Japanese-Inspired Art

The first grade classes at my current school recently completed a gorgeous cherry blossom project. It had some similarities to one I'd done in the past, with both 8th graders and preschoolers. I came here to look up the pictures and realized I'd never posted them! When I dug them out, I came across a happier surprise - the last time I did the cherry blossom project, I displayed it with a printmaking project I came up with on my own - and really like, as it teaches students about three different types of printmaking, requires the students to take care in their craftsmanship, and can be done without a ton of special printmaking supplies. 

Back? Now with bulletin boards!

A two-year blogging gap is no big, right?

I've been working as an extended-day instructor for preschool students at a wonderful private school in Northern Virginia for the past two years. While I have loved the experience, I'm happy to say that - starting this month - I'm the new assistant art teacher for K-8th grade! One of my new duties was to fill the display space near the front office and since we don't have student work to show off yet, I decided to fall back on my illustration skills and love of art history.

First Grade van Goghs

 

First grade has been focusing on Vincent van Gogh during the month of February. Older kids tend to remember van Gogh as "That guy who cut his ear off!", so instead, I introduced the class to his art through the book The Starry Night by Neil Waldman. We discussed the concepts of fiction (fantasy) and nonfiction (reality) and I told the kids that while Vincent van Gogh was a real artist who lived and died many years ago, this fictional story imagines what might happen if van Gogh visited New York City today. This first grade class is particularly large and loud, so instead reading the book to them, I'd made a video of it to show on the SmartBoard. Yay, technology!

Back to School!

I've survived the first week back at Saint Ann School.  I'd forgotten how nice it is to be a second-year teacher - you go in and already know the school, the faculty and staff, and most of the kids.  I failed in last year's goal of remembering every child's name, so we started with a name tag project that I hope will help get me off on the right foot this year.  I'm also looking forward to starting an Artsonia gallery for the school, taking a fall field trip to the Met, and possibly scheduling a school-wide art show.

But in the meanwhile, have some art from last year...

 

 Stained Glass Windows, Our Lady of Angels 5th Grade

Chagall's Valentine

For Valentine's Day, I like to challenge my older classes by introducing them to Marc Chagall.  In the past, when I was working with middle school students taking art as an elective, this led to soft, lovely, thoughtful pastel paintings that were clearly influenced by the themes and images used in Chagall's work.

My current middle school classes are not electives, but instead are classes every student is required to take.  This makes things more challenging (ever dealt with a seventh grader who has no interest in what you're teaching?), but also leads to the occasional moment of brilliance.

The first week, I introduced the students to Marc Chagall by giving them a quick rundown of his biography.  Classes usually get invested once World War II occurs.  I stopped to wait until one sixth grade class quieted down, right at the point where Chagall almost gets stuck in France as the Nazis are invading.  One kid blurted out to his classmates, "Shut up - it's getting interesting!"  Also, I'm pretty sure 90% of the students will have forgotten Chagall's name in the two weeks that have passed, but I'm pretty sure the same 90% will remember his wife's name was Bella.  Thanks, Twilight.

Next, we looked at Chagall's painting 'I and the Village' together.  (And here, may I say - the Smartboard is such an asset for art classes.)  Finally, I had them break up into groups.  Each group was given an image by Chagall.  They were to list figures, objects, the setting, and colors used.  Afterwards, each group presented their findings to the class.  I hadn't done any in-depth art history or analysis with these six classes before, and I was pretty pleased with most of them, both in terms of behavior and critical thinking.

Now that we had identified some themes in his work - from his childhood in a Russian village, to living in Paris as an adult, to couples getting married or in love, to the elements of fantasy included by blending these themes into a single picture -  the assignment was to create one's own image inspired by Chagall. 

As always, I see lots of marauding sheep, lots of green people, lots of human-faced cats, giant chickens, and Eiffel Towers.  We're still working on our pictures, but I wanted to share one in particular, which perhaps doesn't quite follow the assignment, but made me smile anyway...

Happy Valentine's.

Mona Lisa Smiles

So, first the good news...  as of the second week of this month, I'm teaching art again, this time at two Catholic schools up in the Bronx.  This post features artwork by a few of the Kindergarteners at Saint Ann School; expect to see more in the near future!

While I'm waiting on supplies, I'm trying to do lessons that don't rely on lots of materials.  This is an idea I found on Pinterest, and is originally from Artrageous Afternoon. Side note - Pinterest is an amazing tool for gathering art lesson ideas.  Since it's visually-based, you can gather a bunch of project images in one place, and the how-to is usually just two clicks away.

Back to the lesson... first, I introduced the class to Mona Lisa, by showing them her picture in the book 'Cave Paintings to Picasso', by Henry Sayre.*  Several of the kids raised their hands when I asked if they'd seen her before.  A few of them told me they'd seen the picture in a book, or on tv.  Next I walked around with the book, and asked each student to think about how they thought Mona Lisa was feeling.  (Thinking without verbalizing is a skill some Kinders are still working on - several told me "happy" or "sad" right away.)  Then, I polled them by asking them to raise their hands if they thought she was feeling happy, sad, upset, excited, worried, etc.

I told the kids that even though Mona Lisa's portrait (a word we learned last week) is perhaps the most famous painting in the world, people don't always agree on how they think she's feeling.  I had everyone smile wide, and we compared that to Mona Lisa's tiny smile.  Then I showed the students the paper they'd be working on - regular printer paper with a small copy of the Mona Lisa in the center - and asked them the question the lesson was built around.  Where would you take the Mona Lisa to make her smile?

I loved the answers I got as I walked around and watched the students draw and color.

 The Ocean 

  

An Apartment

  

The City

  

  

The Zoo

  

A Mountain

  

The Park (or as one kid said, "Grass") 

  

  

The Supermarket

  

 "The Rainbow"

 

 "To give her a puppy." 

 

I didn't get an explanation for this one, but I was completely delighted to see it, and want to hang it on a wall.

 

Something I hadn't anticipated before I started walking around - combining Kinders and Mona Lisa?  Instant pop art!  I love how this project turned out, and I really admire this class for taking the time to fill their page with color, and being happy to do so. 

*I finally got around to getting my Brooklyn Public Library card, as I use books with the younger grades often.  They're great teaching tools, inspiration, and time-fillers if the kids finish early!

Draw Like an Egyptian

Can you see anything?
Yes, wonderful things.

When I was seven, I wanted to be an Egyptologist. So when I spotted this project several years ago, I knew it was a keeper. It's also relatively neat, takes time to do well (it usually covered two 55 minute sessions), and requires only a few supplies - a winner all around.

First, I had the kids take rulers and mark a piece of manila paper in thirds, horizontally. This was the first time some of them had attempted this. Next, we studied the term profile, and discussed proportions of the face. (For kids especially, eyes fall about in the middle, the nose halfway between the eyes and chin, and the mouth halfway between the chin and nose.) After sketching in a profile view of a face in the right third of the paper, and marking where each feature should be, we looked at examples of ancient Egyptian art.

Tut's Tomb


Ramses III


Nefertari

On flat surfaces, the ancient Egyptians depicted people in profile - there are only a few examples where this is not the case. However, they also drew each eye as though it was being seen from the front. We also looked at the colors used in Egyptian art - mostly reds, blues, and yellows.

We added details to our profiles to make them into Egyptian self-portraits. Each kid drew hair, eyes, and other features to resemble themselves, but added accessories that an ancient Egyptian would have worn. Once we had drawn a self-portrait we were happy with, we traced the lines in black marker.

In the left third of our paper, we drew a decorative line to separate it from the rest of the page. Then we used that third of the page to draw a cartouche. A cartouche was a specific shape used to enclose a royal name. For now, we left ours blank. First we had to talk about hieroglyphics.

At first, Egyptologists were uncertain they would ever be able to decode hieroglyphics, the symbols the ancient Egyptians wrote with. But in 1799, a French soldier in Egypt discovered the Rosetta Stone. This stone had a passage carved in three different scripts, including ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, and ancient Greek. It took twenty years to match up the translations, but in the end, the code was cracked.

Online charts of hieroglyphics don't always agree on what symbol makes what sound. I put together the chart above, a simplified version of a couple of different ones (right click; view image for full size). I encouraged the kid to spell their names phonetically, rather than concentrating on the English spelling.

Once we'd drawn our names, we traced them in black marker as well. Then it was time to move on to the cray-pas. I asked the kids to create a pattern for their background, and to use bright colors. Finally, we got out metallic gold pens and colored a few small details, such as jewelry or crowns, to add a little glow.