Starry Night

I did this project last year and decided to do it again.  I just love this one and love all the results!  The project is based off of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night.  

We started off by talking about the painting - what objects do we see, what colors did he use, etc.  Then we outlined the main objects - the stars, moon and swirls.  We used oil pastels to fill in the sky, making short strokes that move with the swirls.  Then we painted the sky with watercolor to fill in all the extra white spaces.  Finally, we cut a little town out of black paper and glued it to the bottom.  Tada!  Beautiful Starry Nights, done by Grade 3.  I love how all of them are so unique :)

Alphabet Soup

This project was done with my second graders.  Their task was to take the letters of the alphabet and turn, twist, rotate, stretch, shrink, enlarge, etc. all the letters.  However, all the letters had to be connected.  Then they had to fill in all the different spaces with different colors.  Some of the students got the concept, some struggled a bit with it.  But some of them came out good and they are nice splash of color in the art room :)  This can also be a good plan for a sub!

Keith Haring and Color Families

This project was done by Grade 5 and 6.  We learned about artist Keith Haring and how he used the basic symbol of a person to show emotions and communicate messages.  We drew figures like him in four different squares.  The students then colored in each square using different color families - warm, cool, opposite, and primary.  They filled in the background with lines to make it look like the figures are moving.

Monochromatic Landscapes

This year my 5th and 6th grades students learned about monochromatic painting.  They learned the words hue, tint, and shade and painted their own monochromatic scale.  Then we talked about landscapes and how things further away look lighter because of all the things in the air.  The things closest to us look the darkest.  They then drew their own landscapes of mountains, hills, trees, and cities and painted them using their new found knowledge!

Monochromatic scale:

My student's monochromatic landscape paintings!

Abstract Painting

These paintings were done by my middle and high school students.  They had to bring in an every day object and draw it realistically.  Then they had to make a viewfinder and choose a small interesting part of their drawing to enlarge.  They drew their enlarged picture and then painted it using a color family (primary, secondary, warm, cool, opposite, analogous, or monochromatic).  Can you guess what the objects are?

Crushed Cans

This is the second project my middle and high school students did.  They each got a soda can that they crushed and then had to draw and color with color pencils.  I am super impressed by some of them!  My students are really good at realistic drawings!

Self-Portrait Silhouettes

This was the first project my middle and high school students did this year.  They had to fill in the silhouette with at least 8 objects that represented themselves.  When they were all finished they presented them to the class so we could all get to know each other.  Some of these came out so great!  Definitely a good beginning of the year project!

Art Show!

 Two weeks ago we had our "fall" concert and art show! The art is from Grades 4-12.  More pictures to come of all the different projects!

Setting up the show -finally complete! 

Art Show Crowd :)