Abstract Paintings with 4th Grade

I've been MIA for a few weeks taking a break from anything school/work related to enjoy the first few weeks of break, but now I'm back in action ready to share more projects from last year!

First up, these super fun abstract paintings I did with my 4th graders...

I Can Statements:
I Can talk about abstract art. I Can create an abstract artwork using my name. I can make shades and tints to paint monochromatically.

Day 1: Started this lesson in a really fun way with my students, I had them partner up and find a spot in the room and I put up an abstract painting or sculpture on the SMARTboard. I had given them a list of a variety things to talk/think about with their partner during this activity... "How does this make you feel?" "Do you see anything in this artwork or does it remind you of anything?" "Do you think this is art?"...and other questions that would spark the conversation. After a minute or two they changed partners and I switched the artwork. This went on for 15 minutes or so and then we came back together to talk about what we heard others say and what we thought. Eventually getting to the conclusion that we were looking at abstract art. I was also a participant in this activity with my partnering up with my students.

Because the 4th grade curriculum is centered on the 4th graders themselves, I wanted to find a way to connect back to that...ergo to set up their paintings they started by writing their names (and I don't just mean writing their names on the back to identify their work). They could write their first, middle, last or any combination of their name and they had to write it in a way that created a variety of interesting shapes and spaces that could be filled in with paint. I encouraged capital letters and stretching and rotating them to create the most interesting composition and then repeating the name over and over. Check out my demo video below (sorry no sound, I narrate live to my students).

Day 2: We reviewed abstract art and then started our discussion on value and monochromatic colors. My favorite part was showing them monochromatic photography and paintings. We got busy practicing by painting a strip of paper from light to dark of their chosen color. Once I saw the strip they were free to get busy on their final artwork. I encouraged them to mix in the best way for them (I love to do my mixing right on my paper) and made sure they knew they would be in charge of cleaning their paint pallette (which we almost never use because i'm a big fan of the disposable route).

Day 3 & 4: A lot more paint and painting.

Day 5: When a good chunk of students were done painting we did my favorite part. CUTTING!!!!!! There wasn't really any guidelines for this part of the project other than changing the edge and using every little piece of their painting, no tossing scraps! The size of the pieces that they cut was up to them. For this project, I introduced them to glue sponges which really kept these looking incredible and not full of loads and loads of glue. My helpful hint was really really really holding the pieces down after gluing. I even encouraged sitting on their artwork just to make sure they were nice and flat ;) I had them keep the monochromatic theme for their background paper but I think complementary colors for their background would be a great extra pop to these next time around.

Mixing paint always keeps students engaged and I chalked this one up to a really successful project especially during our critique where they could barely sit still and keep from coming up and pointing out all the things they "saw" in each other's paintings. One more bonus--if they get behind they can skip the cutting up part!

End of the Year Paper Sculptures

The last few weeks of the school year are in full swing. All 400ish portfolios are handed back which means one day-no grade-"Take it with you please!"-projects are happening all over the place.

THIS is my favorite. Any class that was caught up and had a day or so left with me are making these wicked awesome paper sculptures. HUGE thanks to the ever brilliant shine brite zamorano for the inspiration via this post from pinterest.

These were done with a variety of K-4 classes and were incredibly open ended. I made the video below (Sorry I don't do sound!) to show them some of the basics and just "required" them to do two pieces of paper as the base. The two paper rule was to give it a little weight so they wouldn't lift when they started gluing. Everything else they did was up to them. Most students went abstract but I had a few do playgrounds, roller coasters, houses, and masks.

The only two negatives were the prep of cutting all the paper and having K & 1-ers wanting to do the cylinder and having difficulty gluing it down with enough glue to keep it on. There was a lot of end of the world tears when that happened.

My FAVORITE thing that happened was no one asking to do free art in my 3 & 4 classes because they were so completely engaged (which says a lot for the last 3 weeks of school).

HIGHLY recommend this as an end of the year project, if you have any paper left that is!

Abstract Transparency Portraits with 6th Grade (2015)

This is officially my favorite project to do at the end of the year with 6th grade. They turn out amazing, and they all end up with a piece that they really enjoyed making and can be proud of.

 For more info on the breakdown check out my original post on the project. The only changes were no planning sheet, incorporating their name, and adding sharpies to the material possibilities....

Abstract Faces with 3rd Grade

My trip to the National Art Education Association convention last spring really taught me a lot of things in terms of pedagogy but I also learned some awesome new lessons. One that I could not possibly wait to try with my kiddos was presented by Lisa Casey called Picasso Portraits. Her tag line for the presentation was "Avoiding the split profile to create abstract art that makes kids think". One of her focuses was getting away from the Picasso Cubism portraits of just using exaggeration and misplacement and really taking it to the next level of abstraction. I was a volunteer that went up to try to project and fell in love with it immediately! This project ended up being a perfect fit for my 3rd graders with the portrait theme for K-6.

I Can statement for this project: I Can turn an abstract drawing into a face.

Day 1: I begin by telling students that the start of our next project is going to be a game. Each person will start with a piece of paper and when I say "start", with a sharpie, you start drawing a line and when I say "stop" you stop and pass it. When I say "find a point" you find either the starting or end point of the previous line and the process continues (ONE continuous line is formed). The final instruction is that lines should be open and spread out, not close together and scribbly. I draw something like this to explain....

Once we pass a few times and I see how full papers are I have them stop and put caps on sharpies and talk we about Abstract Art. I decided not to get into Picasso and Cubism and just talk about abstract. I show examples of paintings, drawings, sculpture and how we usually don't see images in abstract art but sometimes we do. My favorite example is Kandinsky. I always see things in his works that i'm sure are not with his intentions. Finally I reveal what our abstract works are going to turn into and show them my example. FACES! They either get immediately excited or stressed and start searching. Before they can start drawing, we go over how to use the shapes for features. I draw this up on the board. 

The rest of the time is spent finding their faces and penciling in the features and tracing in sharpie after they have been okayed. A few students did struggle but it was great to see their peers helping them naturally on this! Woohoo! Leadership!

Day 2: Refresher on abstract! Then we talk about painting and planning. I had them all use a skin color and our reasoning on this is so that there isn't a disconnect about what we are looking at. We want it to be clear that its a face. Then I have them label lightly in pencil what color they will be painting each section. This really makes them put thought into having things "make sense" and keeps them from rushing into painting. They are allowed to paint over lines especially if in a skin section as long as they can still see the lines. Rest of the time is spent painting!

Day 3: If done painting, they trace all of their lines and details in black sharpie, cut it out, and glue to a color construction paper that compliments their paint choices. I open the construction paper cabinet and we experiment with what colors looks best with their paintings. Those who are still painting do as much sharpie work as they can and quickly finish the next class while others start on a new project.  

I was SO impressed with the work my 3rd graders did on these!

Check them out. Don't laugh too hard ;)

More posts from/about my adventures at NAEA convention here!
http://theartsyfartsyartroom.blogspot.com/2014/03/naea-adventures.html
http://theartsyfartsyartroom.blogspot.com/2014/04/naea-adventures-part-2.html
http://theartsyfartsyartroom.blogspot.com/2014/04/naea-top-10.html
http://theartsyfartsyartroom.blogspot.com/2014/04/naea-make-takes-and-my-virtual-fashion.html
http://theartsyfartsyartroom.blogspot.com/2014/04/we-are-famous.html