Korean Masks

I'm sad that I didn't get pictures of the rest of the students with their masks, but here is one class of 1st graders wearing their new Korean masks.

My friend came in again this year and taught them all about Korean masks; then we made our own masks out of paper.

Aren't they awesome???

white = young woman

red = young man

black = old person

Popping and/or Floating Boxes

Here's our new hall art display:

Some popping hands (1st and 2nd grades) and some popping and/or floating boxes (2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade)

Close up:

4th grade

3rd grade

2nd grade

2nd grade

Illusions: Hands

This week, we began learning about illusions. Here are a few examples of the first and second graders' work:

second grade

 second grade

first grade

first grade

first grade

Glowing Art

The kiln was done firing the students' glazed pieces right after school today.* I've told them how hot it gets and that it turns red, but it's not something that I can show them. That is until I took a super quick picture before getting burned! Some of the pieces almost looked translucent. What an amazing process! The students are going to love seeing this picture!

*The kiln had shut off, but was still super hot, about 1800*F! The last time I fired ceramics, the kiln was turned on around 8 AM and emptied around 7:30 AM the next day. The ceramics were still a little warm (easily handle-able though).

Christmas Trees

The students have been working on Christmas crafts during art this last unit. We've made snowflakes (the traditional fold into a triangle, cut, then open to see what happens), Christmas cards, and Christmas trees. I saw a little girl's shirt that had this basic design in ribbon and decided to try it out in paper! Everyone loved it! It took most students about 45 minutes to an hour (over a two day period).

This is a first or second grade example, I'm not sure which, beside the inspiration, so cute!

Supplies needed:

Black piece of 9" x 12" construction paper

Green piece of 9" x 12" construction paper

Brown piece of construction paper: 1" x 2" or 2" x 2"

glue

Any extra pieces of paper/decoration you may want to add. A few of my older students added little ornaments, snow (white crayon), presents, etc.

Fold the green paper in half. Cut 1"-2" strips of paper along the fold (my pieces were quite irregular - no measuring involved and I told the students not to worry about exactness either, when have you seen a natural tree that was exact? Not very often!). Unfold the strips of paper and cut them along the fold.

You will need 10 of the half pieces. Fold each of these into a loop and adhere the ends together with a very small amount of glue and hold tight for a few seconds (my little ones count to 20). Then glue them in rows as shown in the picture. The star is just two triangles put together. I figured this would be the easiest for the students to create. The trunk is a piece about 1" x 2" or 2" x 2" brown construction paper.

Have fun!

Trees - Inspired by Liz Tran

I love Liz Tran's artwork! She's one of my favorite artists, so I shared her tree paintings with the students on Wednesday. They loved her artwork too :) We discussed what the titles of the paintings are and possible meanings behind the title and paintings, what patterns they saw in the paintings, how trees are wider at one end and narrower at the other end, and anything else they observed. There were so many insightful comments! We had a great time discussing the paintings and making our own interpretations.

 

Today, the 3rd and 4th graders drew their trees and the 1st and 2nd graders colored the drawings they made yesterday.

They're awesome! Take a look for yourself:

2nd grader - Liz Tran named her paintings. The students were encouraged to do the same, although they did not have to. This student named her art work "happy, happy, happy, happy, happy" Love it!

2nd grader - although difficult to see, this student was the first one who had patterns within the stripes. He did an awesome job recreating this feature. The circles inside circles represent a cloud :)

2nd grader - this one is a great example of the many types of circles found in several of the tree paintings we viewed.

1st grader - great example of patterns within the stripes!

1st grader - I love all the dots in this one. It reminds me of a tropical paradise somewhere :)

1st grader - Love the colors in this one :)

1st grader - Great patterns in the stripes and a fabulous background!

1st grader - another great example of patterns within the stripes. The other students were highly impressed with this version. They kept complimenting the student on a job well done. It was super cute!

Mustache Fun!

My students and I made mustaches for Movember today :) We also learned about symmetry and asymmetry. Mustaches are usually symmetrical. Faces are also usually pretty symmetrical. Artists use symmetry in their art.

Here are some images I printed for them to use (images found on Google images):

 

This is the one that I printed and cut out to use as the right size. Then I used some of the following ideas and others that I can't find now along with the sizing of the first one (width-wise). The students LOVED them!

At the end, I connected pipe cleaners as a stick so the students could hold them up to their faces (it's what was available in the classroom supplies). After some trial and error, I found that if you cut a small piece of paper and wrapped and glued it around the pipe cleaner, then glued the paper to the paper, it's much easier and stays in place faster. Pipe cleaners don't like to be glued to things!

Here's a simple step by step of how I eventually decided to apply the pipe cleaners/sticks:

Art Room Ghosts!

(click on the image to make it bigger)

Hopefully, tomorrow, I'll be able to get some pictures of the students' ghosts :)