words with wosene.

I've been working with our littlest artists the past couple weeks and they are experimenting with chalk pastels, too. We have been mixing colors and using letters and words in our drawings. For this activity, we are looking at the work of Ethiopian artist Wosene Worke Kosrof. He uses characters from his native language, Amharic, as the basis of his compositions.

We start the activity by looking at Wosene's website, so the kids can see him and a couple of his pieces. When looking at his paintings, we notice how some of the characters different sizes- big, medium, and small. We also notice how some of the characters resemble English letters and some look right side up, others look flipped upside down, and others look they are on their side.

Now, before getting to the letters part, we prepare to do some color mixing. The kinders have already done a collage that focused on primary colors, so we review them and then break our paper up into rectangles and squares by drawing horizontal and vertical lines. I model using the point of the chalk for this. When we start to fill shapes in, we use the side of the chalk and we try to keep our elbows up, so that our drawings and arms stay as clean as possible. (The kids also can choose to wear art aprons for this- I only have one size, so it's always a little comical watching them put the aprons on and having them come down to their shins;)

After laying the primaries in to all our shapes, we experiment with mixing by adding one primary on top of another to make our secondary colors. We also add white to a couple colors, so we can see how colors get lighter and not darker when we do.

The final step requires a switch to our greasy crayon- the black oil pastel. (I pull the black chalk pastel from all my boxes because, when they get used, drawings get out of control.) I model using a letter per shape to spell a name. As I go, I turn the paper in different directions to change the orientation of some of the letters. Once we have letters in each shape, we go back and make a few of them bold by pressing harder and making the lines thicker.

This activity has brought out a lot of joy in the kids. They're excited to see the new colors that they create and they have been digging the play of letters in their drawings.

kinders and knuffle bunny

This is my first week working with kinders this year and they are a delightful bunch!

I'm sharing the book "Knuffle Bunny Too" by Mo Willems with them as an introduction to line and shape. The main characters, Trixie and Sonja, are in TK, so it's a perfect fit:) After reading the story to them, I ask them if they have a toy that they love like the main characters of the book do. I encourage them to picture it their head.

I then ask them to practice drawing that toy. I emphasize that these do not need to be perfect! These drawings are a chance for them to share something important to me and the rest of the class. If they finish their practice drawings early, I ask them to think of a setting- where do they play with that toy? As they are planning, I make sure to go around and talk to each artist, so they can verbally share what they are drawing.

My little artists then look at their practice drawing and refine it on a larger sheet of drawing paper. I tell them that it's okay if the drawing looks a bit different than the first one and I talk about adding more details to their drawings because their paper is bigger.

They then trace their pencil lines and add color to their drawings.

This has been a great opening activity- it allows them to share something personal and it gives me an idea where students are coming in at in terms of fine motor control. It's also a nice intro to the planning stage in art.

making something beautiful.

This past week my kinders got to experiment with paint for the first time. Every year, it's always interesting to see how they handle themselves with the materials and this year's group of 10 classes did a fantastic job using enough water, cleaning brushes well, keep tempera cakes clean, and painting something beautiful:)

For this project, I used the book "Maybe Something Beautiful" to introduce them to painting, self portraits, and community. The book was written by F. Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell. It was illustrated by Rafael Lopez. The story and illustrations are wonderful. It's inspired by the murals that Rafael has created throughout his career, specifically the work he and F. Isabel have done in their East Village neighborhood right here in San Diego! It's such a treat to share the work of San Diego based artists and writers with our kids... the connection it makes is so strong. There's a whole lot of "I live in San Diego too!" At Zamo, I can also connect the story's message to our school because of the large number of murals we have covering walls around campus.

I start the lesson by reading the book with the help of my mic and doc camera. After that, we talk about what a portrait is and look at the portrait of Mira, the main character, on the cover of the book. I let the kids know that they will be making a self portrait, a picture of themselves, creating something that they think is beautiful. So, this lesson has elements of direct drawing and student choice in it.

We draw out the basic face shapes together at the bottom of the paper. When it comes to hair, I have a wide variety of hairstyles drawn on a sheet for them to refer too. I also include an example of a hijab and how to decorate it. We then use crayons to add color to skin, hair, clothes, and paint brush. I emphasize finding a skin color from the multi-cultural pack that best matches themselves. 

As students are wrapping up the crayon part, I put out the tempera cake trays and water bowls. I pass out brushes after my painting demo and emphasize that kids following the Zamorano Way will get their brushes first. I share how to wet their brushes and clean them between colors. Students can draw their painting out first or they can go for it directly with the paint. Some kids choose to paint recognizable shapes that they think are beautiful while others approach it much more expressionistically.

No matter how they choose to approach the painting part, there is a whole lot of joy in the room as they do so!

 A different take on the self-portrait:)

I also did this with my special day class. They painted a full sheet and added detail and skin color to a predrawn portrait figure that was then cut and glued onto their painting.

waiting is not easy!

This is my first week with our youngest kiddos at Zamo. I introducing them to this Mo Willems book was a pretty perfect way to start the year:)

We found out what the jobs of an author and illustrator are, while seeing and then practicing using line to make shapes and feelings. As I read the book, I would stop on different pages so they could tell me how Gerald the elephant was feeling by the type of line Mo used to draw his mouth. Kids also got to see how just a couple lines next to a character could make it look like he or she was moving.

The drawing is pretty direct- I pre-drew the head shape and we went through the character parts step by step. Kids had choices for type of trunk, leg position, and pupil placement. I love the expression that is present in so many of the drawing the kids did.

It's going to be a fun year with these little ones:)

 Look at those wrinkles!

 

 Gerald isn't sold on Piggie being where he is.

 

getting in the pond with Melissa.

The kinders are continuing their value unit this week. The focus image was done by American illustrator Melissa Sweet.  I love the soft touch with color that she displays in many of her illustrations. The 3rd graders are going to be working from an illustration she did for a book about Horace Pippin later this week as well.

We started the lesson by reviewing the vocabulary we used in the Budi Kwan project from last week- value, light, dark, soft, hard, and oil pastels. This project used all those too, but the 2 projects/artworks look a a lot different from each other.

Students identified the things they saw in Melissa's painting. We talked about how the painting is of a frog and it's habitat. (science connection for the win;) I guided them to also recognize that some of the lily pads were dark and some were light and the flower has dark and light pink petals.

The lesson is pretty straightforward-

1.  Draw the flower. Start with an oval and add a couple sets of bump patterns around it for the petals.
2.  Draw the line that separates the ground from the pond. Overlapping!
3.  Draw a few lily pads. Have at least one go off the page. I referenced pac-man for the shape. I also pointed out that the lily pad shape is a big "C" with a "V" cut into it.
4.  Draw the frog. It starts out the same as the lily pads, but you also add an "m" for where the eyes go.
5.  Color the lily pads with greens. Press hard on a couple and light on a couple. Color the petals of the flower. Press soft on the inside and light on the outer ones.
6.  Color the frog. Press hard with yellow and then softly with a green to make it a bit different than the lily pads.
7.  Color the ground softly with brown. Press hard to add a shadow underneath it. Use the side of the oil pastel to color a large area easily.
8.  Color the water of the pond with blue and/or purple.
9.  Write a guided sentence or two about the project. Students can count how many lily pads they have or describe how they made or used light and dark.