Texture Polar Bears (2015)

3rd grade took a break this winter from their official world travels, to travel to the North Pole to make these texture polar bears...inspiration came from Pinterest via this post.

I Can tell you the different between visual and real texture.
I Can create a polar bear with multiple textures.

Day 1: I did a fun project reveal using this video...

We kicked off the creating with a demo on creating the polar bear with a sponge. They went right for it without drawing first. Then I had an awesome station set up with protective paper on the walls and a cart and they took a spray bottle with watered down paint and went nuts to make the rest of the background.

 Day 2: This is when we really dived in and talked about texture. I had a variety of examples of real versus imagined and flipped through images and held objects and they had to shout out what kind of texture they saw. After, we explored how we were going to incorporate texture into the polar bears using a variety of materials. Before they started to add things, they drew faces with black crayon and I walked them through creating paper patterns using newsprint. This was the best strategy I had for less waste of felt and fabric. They set a piece of newsprint over their polar bear so they could see through it, and drew what they wanted to add. Those pieces got cut out and were traced on the felt so they had the perfect sizes. It was also a great way to talk about the process of fashion design and clothing making.

Day 3: Reviewed texture and the continued to add to their polar bears. They also added snowflakes with either glitter and glue or paper snowflakes.

I am in love with all the different personalities of the polar bears. Thinking of mixing it up next time with a variety of animals to choose from...

Zooming in on Animals (5th)

Keeping with the animal theme of the other grade levels, 5th graders worked on showing visual texture using animals as our subject matter. I have these great memories of having ZooBooks as a kid and the amazing pictures in them, so I wanted to use those as our image sources rather than printing off pictures that were not high quality or 1,000,000,000 of the same animal. Lucky for me our school libraries have them :)

The initial idea for this project came from this post via pinterest.I wanted it to be less about point of view and more about using color pencils at a higher level. This project REALLY showed different skill levels of my students within a class and across the different buildings. I can see some future artist starting to really develop and it is so exciting!

I CAN Statement for this project: I CAN show visual texture of animals using colored pencils to the best of my ability.

Day 1: Intro to texture (I really hope for most of my students it was more like a review...they really should know what texture is by 5th grade) I showed them three slides from part of an elements and principles PowerPoint I have just on texture. Our main topic was real texture versus visual texture. We started with an exercise of doing "swatches" of different textures that have to be approved before starting on the project. Here is my example of that...

Before they started working I showed them how to use the view finders and to draw the main lines/sections in pencil first before starting with colored pencils. I had 5x7 rectangles for them to trace on their paper so they knew the size they were working with. I was really surprised when I ran into students who struggled with the concept of transferring what was in the view finder to fit the size of the box. That has got to be some Piaget stuff happening...  

Day 2: Workday, reminded and reviewed how to get different textures and using pencil first!
Day 3: Workday and for those that were done and ready to assemble...They chose what color they wanted and cut out and arranged their drawings and made labels where the animal and part of the animal they drew was written.
Day 4: Shape Animal Challenge for early finishers and final assembling.

I really had some stragglers with this project...but alas they are all done!

These two were selected for the art show!

Jefferson Elementary...

Kennedy Elementary...

McDill Elementary...

This display was so fun to do!

Roaring with Texture! (1st & 2nd)

One of my  favorite things to create with students is animals. Just like the pigs I did with Kindergarten, so many personalities with students show through. And, while the process is the same for each student, the end results vary drastically!

These texture lions were part my own creation and part inspiration from Pinterest. Lion projects are all over the place... Here are a few of the favorites I stumbled across...

From Splish Splash Splatter

From Splats Scraps and Glue Blobs

This Pinned Image Only

This Pinned Image Only 

"I CAN" statement for this project: I CAN use texture to create a lion mane using string. (Check out my post on that to learn about my love hate relationship with these I CAN statements)

Day 1: Read this really great book that was in the school library. It's from the 70s so the illustrations are much different than what students are used to and the language is just a little dated but it is an awesome story about being yourself :) Available on Amazon!

After the story we had a discussion about texture. What is it? What are examples of texture? Feel your skin, hair, table, bottom of your shoes...Why do artists use texture? After our discussion, I did a draw along for the lion that I came up with which mostly consisted of drawing letter Cs in different directions. The lines on the nose were a little difficult for students to understand but after showing them illustrations of lions and real pictures of lions, it was settled that we needed them. We finished up the class period by painting just the fur color of the lion and making sure we did not cover up our pencil all the way so we could see it next time to paint in the features.

Day 2: Started with a reminder discussion of texture. Then it was all about the mane. First step was cutting out the mane and tracing it on the background of choice so they knew where to put the mane. Then I did my "magic trick" demo of the small about of glue needed for string by gluing one then automatically tipping my paper upside down. I had all the string pre-cut and a variety dumped into buckets for each table to save time.While students were working on the manes, small groups came over to add the features to their lion face. They could have any eye and nose color they wanted and I tried limited face lines to black but some just got carried away :)

Day 3: Finish up the manes, attach head to the mane and DONE.When finished if time allowed, they did the shape animal challenge I posted on a few weeks ago!

Loved this project, wouldn't of changed a thing!

Jefferson Elementary...

Kennedy Elementary...

McDill Elementary...