Tile Portraits with Emotion

     For these tiles, we looked at lots of portraits by different artists and discussed what the people might be expressing in them in fifth grade at Brimfield.  We talked about artworks being expressions of the artists who make them and came to the conclusion that all artwork is "about" something.  For their portraits, the students drew onto wet clay to show themselves expressing an emotion about an event in their lives.  We did some portrait drawing practice before diving into the clay, and the clay "drawings" really came out nicely.  They drew patterns in the backgrounds using symbols that refer to the event that their artwork refers to.

     To get this sgraffito-style look, we used some non-traditional finishing techniques with the bisque ware.  We painted the tiles (we used white clay) with black acrylic paint and made sure that the paint went down into each line and crevice.  Then, when the paint was dry, we used white colored pencils to thickly color just the portraits.  Then we used colored pencils to mix and layer colors until skin and hair shades were matched just right!  The students colored the backgrounds with colored pencil without doing the white layer first so that the emphasis would stay on the portrait.

     I had never tried this finishing technique and have a few tips that I will keep in mind for next time!  I have a few Prismacolor pencils, and they by far, work the best.  Most of my colored pencils are Crayola.  They work too, but the Prismacolors really worked better.  Also, the whole process goes smoother if the students draw deeper lines as opposed to lines that barely break the clay's surface.  If any black lines get lost, a nicely sharpened black pencil can draw them back!

Still Lifes on Plastic

     In fifth grade, I often do a still life unit and have found that students can find the style a bit dry.  So when we learn about still lifes, I try to use unexpected media that the kids find more exciting.  To start, we practiced by painting plants on small papers without using pencils first.  I told them to paint the shape that was closest to them first, and to then try to fill in all the other shapes they see around it.

     For the bigger project, we painted  fruit baskets onto lamenation scraps that the office saves for me.  I added a bit of hand soap to the black tempera paint to help it adhere, and it worked really well.  We used only black paint because we stapled them to wallpaper and I didn't want the images to get lost.  We stapled them with the fragile painted side in, so they would not get scratched while hanging in the hallway or scratched on the way home.

     The kids then used oil pastels and metallic liquid watercolors to paint construction paper that would become frames for their artworks.  They used patterns to design these and absolutely loved painting with the metallic paint.  The kids liked this project and the end result was so easy to hang in the hallway because they didn't need mounted onto any other paper.  I just stapled on nametags and they were ready!



 



Complimentary Colored Animals Inspired by Fauvism

    The Fauves!  Who doesn't love the Fauves??  I love teaching about Fauvism because the students are always excited about the bright colors and like thinking of themselves as "wild beasts" like Henri Matisse and Andre Derain.  We looked at lots of their works and discussed their disapproval from the art critics.  We had some great discussion about opinions concerning artworks and artist intent.

     For their paintings, the students drew simple animals from photos with little to no backgrounds.  We wanted all of the emphasis to be on the color choices.  We discussed complimentary colors, and the students were challenged to use mostly complimentary colors in their paintings.  (We used Alphacolor Biggie Cakes and mixed colors on the papers.)  They mixed colors to create as many versions of their color pairs as possible and had some really great results!  You can also see that in the animal photos I had available for students, the penguin photos were a big favorite!

Sumi-e Style Paintings with Third Grade

     In third grade at Suffield we were finally able to use some Sumi-e brushes that I had ordered, but had no plan for at the time!  We learned a little about traditional Japanese Sumi-e Painting and used the style as inspiration for these artworks. 

    We started by creating either a warm or cool colored wash on our papers and then we painted compositions with bamboo and/or flowers.  We painted with watered down India Ink and the students were really able to get some nice value variation in their work.

    We finished them up by creating our own artist signatures and gluing them in a spot on the work that would create balance.  This was a really different kind of artwork for us, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it!

We practiced on Manila paper first.