Portraits & Words

In the Art Room, the 4^th graders’ Portrait Project was tied into their civics lesson and to the 2016 election. We looked at election posters and the common trends among them. The students also learned facial proportions and how to draw a face. They challenged themselves to draw and paint a realistic face. Also, the students chose words to promote making the world a kinder, better place. We discussed the Carmel Academy Values Covenant and other words that can heal and help. They glued their words and portrait on their hand-decorated backgrounds. The students should be very proud of the portraits and the beautiful messages of their chosen words. 

Clay Pets

The 4th graders loved making their clay pets! They worked for 2 classes on shaping their animal, platform and details and then glazed them.

Ceramic Dried Flower Hangings

The 4th Graders made red clay wall hangings to hold dried flowers. They rolled clay slabs, created unique shapes and textures and folded it up to form a little pocket for the flowers.

Mixed Media Birch Tree Landscapes

The 4th graders practiced many techniques to put together these whimsical landscapes. They first divided a landscape scene and drew patterns using craypas.They painted using watercolor paints. The students then drew trees and cut them out and painted them to create a bark effect. Finally the trees were glued down.

Picasso Blue & Rose Collages

The students observed and discussed the paintings of Picasso's Blue and Rose periods, 

as well as his subsequent Cubist style. They first painted large sheets of paper in 

different shades of blues/greys and pinks/reds. These were cut up into pieces and used

along with recycled newspaper, wallpaper, sheet music and construction paper to create

 guitar, bottle, bowl and jug shapes. Some of these were also cut up and re-glued to a 

different background to create a fragmented Cubist art piece.

 

Inspired by Paul Klee's Big Head

“Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see.”  Paul Klee

The fourth graders started with a big round head, divided it up and used craypas to make patterns in warm or cool color combinations transposing facial features for vibrant results.

Paul Klee was a Swiss artist of German Nationality (1879-1940). His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. His works reflect his humor and sometimes child-like perspective, his personal moods and beliefs. He was a highly trained musician and instructed his students in a series of musical operations for pattern development using rotation, inversion, mirroring or transposition of colors. 

Metal Repousee Masks

 

 

The fourth graders loved  making these decorative heavy duty metal foil masks. They practiced drawing their mask on paper and then drew the shape with a wooden stylus onto the metal. Then they added texture before creatively coloring with permanent marker.

 

 

Batik Flower Drawings 4th grade

The Fourth graders drew close-up versions of the flowers they observed in wax crayon. Their papers were then crumpled up and washed with a blue paint. To achieve a special Batik-like effect, the papers were then ironed. 

Gyotaku Fish Printing

The Fifth graders had the choice of printing with a real fish or rubber molded fish. They brushed ink onto the fish and printed onto muslin. Then they glued their fish onto a watercolored background.

 

Hoops for Hearts Homage to Jim Dine

To promote the Hoops for Heart program in physical education, we looked at American Pop Artist Jim Dine's very approachable art to inspire the 4th graders. Dine used the heart motif repeatedly in his art. The students first used oil pastels and watercolors on watercolor paper and then chalk pastels on black paper to make their own heart compositions.

Paper Weavings

The 4th graders painted an 18x24" paper abstractly. In the next class they cut their paintings into strips for weaving. We looked at Native American looms and learned weaving terms like "warp" and "weft." They had the option of trading strips or using some provided solid or patterned strips. They weaved the strips fastening with glue and then were able to collage art materials on top of their weavings.

Fall Still Lifes, many styles, different grades

In the Fall I set up a still life in the middle of the art room with apples, gourds and pumpkins which I use for Second through Sixth graders to create a still life in an age appropriate style or technique. The Sixth graders were inspired by cubist artists like Picasso and Braque. They drew a simple line drawing from life, fragmented it with black marker and then filled each section with one color "family" of colored pencil. The Fourth graders were limited to a colored paper and black, white and the complementary color craypas for their still lifes while the Fifth graders could only tear construction paper. The Second graders looked at Cezanne's fruit paintings and created mixed media still lifes practicing drawing fruit, decoupage, wallpaper patterns and more.