Rhythmic Rings

Recycled art by the third graders! We rolled, and rolled..and rolled paper and created a collaborative recycled paper installation outside the art room. Each student created their own panel to contribute to the installation. Beyond the use of paper, we used tons and tons of recycled caps from old markers, glue sticks and recycled items from the lunch room. Nice junk sculpture 3rd Grade!

Creole Cottages

Popsicle sticks, toothpicks, cardboard, pom poms, pipe cleaners, tag board templates (to create 4 walls) scrap tag board to create architectural design elements & yard elements. We looked closely at New Orleans creole cottages for inspiration. My students really enjoyed this project--we set up a series of these homes for Family Arts Night in rows similar to the streets of the French Quarter!

yarn weavings

Inspired by traditional Navajo weavings, the third graders created their own weaving on a cardboard loom. As students finished their weaving the chose to mount their weaving on tag board, hang it from a natural branch, bead the ends, or leave it flat like a blanket with finished ends.  Next year, I would probably do this earlier or later in the year and bring the class outdoors to work in the sun :)

Mola inspired

Threading the needle!

World Arts Month brought construction paper motifs inspired by traditional Mola designs of the Kuna women of Central America. Materials: layered construction paper, background pieces of construction paper 18 x 18, yarn, tape, hole punch, glue, scissors.  Plan for about 5-6 class periods (third grade) These brighten our hallways during these gloomy January days.

Houses in Munich

I really enjoy the simplicity, and color choice in this particular drawing.

      

 Collaged "Houses in Munich' inspired by Wassily Kandinsky. The third grade students used oil pastels to achieve similar marks to Kandinsky's oil painted canvas. I demonstrated sketching the drawing out in pencil, then outlining in black oil pastel before adding color, so that some of the black oil pastel would smear into their other colors. Some students really enjoyed this aesthetic, others chose to keep their drawing very neat. To emphasis certain areas of the drawing, they added black construction paper cut into window, door, bridge, and building shapes. Some students just added a portion of black paper to a each building, others covered entire buildings, both good choices! The most challenging part of this drawing for the students was deciding how much collaged paper to add, I left it rather opened ended and followed up when they asked with "well, what do you think? Remember it's your drawing" ...many times. The never ending question!

Tree of Life (Part 2)

Third Grade: “Tree of Life” watercolor paintings. Part one: object printing with found objects and black paint (see previous post!) Part two: embellishing with an assortment of watercolors. I found glitter watercolors and metallic watercolors, both added great surface textures. Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway…I’m yet to meet an elementary student who doesn’t enjoy a dab of glitter.

"Tree of Life" Step One: Object Printing

I really enjoy how this student divided up the space and created the root system!

Love the whimsical quality of this student example

The process

The theme this month in the Swallow Art Classroom is Nature. The Third Grade is focusing on the "Tree of Life" symbol and it's use around the world. First, we studied trees in many different forms through visuals from around the world. Then, the students were given a large selection of found objects to chose from...here are a few examples. WOW, this was messy. Following this project with the Third Grade, I sent a letter home to parents entitled "I'm not messy, I'm creative!... A disclaimer from the art room, we use washable materials and the paint should come out with a little extra scrubbing...!  It was nice to receive positive feedback from parents, such as "a messy day is a creative day in my mind"