bundling up in socal.

brrr...

Not really, but we can pretend, can't we?

Last week the kinders got into the season by creating mixed media collages based on the illustrations of Ekaterina Trukhan. They made 3d collages the week before and I wanted them to have a bit more practice with cutting, gluing, and pattern making.

Ekaterina uses simple shapes to create some adorable little characters in her illustrations. She recently had her first children's book published. I think the kids really enjoyed her work because kids are a big part of what she does.

We based our project on one of her illustrations and the kids identified the ovals, circles, and patterns that Ekaterina used. I gave kids 3 color choices for the hat and 3 for the skin tone. They cut out an oval for the hat and a circle for the face.

After they were glued in place the students added a simple face. I asked them to show how the kid was feeling in the picture through the type of line they used for the mouth. They then added patterns to the hat to make it more interesting.

The final steps were to add a jacket, patterned or not, and a simple background if the wanted to add one.

The kinders have a come a long way with their cutting skills this year. Most are holding the scissors correctly and a lot of them are getting the hang of turning the paper instead of the scissors as they cut.

The finished portraits certainly have a lot of character:)

little kids and big squids.

This week I met with our youngest students for the first time this year. I must say that they are a delightful bunch:)

First, I went over my art room rules and expectations with them and then I read them a book.

The book was I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry. We talked about how Kevin is both the author and illustrator of the book. We then figured out what an author and illustrator does in a book.

As I read the book to them, I used my digital presenter to show them the pages. On a number of pages I showed them parts of pages and froze them on the screen so they could see the page layout and composition in full. 

We noticed how the feelings of the characters were shown with simple mouth lines and we identified happy, sad, thinking, worried, serious, and angry. We also noticed how big the sea creatures were in relation to each other- small, medium, and large. We also talked about what makes a drawing simple and what makes a drawing look more real- the artist uses more detail.

I love reading this to my kids at home, so it was a treat to share it with our kinder students at Zamo. I like being expressive with the reading, so kids got to laugh, and got a little spooked when I would raise my voice for a couple of the angry characters' voices.

We then drew our own squids in an underwater setting.  We drew the squids in pencil first. Students tried to make the eyes about the size of oreo cookies. Students added a mouth that showed how their squid was feeling. They could add eyelashes and moustaches if they wanted.

I talked to them about repeating lines, colors, or shapes to make patterns very briefly and then students added tentacles that were made of line patterns. Everything got traced in marker to make the squid stand out.

Then kids added color to the squid. They could make a pattern or color it solid. Students added details and other sea creatures around the main character to make their underwater drawings look more complete. I drew a bunch of stuff on my example and they could copy those elements or do their own thing.

I really like the way these turned out. There is so much individuality present in the different drawings. It's interesting to see the different levels of fine motor control among the classes. The shakiness of the lines, irregularity of the patterning, and asymmetrical features give the different squids a real sense of life.

Great job on your first project kinder kids!

and we're off!

Good start to the year. Introduced the 2nd graders to line with the illustrations of Anne Smith. She does a lot of work for a variety of clients in the U.S. and in Europe. Her work is funky, and I mean that in a good way.

Not slick and polished. I'm attracted to the hand drawn quality of her work.

Anne has done a series of cup illustrations that I thought would be a good way to have students work with the functions of line.

We discussed how Anne used line in a variety of ways. She uses line to make natural and geometric shapes and to make some shapes look 3d while others appear flat. Some of her lines are outlines and some are implied by having one color meet a different one along an edge.

1. use contour lines to create a cup shape on a small sheet of colored paper

2. draw a few natural shapes on the side of the cup with pencil and then add color to the design

3. add color to the oval at the top oval of the cup and press hard on one side to lightly on the other to make it look like an opening and not a lid

4. cut out the cup shape

5. using crayons, create a background pattern or scene that relates to the shapes drawn on the cup. emphasize the need to make a connection between the two

6. glue cup onto setting