Wild Beast Landscapes

My fifth graders started the year learning about fauvism, and we've been working smaller than normal (9 x 12 vs 12 x 18).  Mostly because I know my Artome' show is in the spring and I want to be R.E.A.D.Y. this year (no desperate last minute gluing at 10 pm the night before it needs to be mailed, or at least LESS desperate last minute gluing).  I'm also taking an online course for graduate credit to update/better use Schoology, which our district uses for online things rather than Google Classroom.  It's really forced me to think about what students are doing, what leads to what, etc.  All that being said, this is our last paper fauvism project (I still have a digital one for them to complete in my online fauvism folder, but that's more a leading-to-cubism assignment).
Student used ONE COLOR of Mr. Sketch markers to draw a simple landscape, and then traced their marker with glue:

Ugggghhh, sorry it's sideways.  This is an example of
the appropriate amount of glue (and that line going through the
tree can/will be fixed later with paint).

This is an example of WAY TOO MUCH glue.

The biggest problem at this point was having a totally flat surface for drying (drying racks angle too much for some) and drying time (it's been super-duper rainy here).

Once they dried and their glue was all colorful (it pulls the marker out and changes the glue color) we used liquid tempera to paint them wild colors:

They're really beautiful, and even the ones that were a little muddied are pretty great:

Not everyone fully finished, so we might still add some oil pastel details.  Or not.  We'll see what this wild beast of an art teacher feels like doing this afternoon!

Hall Displays are Up and Running

While I love the "newness" of a new school year, I'm a typical artist/hoarder and dislike the blank blank walls.  I try to get student work up as soon as I can (and I've already taken some things down and replaced with another grade level).  Here's what the halls in my school look like now, on the sixth week of school:

Construction paper 'flips,' fifth grade, Matisse inspired.

Color wheel clowns, first grade.

George Caleb Bingham inspired landscape paintings, fourth grade.

More landscapes, I love the color mixing on the bottom left.

More construction paper flips, and
some kindergarten Mondrian lines further down the hall.

Dairy Delight Dogs, second grade

Lascaux inspired cave paintings, third grade

I've been trying to keep up with kindergarten, and we're doing color scheme giraffes.  When I was gluing them together to get ready to hang, I noticed this:

I don't know that I've ever seen a more prime example of a reason to re-teach  a concept in my life.  Good thing I've got six and half more years with them to get them to understand primary and secondary colors. 

Faux Stained Glass in Fifth Grade

This is a lesson I blogged about years ago, and you can read that post here.  My fifth graders are looking at/learning about Fauvism right now, and we did two little/quick Matisse lessons.  One was a construction paper "flip," and the other was a stained glass lesson:

Several things were different this time as opposed to years ago.  I learned that the pre-mixed black glue doesn't work for the peel off--it's too brittle.  And, student attention span seems to be shorter than ever.  (Or maybe I didn't give great directions????)
So, in case you didn't read the linked post, I had students do a pencil design on paper in their sketchbooks:

And then we laid overhead transparency film on top and traced the design with Sharpie, then black glue:

I rescued this one from the trash, so that's why it's a little beat up.

Finally, we added colored tissue paper with watered down glue:

This is the side students work on, which is essentially the back.

This student was unhappy that her glue line ran.

I really hope they all made them home in one piece and that they've got them up in their windows!

I Love This Clay Project

I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for new clay projects.  And in 18 years of teaching (HOW did THAT happen????) I've never done fifth grade the same way twice.  
With my fifth graders this year, I decided to look at some modern ceramic artists and found Christy Keeney and Liz Scrine--two working British artists.  Go ahead and look them up, their work is ah-maze-ing! I also had some designer silkscreens from Mayco that I really wanted to try out (I like the bugs best, but my students liked them all).
Our first step was to design and build a slab person, here some of them are after firing (apparently I was too excited about the next step to take any photos of that).  So here's some photos of them after we silkscreen'ed on them:

It's very obvious that she was inspired by Christy Keeney's work.

This student has done NOTHING all year,
ceramics may be 'his thing.'

I do love this one!

This is a special needs friend, and he did the BEST on his silkscreen.

  
The process for this is pretty simple, you draw around the image and cut it out (larger than your outline).  Then USE TAPE ('cause that wet-it-and-it-will-stick that it says on the directions totally does not work) to attach the silkscreen (smooth side down) onto the bisque fired clay.  Next, mix a small amount of glaze (we used Stroke & Coat) with the silkscreen medium powder (it's about $4/container and I forgot I had some and ordered two more, so it's obvious that I now have enough for the next 150 years) and use your finger to smoosh it through the silkscreen.  I did this at one table with small groups of students as they were working on another project, then put them immediately in the kiln for a second firing.  When done correctly, the detail is awesome!
So, after they were all fired again, we used tempera block paint to paint them:

Here they are all done, dry and ready to go home:

Hard to see in this photo, but the spider is amazing!

There is a silkscreen'ed ladybug under the rainbow.

I just love this one, even though she missed silkscreening.

Gotta have some rainbow hair!

It's Hillary Clinton.
Because of course it is.

About Me Books To Share At Parent Teacher Conferences

I started fifth grade off a little differently this year, which was both good and bad.  Good because it made me think about each step along the way more than usual.  Bad because later I went to grab their sketchbooks and realized we never started them (I hadn't even copied them).  But it's all working out.
We started the first art class with some brainstorming about themselves.  What do they like? What questions (about anything) do they have?  What are their goals.  Then each student got a piece of 12 x 12" white  paper that we folded into fourths. They drew some things like right now in two squares diagonal from each other, and free painted in the other two squares:

The next page in this project was their names, drawn block style, and colored with neon crayons (again, the 12 x 12 paper was folded into fourths):

The two squares are intentionally left blank.

The final page was a 12 x 12 piece of construction paper we collaged with goals for our future.  One fourth was for home goals, one for goals with friends/relationships, one for goals for school/academic, and the final one was personal goals. About half way through I was really wishing I had a broader selection of magazines, because the going got rough there for a while finding images that fit student goals.

Close up of some school goals.

The final step was to glue the three pages together and fold along the diagonal.

The first and last pages were folded artwork sides out, the middle was folded blank/back side showing:

Name side folded in. You can see the backwards fold line
in this photo for the first page.

So at the end it's a neat little 6 x 6 bundle, and we added a cover with marker.  Here's a video of it unfolding (thanks to a co-teacher for being the model):

I did give them to the fifth grade teachers to hand back during parent teacher conferences because I couldn't figure out a good way to display them. My goal was for them to have a little snapshot of themselves as fifth graders for their future (and also to get them thinking about their future goals, Leader in Me style).