Henri Matisse Drawing with Paper Collages

Henri Matisse's collages are absolutely beautiful. The organic shapes and compositions, colors, and the actual size of the artwork is astonishing. We had so much fun today!!

St. Basil's Cathedral - Oil Pastel

Our last art class at the Ladera Rec focuses on St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, Russia.

Rainforest Tree Frogs

A trip to Latin America to create Rainforest Tree Frogs

Amate Bark Paintings

Ladera Art Club learns about Mexican Folk Art, and makes our own, using neon paints.

Winter Birds

2nd grade uses up every last minute of art class to finish these fabulous mixed-media bird collages!

Neighborhood Shapes

1st Grade shows us what their neighborhood looks like, using simple shapes, cutting triangles from squares, and using line pattern to add fine details to their neighborhood story. 

African Safari Silhouettes

5th Grade creates beautiful sunsets using watercolor techniques to create an African Silhouette scene. This project challenges the way we look at a shape, and how to pay attention to the negative space around and inside a shape. 

Crocodile Shapes

This lesson was a very important learning experience for Kinders. And an honor for me to be a part of this experience. Practicing scissor dexterity and recognizing shapes are both very important foundations in art, and rewarding for the students because "Yes! You can do it!"

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.

California Missions - Van Gogh Style

 

4th Grade tears paper to "build" a CA Mission while recognizing geometric and organic shapes. We learned how to draw a landscape in the impasto style of Vincent Van Gogh. 

Winter Birds II

This is round 2 of the 2nd grade Shape lesson. After some practice getting the hang of the procedure in the first round, you can view it here, these Male Western Tanager's came out just as fantastic as the American Robin's and Buntings. The only difference is this group used a 2nd tree branch.

Concepts included were geometric shapes, overlapping shapes, ornamentation of shapes, and an introduction to 3-dimensional rendering of shapes.

Winter Birds I

2nd Grade did such a great job with these Shape Birds! We learned how to recognize the basic shapes and proportions of each body part in photographs of 2 birds found locally in Northern California: the American Robin and the Lazuli Bunting.

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.

Henri Matisse "Kelp" Forests

4th Grade had visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium earlier in the year so this lesson reinforced the excellence of KELP!
(ok....aaaaaand positive shapes, negative shapes, organic vs. geometric :) )

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.

Shape Bugs

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

Wild Cat Silhouette Landscapes

A lesson on shape, my small 5th grade class voted on what subject matter to do for this lesson. Wild cats, cats, cats! and more cats. So I modified a lesson to make them excited about this project.

Thiebaud Torn Paper Gumball Machines

3rd Grade

Castro Elementary School

Mountain View, California

This lesson certainly is FUN and creative and can go in MANY directions.

California Missions - Torn Paper

4th Grade

Monta Loma Elementary School

Mountain View, California

This lesson was a curriculum tie-in with what most 4th graders are learning about - California.

Positive / Negative Faces

3rd Grade

Monta Loma Elementary School

Mountain View, California

This was a challenging Shape project for these 3rd graders! It was hard for them to imagine what their face would like, until they glued down the negative space of the around the, and the positive shape of the face shape.