Studio Art: Painting Unit, Tempera

For our second painting in my Studio Art painting unit, students made their own egg-yolk tempera to do still life paintings.  I thought for sure that I would get complains about the subject matter, but they loved it!  Making their own paint really helped them to understand what a pigment, binder, and solvent is tool  We made our paint the same way I have my 6th graders do it for the cave art project.

Every day at the end of the day, i would put the paint in the refrigerator next door to make sure it didn't start smelling rancid from the eggs.

This project took us about a total of two weeks from start to finish.  Students chose an area of the still life below to draw.  It was set up in the middle of my room for the entire time...in that time period, I lost a fake banana and had two bottles break during clean up, of all times. :(

As we started the process of painting, we painted the background first, using cool colors because they recede.  Next, I had them choose a neutral color for the ground/cloth, and lastly they were encouraged to use warm colors for the bottles. 

This student did an AMAZING job, and it breaks my heart because she has such low self-esteem about it.  :(  It was a struggle to get her to do this all on her own, but she did it!  She totally has her own painting style, but I don't think she feels comfortable enough to embrace it yet.

This student has struggled all year but he did what I would consider a great job, based on his past projects!  I'm so proud of some of these guys...they really got into the painting!  This student is so psyched about our next project...I can't wait to see what he does then!

Again, I had students mat their own artworks too.  They are getting so much better at this!  It makes me proud, and them, to have their artwork framed in such a way.  I've decided that I must make it a priority to make sure I have enough mat board for a school year, at least on the high school end.  It's going to make my art show look that much more professional too. :)

What really surprised me about this project, is that the students asked why we didn't do a black and white drawing of the still life first!  Wait, what?  I figured they would get bored drawing and then painting the same thing...but now this idea is on my radar for next year!  I think they saw my projects from high school, which I have hanging above my computer, and liked the idea.

Our current and last project of the painting unit is the cubist superhero paintings in acrylic.  We have just started those so expect a post about them in a week or two. :)

Oil Pastel Jungle Animals

I LOVE this project!  It's definitely a staple in my room now for 5th graders to do this project.  Their classroom teachers love it (because they draw the animal they research for class) and the students love it because they tend to be so successful with the oil pastels!  I even had one of the teachers ask me if she could have a box or two of oil pastels for the students to draw with in their spare time in their classroom! :)

We did this project last year, and it didn't really change at all.  I printed off a picture of each student's animal for them to use as a resource to draw from.  I demonstrated how to blend oil pastels together and how to create different textures, such as rock, leaf, water, and fur.  We also talk about using complementary colors to create value, not just black and white.

Here are some of this year's results!  LOVE LOVE LOVE!

There were so many students who normally turn in rushed, sloppy artwork that did amazing!  I have to admit, I'm one of those bloggers who tends to only upload and share the good work...and this time around, there are student's artwork posted that often never get considered!

YAM Spirit Week: Tuesday and Wednesday

To continue my spirit week photos, Tuesday was secondary color day...

I had to buy green pants just to pull off this dress-up day!  

And today was complementary colors day.  The students did pretty well picking out outfits for today!  

I wore a yellow shirt with a purple sweater....and these awesome shoes that have complementary colors on them!  Blue and orange!

Tonight was also parent-teacher conferences.  We had early dismissal at 11:30 for teachers and students, and then teachers had to be at school from 3:30-7:30.  While I didn't have any specific conferences, I invited the random students who were wandering the hallways to paint on our bottle cap mural.  On a high note, what few parents I did talk to told me that they were loving the dress up days and their kids were having fun with them!

Progress: 5th Grade Checkerboards...The End is in Sight!

Today, Class A finally started finishing up their checkerboards!  A few were able to actually play a few games with a partner.  I'm a little disappointed in the details of their checker pieces.  Quite a few students sculpted these awesome pieces, but then painted them only one color....no other details added.  I had to push and encourage them to paint more.  Pictures to come next week once everyone is finished and I start grading them.

Here is the worksheet students had to fill out before and at the end of the project: Front page was the design process and the back of the page was the rubric and a short quiz to test them on what they've learned so far.

As the students start to finish these up, I've made some mental notes about how I need to change this project next year.

1. I like having them make the slab checkerboards, however next year, I will fire them and then have the students glaze them instead of underglazing them before firing.  In actuality, they didn't break too badly, but I think less of them would have broke if we would have done it the other way around.

2. They will make their checker pieces using Crayola Model Magic instead of clay.  The class that made the Model Magic pieces did so a little quicker than the other class.  Plus, I feel like we wasted clay because it started to dry out in the chunks they were given as they sculpted their pieces.

3. I completely forgot to take into consideration the actual game of checkers.  When a pieces gets to the other side, it turns into a king and it usually is flipped over.  The students began realizing this as they were playing today, and were able to work around this by turning their pieces over or stacking a second piece on top.  However, some students can't do that because of the nature of their shapes.  Next year, they will either have to make a piece that can be flipped, or put some sort of marking on the piece to decipher what direction the piece is headed in.

4. Next year, I will have an example already made to show them.  I've realized that I've gotten quite lazy when it comes to making the projects before I do them with the students.  In my first year, I think I made each project before hand to test it.  I think it will help them be a little more creative if I sculpt some interesting checker pieces. 

5th Grade: Color Wheels and Clay Checkerboards!

My 5th graders have FINALLY finished their color wheels!  Amen to that!  This project took forever...and I'm not entirely happy with the results...I am at least happy that about 80% of the kids know their primary, secondary, tertiary and complementary colors.  Craftsmanship was not at its highest for this project...

This color wheel was probably the best quality one that was made.  I wasn't too thrilled with the creativity of it...as there were a few other jerseys that were made, but his craftsmanship was great!

I really liked this one...This was a lot of work for her to cut out all the little toes!

This one was supposed to be art smocks...

This one would have been awesome if the student had been a little more careful with paint!

Robots...another original design...I just wish he had used the complementary colors to add a face instead of random dots!

Eyes...

Another good craftsmanship piece...just not very creative!

This one was made by a perfectionist...it took him two extra days because everything always has to be perfect!  I had to eventually cut him off and make him move on, so he didn't do the outlining with Sharpie marker.

Loved this one...game controller!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that we're moving on, I decided to go with a clay project.  It's always a risk doing clay with this group because there are so many kids in one class and they are always bonkers, especially when we do something fun like clay!

Today I did a quick demonstration to remind them how to roll out slabs (they've done it before).  I handed out 8" square tracers so they could cut out the checkerboard square.  I also showed them how to carefully put a mark on the clay at every inch around the edge, and use the ruler to put the grid lines in.

All in all, it went pretty well.  Some have extra checkerboard spots, but I can't baby them and remind them to check, especially when it was written on the board!

The only negative thing that happened was that a student decided to take some clay from the classroom (and of course, I decided to spare them the threat I usually give about not taking clay from the classroom...or else you sit out for clay projects). His teacher saw him with during after school and made him apologize to me.  To top it all off...he didn't even want to give me the piece of clay back! *eye roll*  Now I need to decide...do I make him sit out of the rest of the clay project...oooooh!  Or should I make him give a little presentation to his class about not taking clay out of the art room!?  Hmmmm, I think I like that idea better...