Negative space Warm/ Cool painting

Fourth Grade finished their negative space paintings by filling the negative space with their choice of warm or cool colors, students were required to use all three warm or cool colors

Warm colored bird

Cool colored fish and sky

Cool colored panda

Cool colored winter scene

Warm colored cupcake

Students enjoyed the colors and how they are bright against the black positive space and it also shows student knowledge of warm and cool colors

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

Back to school

Last year, my first full year in the art room, was a learning experience; one of the main issues I saw in every class at one point or another, art caddies.  The art caddy is a place to store all the art supplies for each individual table. Even though the caddies were supposed to look clean and the same for every class, some classes were better at cleaning and organizing than others.  Here is an example of a clean, fresh, sharpened, art caddy; all the supplies are in their place and (in theory) they will all look like this at the beginning and end of each class.

By having this example for my students at the start of the year, and assigning students to check each table; the disappearing pencils, erasers, and messy art caddy problems will vanish!

I also was sure to show how chairs are pushed in and the art caddy is in the middle of the table (below)

first and second grade

Second graders became interior designers last week, mapping out their bedrooms from an overhead perspective.  Students created a key and symbols to stand for each piece of furniture, toys, door, or window.

They also did a watercolor emulation of Vincent VanGogh's  "vase with 12 sunflowers" painting

They first drew with pencil, followed by tracing over the lines with a crayon, the crayon serves as a wax resist for the watercolor, it helps paint stay in the lines.

Finished work will have the table and background painted.

 First grade was eager to bring some spring flowers and color to our snowy community, they folded and cut out petals, stems, and leaves to make a paper flower

Finished work will have a pointillism butterfly flying over the flowers.

Busy 4th graders

Fourth Grade has been busy with a clay proposal, as well as working on American Indian artist style self portraits.

Students had to draw and write a short proposal of a 3D clay project, students chose something important to them, while having the freedom to create (almost) anything.

Max the puppy

Minecraft "Creeper"

Students in fourth grade are also in the process of creating a Frank Big Bear style self portrait.  Frank Big Bear is a Minnesotan artist from the White Earth Reservation.

He uses an interesting style using complimentary colors and a modified grid to create an interesting color scheme and portrait.

Students first draw a large face, some features may be exaggerated.  They then draw random lines over the face to make a organic grid. Every new line they run into, is a new color.  Each color should be somewhere near their complimentary color.

Finished work coming soon!