s full effect. This could be from a bunch of rotating gears, a computer, batteries, the wind, solar power, water etc. or in our case—hands to open and close the folded paper!!

Students looked at kinetic artwork by artists Theo Jansen, Arthur Ganson, Anthony Howe, and Mark Nixon before they began their drawings. Below the photos of students artwork, is a video of Theo Jansen’s “Strandbeests” kinetic creatures– watch the video! It’s incredibly amazing!

Doesn’t the one above remind you of something from Monty Python?! Or is that just me?

Here are a couple videos on artist Theo Jansen and his AMAZING kinetic Strandbeests…..

Hope you enjoyed this post! Be sure to check back in a few days to see 1st grade “Dream Houses”, 2nd Grade “Thinking of Summer Self-portraits”, 4th Grade “Animal Drawings”, and 5th Grade “Grid Drawings”!! I will be posting these throughout the week!

If interested in checking out artwork by grade level, click on the grade level under the drop down menu!

Thanks for stopping by!