4th Grade Positive Negative painting

Fourth grade is working on positive and negative space.  I like to relate positive space with addition (+) and negative space with subtraction. (-) Relating art to other subjects, like math, keeps students engaged and helps connect the dots on a new topic like positive/negative space.

Week 1:  Students practice both positive and negative space on one paper.

Week 2: After students have practice with Positive and Negative space, students sketch out a negative space animal, person, or place, they trace this object with a crayon to create a wax resist.  I always like to trace drawing with crayon when working with watercolor so the colors don't mix into the white space. The students use black watercolor to create the negative space of the object and will finish them off with colored watercolors next week.

Loon

Owl

Tree

Bunny and Cat

House with both positive and negative space

Tap shoes

3rd Grade Kandinsky abstract circles

Students started last week by learning about Kandinsky and how much of his work was influenced by music. Students folded a sheet of paper and created different abstract circles, much like the work of Kandinsky.  Each box had to have a different amount of colors and circles with different backgrounds.

This week we are starting our two week (2, 1 hour classes) project of having students cutting and gluing background, circles, organic and geometric shapes onto their paper.

This week in art

Fourth graders are jumping right into Positive and Negative space this week, showing both a positive space image and negative space image.

Think about positive space like addition, you are adding color to the space (Positive space = +)
in the picture on the left, the ram is in the positive space, in the picture on the right, the ram shape is created using negative space around the ram.

In the picture below, some people see two faces, some see a vase in the middle.  This optical illusion is created using the negative space in between the two faces.

Third Graders are learning about Kandinsky and how he uses circles in many of his artworks.  We discuss the use of a variety of colors and shapes within his work.

Fifth grade is beginning the annual Youth Art Month Flag contest, designing a state flag to represent Minnesota.  This is a fun project because it is an opportunity to talk about art in Minnesota, one of the more notable sculptures that represents art in Minnesota, is the spoonbridge and cherry sculpture in the Walker Sculpture garden in Minneapolis, MN.

Here are a few winners from the past 5 years