Rainbow Fish

3rd Grade listens to the story, "Rainbow Fish" and has fun cutting and tearing paper to piece together their very own Rainbow Fish.

LINES UNDERGROUND

3rd grade uses their imaginations to draw layers of the earth, using symbolic lines, and different weights of line. 

BAROQUE STYLE PORTRAITS

3rd grade uses images of the grandeur, rhythmic and ornamented clothing worn in the Baroque period (c. 1600) as well as examples of elaborate designs used in architecture of this time period to draw a self-portrait of themselves. If you lived in this time period, what would your hat and outfit look like?!

ERNST KIRCHNER - FOREST MURAL

Room 23

3rd graders have each been working diligently on class murals, studying German Expressionist Ernst Kirchner. Each student gets a thumbnail of his painting, and uses proportion to enlarge it using oil pastel. The key to a comprehensive mural is to work with your neighbors!

Gestural Figure Drawing

This week, 3rd grade learned how to draw their classmates using loose spirals which is taught in high school and college! It was very fascinating to observe how each student has a unique line drawing style. It was also beautiful to know that young people are so incredibly capable of much more advanced approaches to drawing from observation.

Pinch Pot Cupcakes

3rd grade learns how to make a pinch pot, in fact 2, to make cupcake bowls with a lid. 

 

 

Tiffany Lamps

3rd Grade reviews how to mix secondary colors, and learns how to mix tertiary colors to paint the beautiful glass on our Tiffany Lamps!

Amate Bark Cut-Outs

Today we learned about the art of the Otomi Indians of Central Eastern Mexico. We looked at the bark cut out designs, and learned that they represent spirits that protect or are a threat to the Otomi daily life.

These spirits are very important for many agrarian cultures who depend on certain weather patterns, cosmic alignments, and Mother Earth working with them (and against them) to survive. These artworks are traditionally made of a certain tree bark.

Fun With Ferns

Check out these beautifully drawn ferns done by 3rd graders. Focusing on concepts including visual texture, implied line and outline, 3rd graders rendered ferns with a personal artistic touch in each and every one of them. !

Art Star Awards

For the last day of the 16 week program, I had the students put their names on the artwork I chose for them to put in the End of Year Art Show. We then put our artworks up on the whiteboard, for a little "Art Star" Awards Ceremony.

Archimboldo: Veggie Self-Portraits

I have been wanting to do a lesson using Giuseppe Archimboldo's fantastic, odd, modge-podge, surreal portraits forever! I think this artist is fantastic for kids to experiment with in the art room.

Gee's Bend Quilt Blocks

To end the 16 week program, I thought the kids would have fun making quilt blocks using postcards of the Alabama Gee's Bend Quilts as inspiration. It was also a fantastic way to use up all of the paper scraps and strips I save from cutting paper during the year!

Cezanne Still Life Collage

3rd grade should be introduced to not only shapes, but how shapes are 3-dimensional forms. I got this idea, again, from my fabulous colleague who did a similar lesson with her Art Club.

Pinch Pot Fish

So it is my first year teaching ceramics, and I saw a bunch of ideas for animals with a pinch pot as the body. Super cute idea, not too hard... (for me to instruct at least). I did this with all 4 of my 3rd grade classes (roughly 100 kids + 1 Special Needs class - some pieces not pictured).

Modigliani Self-Portraits

Modigliani is known for his portrait paintings with elongated, stretched faces and facial features, the almond shaped eyes. Which is why he's a great artist to study for a self-portrait lesson - gives the student a little wiggle room for fun, not striving for perfection.

Starry Night Watercolor

My students added watercolor to their contours of Starry Night, seen on another blog post a few weeks back, here.

Mehndi Hands

The tradition of Mehndi is used in India and other Eastern traditions, usually done to women's hands during their rite of passage into marriage.

Shape Bugs

Lets make our lesson about Shapes, symmetrical shapes, asymmetrical shapes and patterns FUN.

Contour Seashells

3rd grade's contour was fun because everyone loves seashells.

Adinkra Cloth Printmaking

Kids love to do printmaking...To see the transformation from their hand-drawn symbol design on foam sheets, to the print it makes using black tempura, it's just fun AND academic all in one project.