Collaborative Dot Paintings

FINALLY did a dot project and finished it in time for Dot Day! I've wanted to do one the last few years but just never jumped on it or was inspired by something else first. This year, right before the start of the year a post on the Art Teacher facebook page caught my eye and I ran with it! This was the post by Art Educator Nichole Sitler Gates on the Art Teacher Facebook group that inspired our paintings:

I've got to give her credit because I ran it the same way based on what I saw in her pictures. Each table had a big sheet of bulletin board paper as well as a tray of paint cups with equal number of brushes so we didn't need to wash. Classes earlier in the day laid the base for classes that came after and when one paper was full I laid out another. So they started looking like the one below...

And ended up looking like this when all finished and hung together in the hallway! There are about 10 more not pictured because we ended up with so many! Very thankful for our giant empty hallway by the front of the building....

Here are some close ups.

With Kindergarten in the middle of the day, I was a little nervous about letting them paint for the first time EVER on these already started dot paintings. So instead they painted on 24x36 papers (two at a table) and I turned those paintings into the lettering. I also put out less paint to keep the stimuli a little lower for their eagar hands.

I've gotten so many comments and compliments from students and staff about how much they brighten our school and I cannot wait to look at them all year!

Back to School Collaborative Self-Portraits!

Sorry I've been missing since mid-August but it's been a very busy start of the year and I have a lot of exciting things to start sharing again!

This project has been floating all over the internet and I was finally inspired to do it myself after this post and this post from Cassie Stephens! Love LOVE LOOOOOVVVVEEE the way it turned out!

This was the perfect way to kick off the year and get almost all 400ish students busy making art on the first day. 

I Can draw a self-portrait and color it using one color to make a collaborative artwork.

Day 1:

1st grade through 4th grade started their first day of art with the art room scavenger hunt you see below... I got the idea from an instagram post but I just can't seem to find it again to give the credit this idea deserves! I had students work in teams and I helped read when needed. They went to the location in the room that matched the circle and found a color there. They filled in the circle on their sheet with the color they found. It was a great refresher for everyone and perfect for new students. 

After they finished the scavenger hunt I talked about the art piece they were going to create collaboratively showing them an example of another completed one so they understood why they were just using one color. I showed them my demo video of me drawing and then they got busy. I gave them white 4x4 squares, cartooning sheets to look at for inspiration, and a black felt tip pen to draw with.

Kindergarten spent Day 1 hearing the book Art Today! (HIGHLY recommend for the first day for Kinders), going on a tour of the art room, and drawing me anything they wanted so I could get a skills intake.

The book is a bit hard to find but Crystal Productions does sell it. 

Day 2:
Each table got a box of art supplies in their color only. This was SO worth taking the time to do. In the box there was colored pencils, regular crayons as well as glitter, metallic, and construction paper crayons, skinny markers, fat markers, fluorescent markers, and sharpies. They could use any material anywhere with the exception of marker on their face so it wouldn't cover their features. They also had to color the entire square.

 It didn't take the entire time for them to finish but I anticipated that so they could have time to explore new items in the art room.

After seeing Cassie's final product, if I do this again I will think of a different way to assemble or go BIGGER for a bigger impact on the walls. It was so fun watching students search for theirs!

Cassie's finished Product

Back to School Collaborative Hand Art

School has officially been in session for a month and these finally made it up on the walls last week!

  The first day of art shouldn't just be spent going over rules and procedures, we have to have a little art making too! I've started the last two years with this collaborative art piece as a great way to check in on skills and bring us together as a building.

 Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd graders used construction paper crayons and a color of their choice. They were prompted to do different lines, patterns, and simple pictures. Really anything but scribbling. 3rd and 4th graders had a little more direction and did Zentangle like designs and if they had time added colored pencil. The use of colored pencil was a change from last year but I am really happy about it, they look amazing! 3rd and 4th didn't finish these in one class, they had 20 minutes of the next class to work as well.

Check out this post from when I did this project with my last district for other examples of how to put them together...

Bursting with Creativity! Collaborative Hands!

Being only in my second full year of teaching there is still A LOT to learn...One of the best pieces of advice I have received from a colleague is to not spend the entire first back to school Art class focusing on rules and procedures. Let students use art supplies. Many have gone all summer without touching them and are craving them!

Ipso facto our collaborative hands came to be! Every student was included that was at school on their first day of art! The idea for this project came mostly from the same colleague, she does a different variation but very similar. And, a little from Pinterest via this and this post....

After my quick intro about what I did Art related over my summer, two minute rule review, and a tour of the new things in the room, 1st-6th grade classes talked about what collaborative art meant and what we were going to be creating.

I think I put a filter on this one, but have no recollection....humph!

 4th-6th were shown my Zentangle hand example including photos that walked them through making my own and then they got to work. Some classes had experience with Zentangle so they got to work quicker, others needed a longer discussion on creating them. They did work on them after our museum activity during the next class. Not all finished, but I did not want to wait any longer to put these amazing things together! I used what they had done so everyone had at least a partial hand included in the final product.

K-2nd grade were shown the example of my colored paper hand and given the instruction to add a variety of designs rather than pictures of things happening. A lot of the hands gets covered up when they get connected and I showed them how these would look put together to justify the designs only rather than pictures. I had them trace in sharpie and cut out as the last step.

Kindergarten worked a little differently as far as talking about rules and procedures because many of them haven't experienced Art class before. While in this little art supply store in Madison with my grandma over the summer, I found an AMAZING book called Art Today which tackled just about everything you might do over the school year with them in a very simple way with great illustrations. The character is a Kindergartner on his first day of Art and very imaginative ;) Crystal Productions and Amazon do both carry it. They still had time to create the hand and cut it out even after our book and a longer chat about the art room.

Once everyone was done I put the hands together myself into these AWESOME bursts. I loved doing this because it gives me the opportunity to (kind of) do art making of my own! The final touch to the displays were my hand cut signs!

 I have gotten SO MANY compliments and comments from staff, parents, and students at both buildings. I am SO PROUD to have these hanging and can't wait to include them in our spring district art show!

McDill Elementary...

Jefferson Elementary...

End of the Year Collaboration with Kindergarten through 2nd Grade

With school starting Tuesday it is only fitting that I finally caught up on blogging!

I found this pin on pinterest from Drip, Drip, Splatter Splash and basically did it the same way. I used it as a fun last day of art project for my Kindergarteners and 1st graders. The 2nd graders finished them up after our games. A few days ahead of time I laid out the sheets of tag board across all of my tables and used good acrylic paint and a big brush to create the lines. My twist for this project, different from the original, was that I made all the lines connect. It is really important to label the backs if you do this!

Before they got to work we talked about how the pages connected and how these weren't going to belong to any individual but the school. Some were not pleased with that idea but eventually when they saw the finished piece they were happy! My only rules were no scribbling and they needed to be colored and painted.

They were totally engaged and loved the freedom. It was so fun for me to sit back and relax and watch them create art so joyously and care-free!

In process pictures....

Finished sections close up..

TADA!

(They stayed up all summer!)

I love collaborative art!!!