on the road.

The first lesson I did with the 3rd graders focused on line and 3d space. We looked at a print by an artist named Meme.

I talked to the students about the use of contour lines in the image, and how these lines outlined the shapes. We then looked at how Meme had made the drawing look 3d. Students identified that things in the front and things got smaller in the background. They also picked up on the change in value from foreground to background.

We then looked at Meme's use of diagonal lines on the road in the drawing. We identified that the road got smaller as the diagonals got closer and closer. We tried to come up with as many words to describe this difference- wide/narrow, thick/thin, fat/skinny, big/small, etc. This was a simple introduction to the basics of perspective.

My original plan was for students to execute their drawing in just black, white, but changed my mind before meeting with my first class. I'm glad I did. The variety of colors in the drawings makes looking at a large group of them more interesting.

Students drew in pencil first, traced everything but the sides of the road, and then added color with crayon. Students could choose the place their character was heading toward and they could style their character how they wanted as well. When they added color, I emphasized pressing harder in the front and lighter as things went back in space.

This lesson took the full hour, plus an additional 10 to 15 minutes of the next meeting time.

The two images above were done with the student's non-writing hand. She gets her cast off in a week. She can totally draw with both hands now!

lift off...

with Justin Mezzell.

I have had a few of Justin's images saved on my desktop for a while. There's a real strong retro feel to his work. I like the types of shapes he uses, very clean and sharp. I also like the mystery that surrounds the subject and settings in some of his work.

I met with a second grade class today that I didn't meet with last week, so they had not done the roadrunner desert landscape. With one of Justin's images we were able to investigate similar elements about 3d space and volume.

We looked at a few of Justin's images from his website and the kids thought his stuff was pretty neat. They were really digging the outer space stuff, so when I told them we would be focusing on the piece called Lift Off, they were very enthusiastic:)

We looked at how Justin creates 3d space through value and color changes. The shapes in the front are very light and the shapes in the back are dark. Students noticed that some shapes like the rocket and rocks looked 3d because of his use of light and dark.

I also introduced the concept of symmetry in art by pointing out that a number of shapes are mirror images of each other from left to right.

Students drew out their designs in pencil and then selected 3 colors plus white to add color to their drawings. In order to create a change in color value, students had to adjust how hard they pressed the crayon to the paper. I asked that they use white for the smoke in the front, but then they could put the other colors where they wanted.

The examples below are from just the one class. Mrs. Tooley's students did an excellent job with the project. I'm looking forward to doing it with a couple more classes tomorrow.

look out for those cacti!

The 1st graders' first project focused on geometric shapes, contour lines, and texture. I wanted to revisit a couple of those elements while looking at different types of shapes.

Enter Geninne Zlatkis. She is a painter and illustrator, living in Mexico, that keeps an amazing blog about her work, her process, and her inspirations. One of the things I really appreciate about her blog is her images and videos of works in progress. She allows readers to see behind the curtain so to speak.

Her paintings of the natural world have a fresh and vibrant sense of color that is complimented by the delicacy of her line work and rendering of texture and pattern.

The students viewed her blog with me and we talked about some of her subjects- plants and animals. These subjects are examples of natural shapes in art and, well, nature. We talked about how Geninne uses line in different ways to may cacti look spiky, birds look feathery, and fish look scaly.

The final thing we talked about before starting their drawing was color. In the previous drawing they did,  students could use any color they wanted. This time, they could only use the primary colors, plus pink because it is a tint of red. We reviewed the secondary colors that are made by mixing the primaries and when I showed them an example of what they would be doing I discussed how I made those new colors by blending different primaries together.

1. draw cacti and birds with pencil
2. trace contour lines with black marker
3. color shapes with primary color crayons, mixing them together in different combinations to make secondary colors in areas. press hard and soft to create dark and light versions of those colors.

charlie 5.

Figure 5 in Gold is one of Charles Demuth's most famous paintings. It may not appear to be so, but it is actually a portrait of one of his friends, the poet William Carlos Williams. Obviously not a physical likeness, it is based on imagery that is from one of his poems called The Great Figure. 

I decided to use this painting as inspiration for the 3rd grade classes first project with me this year. They had spent the first 4 weeks of the year with one of our other art teachers, Ms. Pothier and with her they focused on creating different values and making 3d space by making things smaller and smaller. They applied these concepts to projects while examining the work of Van Gogh, so I thought it would be interesting for them to apply these concepts to something that was very different visually. That way they can see that 3d space can be created both in work that is more realistic and in work that is more abstract.

We discussed what was happening visually in Demuth's painting as well as where he got the idea for this  "portrait". Before I told them how it actually was a portrait, I had students offer their own interpretations of the painting. Students in each class came up with some pretty good ideas based on very little information provided to them.

I emphasized his use of contour lines to define the edges of shapes and his repetition of the number while making them smaller and smaller to create some depth in the image.

I deviated from Demuth's color palette and introduced them to warm and cool colors in nature and art, so that students could use them to make certain parts of their image stand out against other parts.

When I showed them an example that I did, we also discussed how to turn a flat shape into something more 3d. By pressing hard and then more softly and softly, you can turn a circle into a sphere. While doing so with color, you make tints of the color because it mixes with the white of the paper. They had practiced shading like this with graphite in Ms. Pothier's class so they were familiar with the idea.

Before starting on their own versions, I emphasized to the students that they must have a reason for the number they were going to draw, just as Demuth did. It could be how old they are, how many people are in their family, their favorite number, etc.

1. choose a number and a reason for that number

2. I demonstrated how to make numbers 0 through 9 visually interesting as block or bubble numbers with a little flair

3. practice the number a few ways

4. draw it 3 times  going from big, medium, to small

4. add 5 circles. one has to go off the paper and one has to be overlapped by a number

5. add 7 lines to break up the background and negative space

6. trace all lines with a black marker and erase pencil lines

7. add marker color to numbers- choose to use either warm or cool colors at this point

8. add color to circles with crayons, using same group of colors as are on numbers. make circles into spheres by adjusting hand pressure to go from light to dark

9. add the opposite group of colors with crayons to the shapes made with the 7 lines. again, going from hard to soft hand pressure to go from dark to light color tints

This project took us about one and a half meetings.