"Buckeye Misses You"

"I made this for my Mom because she had to give her dog Buckeye to an orphanage. She kept biting people."

Bounty Hunters by Ben and Billy, grade 4

"We made bounty hunters that hunt pants. They are on a hover craft. We made this at the collage center."

Fairy Godmother by Ana, grade 5

Dog Collages by grade 4 artists

Star Wars Spaceship

Two third grade boys are working on this spaceship from Star Wars. They are also making the roof to it and will finish next week. They are using techniques they learned from our paper sculpture lesson in grade two.

Kindies Building Structures

The foam blocks ("Why do these feel funny?"one girl asked) and Legos were pulled out in the middle of a kindergarten class when they got a bit "squirrely" and did not want to draw another picture. It was good to see them building together because this group of students desperately needs to work on their manners.
I need to go to some more yard sales and get some more stuff for my other school!

Can we come in at recess?

Two 4th graders asked if they could come in at recess to work on their drawings. My battery pack died before I could take the second drawing of a wrestler named John Cena. He brought in an action figure from home to draw. This is a portrait of Curt Schilling drawn from a photo. These guys worked so very hard on their drawings. They both have OT issues and I sat with them a bit during art class showing them how to draw the body using "sausage ovals." Their recess is my lunch time so I ate my turkey sandwich while I sat with "J" and helped him with the drawing of the wrestler. Side note: these boys have a history of getting into "mischief" i.e.trouble and having to lose their recess. The fact that they chose to work on their art during their play time says a lot about choice-based art education.

Collage Center

Grade 1, 2 and 3 students were treated to the collage center this week (their favorite). I showed them different examples of collage and introduced collage artist Claudine Hellmuth and her "poppets". Her poppets are made using photocopied heads and adding collaged bodies with arms, legs and details added with marker.
I am hoping that this year the students will take their collage work to a different level. Some students will still grab the precut paper shapes and glue them to a background paper without any though to changing the shape, etc. I am going to "hang around" the collage center and question the students as they work to (hopefully) make them think about the choices they make while they work.

Underwater at Night by Cody, grade 2

Fun Stuff to Draw

This is some of the stuff that the students can draw. Next week I am going to put them in a basket near the drawing center so they can use them again.

Alex's Dog Sophie

Alex(grade 2) drew his dog Sophie. He told me she's "half black lab and half boxer".

Buddah

"I'm gonna draw this because it looks Chinese to me and my Mom likes Chinese things."-Joey, grade 1

Emily's Woman with Abstract Background

I love this wooden statue that I got at yard sale for FREE! Emily (grade 3)did a wonderful interpretation of it using oil pastel.

Gato by Marcos

Marcos (grade 3) speaks Portuguese and very little English right now. I need to have a classmate explain the lesson to him in his native language. Here he drew a cat ("gato" he called it) using the mannequin. Notice the universal sun in the corner.

Bryan's Batman, grade 3

Object Drawings

The classes are continuing with their wonderful still life drawings. Much to my surprise, there are only a few students that are not happy with just having the drawing center open. I promised them the collage center will open next week and the following week it will be the paint center. Today I showed the classes the plastic texture sheets that can be used as an added element to their drawings. These sheets are always found in the drawing center but it seems that I need to remind the students about them. I have a few godzilla and dinosaurs figures and the texture sheets really make the drawings stand out. Here are some drawings from the past couple of days. I really like how Sarah drew this cat using the ceramic kitty I picked up on a trip to Cozumel. As I was cleaning my art room after school I dropped the cat and it shattered! No more breakables for me!

"T" (grade 2) uses oil pastels to color his sunset picture

Mannequin to Star Wars

Ben (grade 4) used this mannequin to create a character from Star Wars.

Scarecrow by Kevin, grade 4

Kevin was very happy with his scarecrow drawing and he's one of my students that always works in 3-dimensions so I was quite pleased with his work. Note to self: I need to do some sort of lesson on how artists show sunlight. The ever present corner sun is evident in so many classes.

Anthony's Godzilla

I was so proud of Anthony (grade 1) when he drew this Godzilla. He was so happy when he finished his drawing and wanted to take it home right away.

Great White Shark Drawing

Thomas (grade 2) worked on this shark drawing for two weeks. He added oil pastels today. I still have the laminated calendar photos available for students that wish to work from a photo.

A Fresh Start.....Drawing

Here I am at the beginning of a new school year. Full of possibilities for the students and myself included. This will be the third year of doing a full choice program and I spend a lot of time wondering how to introduce the centers in a "fresh" way so it's not the "same old same old."
I start each year with drawing. I put magnets on the back of some art visuals (reproductions from calendars as well as photos) and categorized them and hung them on the whiteboard and we discussed what kind of art they are interested in making. (landscapes, portraits, animal portraits, still life, etc.) I also set out my collection of still life objects on a table and offered them to the students if they wanted to draw their own still life. My collection is basically made up of goodies I've purchased at yard sales...mainly toys. They love to draw them and after I preface my lesson with a schpeel about not actually playing with the toys but to draw them, they do quite well. It was nice to see everyone drawing for a change and I am reluctant to open another center next week. I find that when the new center is introduced (it would have been collage), the interest in drawing drops dramatically. There are some classes that will still be doing just drawing next week because there is about 90% of unfinished work that will not get done if there is another choice. Surprisingly, it's the younger classes that are ready for another center. The older students need more time to work on their drawings. Here are some examples from just today. This first drawing was done by a second grader that combined 5 toys in one drawing. Clever....he came up with that idea on his own.