Superhero Poster

Superheros are all the rage right now. But this project I have been doing for, well since I student taught. And it is one of my favorites. It has changed over the years but still great to do.

I start this project off in a very fun and interesting way. By letting my students climb my counters. THERE IS A REASON! I teach them gesture drawing. I first demonstrate how to draw a person in a pose really quickly using scribbles. I tell them this is the one time to scribble. I have them observe how I move my arm and the direction of the scribbles themselves. So from here they practice. 

After a day of just learning how to draw people. We move onto the creation of the character. I have them write down 5 things they are good at. ANYTHING AT ALL. Burping the alphabet even. And from there they create a character built around that skill. I use the superhero idea as a way to explain you are creating a character and a story. And the examples I show them have the character as that main focus and demonstrating their skill. I let them use chrome books to look up picture references for poses or items they want to include. I use picture references so silly not to let them. Just go over copy right laws so they understand they are not coping or making a fan poster of a sports player. 

Now about mid way through their final, I did a mid-process critique. So got out post its and had them go around the room and leave notes, comments, or advice to their classmates. I think it really helped some and had them understand the process more. 

Once all done, we did large group critique. By this point my 5th are pros at it. 

All up for everyone to enjoy their final work as elementary students. 

Small Loom Pouch

WEAVING!!

If you are any elementary art teacher, weaving is something just we do. It helps with those fine motor control and understanding patterns. AND can really see who is good at concentration. 

For my 5th graders I have them do small loom weaving pouches. I try to time this well with their native Americans studies in their classroom. When I showed them pictures of different types of weaving, I include a link to the native Americans. 

There is no real special thing I do with weaving that has not been done. The students are just always so proud of what they made out of just some yarn and cardboard. 

Emotion Masks

When it comes to fifth grade, they are little balls of emotion. What better then a project having them explore those emotions that isn't a self-portrait?

So simple we start with creating a base layer of newspaper. This does two things, gets the students use to the paper mache' goop again and how to use it. And two creates, well, a base for the white paper building. 

From here the REAL fun beginnings. 

I provide examples (as you can see) of the four main emotions they will be exploring. Each student is randomly assigned an emotion. I do random because otherwise I would end up with 25 happy and 5 angry. The four emotions I have them use are happy, scared, angry, and sad. We discuss these emotions and how ones face looks. The examples have exaggerated looking emotions which they need to create in their mask. And to add to it, I have them create a boarder to their mask reflects the emotion as well. This is probably the harder part due to attaching it but I feel it really pushes those problem solving. (Sorry I don't have many pictures of the building process due to goop and not having my camera on me due to goop.)

Once all dry, students begin painting BUT they must get approval of a design from me and explain their design choices. As I tell them, "Angry is not just red! Think deeper! Think of when you feel this and what comes to mind." 

The result were amazing!

5th Grade Artist Inspired Self Portraits

For this lesson, I have students look at the artwork of more modern, even still working artists. The goal being they notice the style and recreate elements of it in their own self-portraits. This is the project I decided to do some flipping to it. 

I used four artists this year, Kehinde Wiley, Roy Lichtenstein, Elizabeth Peyton, and Tamara Madden. 

Before I even get to the artists, I have them sketch and practice drawing their self portraits and use proportions to guide them to get more realistic in there design. I even take pictures of them so they can draw on it to figure out their lines. 

Once some practices are created, unlike previous years, I introduced the artists quickly and guided them through online resources I provided. 

I am lucky to be at a school that has chrome books. Now, sadly my students could not access youtube so my technology interrogator and I came up with a plan. 

We used screencast-matic. This program that allows you to record the actions on your screen and record voice. It was very easy to use and I HIGHLY recommend for it is not that expenses either. So I made demo videos of how to use the artists style in their own artwork and posted it through this program.  This provided provides a website I could send my students too and they could decide for themselves and best of all SAVE TIME! Before this project took two extra weeks because they got confused due to me presenting all artists and not sure who was what. They could use the chrome books to re-watch steps.

I personal feel they learned better and made a strong connection AND turned out better too. 

                                    

Day of the Dead skulls

It is that time of year again! I don't do many holiday projects but the ones I do are more culture based and Dia de los Muertos or as known as Day of the Dead. 

I do little clay skulls with two grades, 3rd and 5th. My 3rd graders do little flat pendents and my 5th do more pinch pot skulls. 

3rd Grade Skull Pendents

The process of how they make the pendents is fairly easy. They start with creating a ball with the clay. Next they smoosh it flat, not too flat mind you, to get the skull shape. 

To make the jaw line, I have them pinch about at 3rd of the away down on the circle. This is where how thin or thick it is plays because if nice and thick, they can lift it up to pinch. 

Next, I have them use pointer and middle finger to poke out the eyes and pinky to poke the nose. I really focus on using their hands. 

THEN they can add details like the mouth or other design qualities with a stylist stick I call, a pokey stick. 

LAST we make a hole near the top for the pendent action to take place. 

In past years, I have let the skulls dry for two weeks and still ended up with blow ups in my kiln. THIS year, I tried a segmented firing of my kiln. A technique I learned over the summer. It pretty much is my own programming of my kiln to heat up at special rates.

End result...NO BLOW UPS! I was so thrilled. It took much longer but worth it. 

With no blow ups means more painting! I have both grades paint theirs with watercolor paints. Before they paint we discuss the designs of the skulls and details used. 

NOW I have a school with LOTS of bulletin boards but no real display cases. We have one that has one shelve. Got to get creative with displaying these bad boys. 

With 3D work at my school, we are sadly lacking display cases. The one we do have is small and has only one shelf. So got a little creative and used these boards I have to make a stand-up display in the library for the pendents and well the 5th grade skulls are not hard to put up. Remember the library is a great space to display. 

Flipped!

5th grade started the flipped proportion of their self portrait project. The idea behind flipping comes from the fact that this allows the students to research the artist they want to use for their project. Before I would go through every single one. Information  would get confused and they students wouldn't really recall much. THIS was great. Once we got all set up and going, they took to picking the artist they wanted well. This was just the first group. Here is hoping the second goes well.