swim, whale, swim!

One of the lead designers at CSA got back to me about our student artists' work today. Erik T. Johnson said that the design team was thrilled by what our fantastic student artists had created based on one of their images. They have now posted several of our students' creations on their client's blog (the French Paper Co.) for more people to see!

Erik also shared that the lead designer for the project was Jovaney Hollingsworth. Thanks for the inspiration, Jovaney, and thanks for the digital shout out CSA!

Way to go Zamorano second graders:)

a whale's tale.

A series of links from one art blog to another led me to the image by CSA  Design that you see below.

My first reaction (to self)- love this!

second reaction (to self)- 2nd grade line project!

It is such a great image. Cheerful and innocent. Rich with line and shape teaching points for my students.

Many of the images that the CSA Design firm has created (and they have made many, many of them) since 1989 have similar characteristics. Not necessarily cheerful and innocent, but rich in teaching possibilities and just very well put together. Very smart sense of composition and design. 

The students and I checked out a number of images from the company website and talked about the use of contour lines to create a variety of natural shapes. We touched upon the balance between positive and negative shapes (character and background). We also spent a few minutes talking about why the whale stood out from the background. A triple answer the class soon found out- due to its size contrast, its color contrast, and that it's right in the middle of the paper!

When we got to the hands on part of the lesson, the construction of the whale was done through direct instruction, but the whale patterning and background underwater elements were up to the students.

CSA used silver ink along with brown to stress the importance of the color of the paper in creating a striking image, but we went with white because I don't want all my silver sharpies to dry out so fast:)

The kids really enjoyed creating their own whale designs. They had a chance to incorporate a wide variety of underwater elements. The smart design of the original image really provided a great template for students to visually succeed with.

deux fois speakerine.

For the third grade classes I had today, I decided to reverse the color of the support that the students did their speakerine inspired designs on. The students still used silver sharpies, but switched over to colored markers instead of construction paper crayons for the pattern making.

A wide range of natural shapes were used by students for this project.

I wore the perfect shirt to reinforce the use of implied and actual lines in art today:) The design is by Joe VW, who has inspired 2 different lessons of mine.

stripes aren't just for zebras.

The second 3rd grade project this year is the first lesson I did that came from my interest in pinterest. Somebody posted it and I saved it to my "super cool art lessons" board. I am loving pinterest! It's such a great way to visually collect things that you want to reference later.

This French artist goes by "Speakerine" and is real name is Florent Bodart. I like his combination of realistic silhouettes and repetitive design to fill these shapes. The class and I looked at a number of images from his website and we discussed how Speakerine uses contour lines to make shapes and patterns, but then uses implied lines to describe the shapes in the image.

The students could choose any creature to base their design on. I did a number of examples on the board and I emphasized the importance of making their positive shapes big enough. If not, there would be too much negative space and the image would not be as successful because of that.

1. students drew out their creatures (if too small they started over or added another creature to fill more of the negative space)
2. students added light lines to the positive shape/s to create stripes
3. students filled the stripes with patterns using silver marker and construction paper crayons

The lesson was a good extension of the line lesson they did the week before, and it allowed more artistic license for them in the type of natural shape they wanted to use as their subject/positive shape.

feeling trees.

The second kindergarten project this year has revisited the use of line in art. I got the idea for the project from art education blogger  Anne Farrell from Australia and her blog called Use Your Coloured Pencils. Her lesson used the Karri eucalyptus trees as inspiration. I used the eucalyptus trees that are everywhere her in San Diego. Funny thing, these trees are not native to So Cal, they were imported from, wait for it... Australia.

Our kinder project explored how you can use line to make texture, who things feel, in art. I showed the students a couple photos of the trees in San Diego, views from a distance and close up, so we could talk about their coloring and their surface texture. We felt things around us like the tables, our hair, and our skin, and described how those things felt.

I showed them an example of the project and pointed out how I had used line patterns to create the textures of the trees and the grass. I also introduced them to the subject of landscape in art. We then spent a couple minutes identifying examples of landscapes that I have around my classroom.

Pretty straightforward lesson.
1. draw ground line
2. add trees or sky color to the background
3. add grass texture pattern
4. tear 3 paper white paper strips so they had paper for the trunks and the branches. We practiced this step without any paper before doing it. Bunny arms out front, one arm pulls and the arm pushes. Some kids got a bit carried away with the tearing and ended up with a pile of small bits:) I emphasized tearing each piece only once.
5. glue each tree trunk down. making the top of each trunk touch the top of the background paper. This was one of the most challenging steps of the project. getting students to recognize the top both parts and placing the trunks down appropriately. If they were not at the top I said that was okay, it just looks like the tree has been "trimmed'.
6. adding texture to the trees with line pattern
7. make the tree look round by adding a dark color shadow to one side of each trunk
8. adding a cast shadow from each tree. I modeled how my arm cast a shadow on the projector screen when I held it up in front of the projector light. I then asked them where a tree would make a shadow when it blocks the sun.

Two lessons down and the classes have been a real treat. I think having a kindergarten student at home has improved how I approach the way I work with kinders in my classes. Thanks lil' buddy! And thanks to Anne and her Australian students for inspiring me to try this project.

kandinsky, gainer, and zamorano?

Check it out!
Primary grade students in Boston did a project that was influenced by Kandinsky, Lee Gainer, and the work of our very own Zamorano student artists!

The kids in Boston approached the project in a similar way to our Zamo students, but their great teacher Rachel added recognizing and working with 2d and 3d shapes.
Very cool, perhaps our Zamo students should be thinking about some sort of art exchange with their counterparts in Boston... even though the Patriots beat the Chargers... again:(

birding with andrew.

I revisited the work of artist and designer Andrew Holder with my first 3rd grade lesson this year. I enjoy the way he abstracts and flattens natural objects in his well composed designs and prints.

As we were looking at images from Andrew's website we talked about how there are not a lot of contour lines present. He creates edges in his work by changing colors or values. We also identified his use of line, color, and shape patterns to give his work more variety and interest.

Drawing out the bird was done with direct instruction. I wanted to make sure their birds took up enough space in their compositions, so we walked through the bird step by step. There was more choice when th students added color and pattern to their creations.

I demonstrated how to use crayon pressure to make tints of colors on white paper. This idea of controlling hand pressure is one of the toughest concepts for my students to "grasp". Students applied color and tints to the main bird body, the sun shape, and the background border.

The tail feather patterns were open to the students' creativity. I asked for 2 things only- that they create an ABAB pattern and that they leave a part of either the A or the B white for visual variety.

The students thought it was quite cool that Andrew works for Roxy and they got a kick out seeing how, in some cases like the design that inspired our project, how he prints them in a variety of colors.