Radial Symmetry

A fellow art teacher in the district showed me this awesome project! I love that it looks really complicated but really isn't. I think many grades could handle this, but I stuck with 5th grade because I felt like they deserved a relaxing project to ease them back into the swing of things after winter break. We discussed a few concepts such as radial symmetry and folding techniques, but more than anything, I just told them that I wanted them to experiment and see what they could come up with. 

Below are the steps of the most basic design. I pre-cut hundreds and hundreds of 2" x 2" construction paper squares. They were able to choose their own color scheme, but we all worked on a black 9" x 9" square for the background. First step was the fold the square in half.

Next, you fold the corners in from the "open" edges. 

It should look similar to a paper football when it's done.

The other technique involved a cone shape. Some students took on that one, but it required more drying time where you have to squeeze it together in place. We drew an "x" and "t" on the black background paper with a ruler then glued these inside of each other on the lines. 

Again, really simple, but it kept them focused on making their squares uniform, keeping the pattern in tact. 

Everyone gawked at these in the hall, and the kids seemed really proud of their work. I'm brainstorming ways to make the project more complex, but these took them nearly three weeks as it was, and some were still not able to finish on time. There was an entire movement in art that was founded on "less is more," so why fix something that is already awesome? One thing we could try is making them into a value scale that began with the shades in the middle and "bursted" into tints as they radiated out. That is what I love about art projects- there will always be endless possibilities keeping things new and refreshed every year. 

Christmas time

I decided to just make a compilation of all of the different Christmas projects that went on during the month of December across multiple grades. 

To start, Kindergarten made these lovely trees! I read them a Christmas book, then asked them to think of a shape that looks like it would fit inside a tree. They came up with a triangle, so they drew a triangle on their red paper. Then I laid out a bunch of skinny strips of paper (about 1/2 inch). I asked them to cut them so that they gradually get larger to fill their triangle. After they were done, they got some gray paper to make into presents under the tree. 

The next week, we read a book about Santa's elves, so they made elf feet. I showed them how to draw the skirt and booties, but I ended up drawing most of the booties for them... I think they will be getting a template next year... It was so cute to see them connect the booties to the skirts with the legs in stockings. They all looked like noodle legs. They seemed confused why we would only draw the elves' bottom halves. I told them it was an artistic approach. 

First grade watched a digital version of the Dr Seuss book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." That took quite a while, so the next day, they watched the music video to "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." They seemed to like that even better! I let them go to town making Whoville with topsy-turvy architectural features. Afterwards, I walked through drawing the Grinch on green construction paper. They turned out really well! I told them to not worry if their grinch wasn't very pretty, because he is just an ugly dude.

Another week with first grade, we read a book about the reindeer, so we drew this cute reindeer/moose with ornaments adorning his antlers. They used markers for the contour and filled him in with various shades of brown crayons. 

I found the cutest book online and ordered it from the public library. It was called "The Snow Globe Family," and it was about a family that lived inside a snow globe. Realistic? No. But what a fun idea! So the kids drew their own snow globes and cut out a tree and a gingerbread house to go inside. The second day, they drizzled some white paint and topped it with glitter. Kids love glitter! They left looking like little fairies. Some classes had the time to use hole punches to add lights to the gingerbread houses and other scrap paper to make snowmen and stars on their trees, etc. 

Unfortunately, third and fourth grade were busy with nesting dolls and weaving, so they didn't have a Christmas project. Fifth grade, however, had a little extra time to make these candy canes. They used Crayola color sticks. This was a very simple drawing, but what made them look so great is their use of highlights and shadows. I showed them how to blend white into the center to make that highlight that runs down the middle. They also did some highlights on the light bulbs. Some had the time to work in shadows, as well. 

Stamp Designs

While rummaging through the drawers and cabinets of my new classroom back in August, I ran across several packages of these stamp-cut papers. I talked with the fifth grade teachers about something they were studying, so i could have their stamps relate. In science, they were studying animals- so it really doesn't get much easier than that! I had them all write down the animal of their choice, and my helpers and I went through all my how-to drawing books for each animal and made some photocopies for them to reference. 

I had them practice their animal several times in their artist's notebook so they could carefully plan out their design without wasting all the stamp paper. I encouraged them to add words with stencils and a cent value. They all wanted to color them, but I feared they would rush through it and take away from the fact that they produced some high-quality fifth grade drawings. 

We discussed value in a few previous projects, so I showed them how they could incorporate some value with ink. After pencil, they outlined everything in sharpies of various sizes. The shark below was a good example of value. I showed her how to gradually space out her pen strokes as she moved down the shark to transition from black to white. 

This turtle below, was my absolute favorite (if I'm allowed to have favorites). I wish he would have explored some texture or value more, but his contour drawing was so cute! Other turtles had generic grid-patterned shells, whereas he took the time give each piece of the shell attention. 

It's so hard not having the space or time to hang every single piece! They were all so cute, and they all worked so hard on them! It's amazing how much interest rises when they get to make a choice about what they draw. 

Nevelson Assemblages

I made the mistake of asking my ridiculously supportive staff and families to start saving some of their toilet paper and paper towel rolls. My family alone probably saved over one hundred over the summer, so by the time we actually got around to using them, hundreds and hundreds were piled up in my classroom. I cannot imagine working in a school that didn't jump on board with excitement over every project and idea. 

                             

I saw an assortment of projects that made great use of these recycled items, but settled on one that would use up the most rolls because of the large amount I received. I showed fifth grade a short slideshow about the artist Louise Nevelson. The Nelson in Kansas City hosts a huge Nevelson that takes up an entire wall. She is famous for digging for recycled items in furniture warehouses. She assembled these parts and pieces into three-dimensional collages (assemblages) and spray painted them all one color, usually black or gold. I told the kids we were going to breathe some new life into toilet paper rolls. I got a few laughs. Not many, but some. 

                       

The assemblage above is my example that I created to give them a vision of the assignment. To begin, I gave them each their own grocery sack and they wrote their name on it. Storing this project was the biggest challenge. Then they were able to select 4 rolls and a color of paint. I literally just swung open the cabinets of paint and let them choose. I wanted them all to look very different and didn't want to limit them. (This also gave me huge brownie points with them because I kept hearing "WOW! Mrs. Byrd lets us get our own paint and choose our own color!" I found this funny because I was really just making them be responsible for their own stuff. I do plenty of choosing the rest of the day, so it's nice to shut that off for a bit.)

It took them two class periods to paint their tubes with several coats. Some color were more opaque than others and seemed to work a lot better. I had some metallic paint that looked awesome. I think if I did this again, I would order more metallic paint and make them all use it. They stored their tubes on top of their bags after they got done painting each day, then I slipped them in the bags the next morning and threw them in a class tub. A little bit of work on my part, but they really love hands-on projects like this, so to me, it was worth it. 

                      

The third and final day of the project, they glued all their pieces together, and I threw in some extras like "Woodsies" (Popsicle stick shapes) and pipe cleaners. I reminded them about the name sculptures they made at the beginning of the year and how we tried to make an interesting composition where the parts and pieces interacted. Elmer's glue did the trick as long as they were patient enough to let it dry as they went. They glued the pieces to thick card stock I found in the closet. I wish the had time to paint the background the same color, but that also presented the issue of the wet side curling under as it dried. 

                    

I loved how creatively they used scissors to manipulate the tubes. One girl fringed the ends of all of her tubes. Another cut it open like the twisted tube of canned cinnamon rolls. I hung a few on the wall, but only on the top half of the bulletin board. I figured any lower would be too risky with all the curious little hands that wait in line for the restroom by this board. 

                   

Here are some up-close shots of some of the finished products. I love when kids end up giving me ideas for ways to make projects more creative. I never even thought to use the scissors so creatively. This seems to happen to me even more so with the younger kids. Their creativity has no bounds. It's amazing!

                      

                              

                                      

Candyland

We recently held our annual carnival at my school. The theme for this year was "Candyland." I'm questioning how much influence this theme actually has, because other than these projects, I really didn't see much of this theme anywhere. It just looked like any other carnival. Regardless, the classroom teachers were asked to decorate their bulletin boards outside of their classrooms with student work that reflected the theme.

I really feel for classroom teachers with the arrival of Common Core. They have absolutely zero free time for fun things like crafts anymore. So, I volunteered to accomplish this task during art class with the kids. It's really not as generous as it sounds. I have to be doing art with them anyway, and it's not hard to tie candy into things I would have already had them do anyway. For example, fifth grade was working on still life. Cupcakes are just as good of subjects as plastic fruit and turn out much cuter. 

                    

I omitted the work of kindergarten and first grade because it was unrecognizable... Kindergarten drew peppermints. About 2 or 3 of each class looked like peppermints. The rest were a mess, and I had to just be okay with that. First grade drew a Candyland landscape. I actually thought they were pretty cute, I just didn't catch them in time to photograph. The above picture is the second grade project. I was able to tie in the color wheel and they figured out patterns (each color has five spaces in between itself). 

                    

Third grade has been working with tints and shades, so I had them make these ice cream cones. The selected two colors of construction paper for each scoop. One a shade and one a tint. They struggled a lot. Not with the choosing of the tints and shades, but with the concept of layering them together with a perfect fit. Something strange happens with third graders. I think this must be the stage of development where kids become aware that they are not good at everything. My second graders have all the confidence in the world (though, some is misplaced), but third graders are very afraid of making mistakes. They constantly ask me if what they have done is good or acceptable. It starts to drive me crazy having to reassure them all of the time, but I'm trying to remember they just want to do it right. 

             

I loved the fourth grade project! I found a collage of candy boxes and wrappers that only showed a snippet of the label. The kids were asked to draw exactly what they SAW, not what they KNOW. I told them it was going to be tempting to write the whole "k-i-t k-a-t" but to hold back think about where it actually began and ended in terms of the square. This was very difficult for some of them, and I made them start over several times when they were being stubborn about going around the assignment. Some of them absolutely knocked it out of the park, though. That box of Dots above looked almost exactly like the one on the collage. I will definitely use this assignment again, regardless of whether or not it has to do with a carnival theme. I've thought about having the kids bring the product of their choice and try to copy the label exactly. I know copying isn't necessarily art, but it is a crucial drawing skill to see relationships in sizes and shapes and to be able to reproduce what you see. 

             

Lastly, fifth grade was studying still life. I order Scholastic Art magazines for my class. They are designed for 4th-8th graders. We had a great time looking through them and reading them out loud together. That month's issue focused on still life, so we talked about things like overlapping, geometric forms, foreground and background, etc. I scratched the pumpkin still life idea and just went ahead and did cupcakes. There are some great how-to videos on YouTube about cupcakes, and I copied a bunch of reference handouts I made for them, as well. The icing was the hardest part, but once they got it, they couldn't stop drawing them. The fifth grade teachers asked me why their kids were drawing cupcakes all over their math assignments and writer's notebooks. That makes me feel good to know that they are learning to draw things that they like and that they can keep in their "toolbox" of things they know how to draw. I was always a sucker for drawing my hands once I had a success with it in middle school. Hopefully they will have plenty of successes to come!

              

Color Wheel Eyes

Twelve-step color wheels are a part of the fifth grade curriculum, but how boring is a circle? I plan to do portraits with them later in the year, so I went ahead and started introducing realistic facial features. I showed them a YouTube video of a super-realistic drawing. It was a fast-forwarded version with captions. It blew their minds to say the least. They were adamant that they could never draw something like that, but I think they surprised themselves! 

We started out by talking about the different parts of an eye and all the wrong ways to draw it. I'm slowly trying to remove all the cartoony symbols we pick up early on. I emphasized over and over that eyelashes do not shoot straight out of eyeballs like arrows, and eyes are not shaped like perfect footballs. 

                 

Inside the iris of the eye is where we created our color wheel. Our fifth graders are in the midst of fractions in math, so I tried to be math-minded when teaching them how to divide their circle into twelfths. I had them outline everything in black colored pencil, then we tackled the coloring. I reviewed primary and secondary colors, then introduced tertiary colors. 

I told them several times that I better not see violet and orange next to each other (still saw it...) or red and green... I suggested they start with yellow, skip 3 spaces, blue, skip 3 spaces, red. Then, fill in the secondary colors between each primary. Lastly, layer each primary and its neighboring secondary. It seems pretty straight-forward to copy the color wheel we have on our wall, but you would be surprised. One of the biggest challenges I've uncovered with elementary schoolers is getting them to follow specific directions. I usually make it a point to get all of their eyes and repeat things one more time than I think is necessary. Then I ask several of them to repeat the directions back to me. Sometimes it's overkill, but most of the time it's completely necessary! 

          

                  

I was so impressed with our results, though! I encouraged them to shade each slice of their iris to add a cool effect. Hopefully this will be a good stepping stone for when we draw an entire face. 

Synectic Design Game

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Above is a photo of one of my favorite projects I completed during my years at Park University. The goal of the "game" was to generate original designs from base shapes. I chose to cross organic shapes with geometric shapes. I explained to my students that it worked kind of like a multiplication table. Overlapping, implying, hybrid-ing- all allowed! The kids were completely overwhelmed when I showed them mine, so I had to reassure them that theirs would be much less complex. So we started out by developing the game board below. I had to make a lot of adjustments based on the paper sizes. You really just need a 3x3 grid. I chose to walk through the whole process using the document camera. Older students could probably handle simple instructions on their own. (You would be surprised, though, at how poorly  some 5th graders operate a ruler.)

We discussed the first two elements: line and shape before beginning this whole process. So, in the box in the upper left hand corner, I had them split it with the words GEOMETRIC  and ORGANIC. We used boxy, staight-lined letters for geometric and bubbly, curvy letters for organic. Then, they were to develop two organic shapes for the top horizontal rows and two geometric shapes for the left hand column. From there, they generated four new designs that were the product of those original shapes crossing paths. They were encouraged to use scrap paper and the light box/window to layer tracings of their originals. 

This is one of those that I am not entirely sure I would do again. I couldn't believe how much some kids struggled. They were mostly confused about what went where or how to creatively combine them. Sometimes they came up with really cool designs but I had to ask where they got them from because they definitely didn't follow my procedures. A handful from each class REALLY got it! Maybe with more time to experiment, they would have emraced the tracing and overlapping techniques, but that's what is hard about elementary specials classes- you don't see them enough to spend more than 2 or 3 periods on a project. My take away for this is that they learned how to make straight-lined grids with a ruler. They can never get enough practice using those tools! I would highly reccomend this project to anyone that teaches high school!  

Name sculptures

As the sole art teacher at my elementary school, I see nearly 600 kids every week in and out of my art room. I have many of their names down when they are in their seat in my art room, but otherwise, I've got a long ways to go! Since I only have my 5th graders for this year, I wanted to get their names down ASAP! So we started out with a project that would let me see their names for 2 solid weeks!

I had them start by writing their names in bubble letters on thick white paper. I suggested making them about the size of the bottom of their palm to their first set of knuckles. I their names were short, they added their last initial or did a nickname instead. For kids that struggled with bubble letters, I had them lightly draw the letter in pencil, trace around the inside, and the outside, then erase the original letter. I reminded them to make sure the letters were thick enough to cut out.

After their bubbles were laid out, I gave them handouts with all kinds of examples of zentangle designs. I just googled zentangles and found plenty of sample patterns for handouts. Each bubble letters was to be filled with zentangles or some sort of design/pattern. They had the option of going over pencil with black marker, or they could use color. Most of them chose lots of bright colors. All of this took the whole first class period.

The second week I had them, we finished up coloring/designing, then cut out all the letters. They got to choose a small square of construction paper (about 4x4). I demonstrated for them several different ways of constructing their sculpture.  I had the most success with making "tabs" with the letters by folding them under then gluing those tabs to the 4x4 construction paper. I reminded them that these would be viewed on the wall from a bird's eye view, so it was important to interlock and interweave letters when possible to create an interesting viewpoint. To fit and stabilize some larger letters, we created an arch and connected the letter with tabs on top and bottom.

I was so pleased with their designs and problem solving. Some kids went about the process a completely different way and got some awesome results!