Graphic Design for 5/6s

How is design used in daily life?  What do graphic designers create?  How can we investigate a variety of symbols and fonts?   How can we use appropriate symbols, colors and fonts to represent ourselves visually?  Using letters and numbers, the 5/6s created a design that is meaningful to them. 


They

learned about the artists Robert Indiana and Bradbury Thompson.

Logos, careers and originality were the concepts stressed in this unit.  After the kids made these images, I shrunk the pictures down in a digital photo and they chose text to add to make a business card!  These were so much fun to make.  Although, I can't post the actual business cards because they have the kids' personal info on them.

Contour Line Shells

The second graders learned about contour line drawing and observed the qualities of seashells (to complement their studies of shorelines in Science).  We also looked at the scientific illustrations of shells by this artist:

Blog Hop

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Fabric Quilts

Primary Quilt Squares

Why do people make quilts?  How can a quilt tell the history of a family?  Can a quilt be art?  What is a pattern?  The Primaries discussed these questions and viewed pictures of quilts.

In Science class, the kids are learning about properties and attributes.  How do you observe things?  How do you use your 5 senses to learn more?  You can use your eyes to see and your fingers to feel these quilts.  You can describe the texture of the materials—rough, smooth, hard, soft.  You can describe the color.  You can describe the luster—shiny, dull or sparkly.  You can describe shapes.  Is the material thick or thin?  Does it have a pattern or is it a solid color?  How does the edge of the material look?  Is the material clear or opaque? 

These fabric collages were made with burlap, felt, fabric scraps, ribbons, buttons, sequins and jewels. 

Back to School Night

Here is a slide show I made for our Back to School night in case you are looking for ideas.

Mixed Media Collage

WHAT ARE THESE??

These have been in our art room since I've arrived 5 years ago and we really don't know what they are exactly for.  My guess is that they are used to hold clay beads while being fired in the kiln?   What do you think???

Pop Art Portraits

These lovely Pop Art portraits were created by our 2nd graders this week.  We read a book about Andy Warhol and watched a video about Pop Art.  We looked at and discussed Andy's use of bright colors, repetition and popular subject matter.  The artwork we focused on was his self portrait.   To prepare, cut a 9x12" piece of paper into 4 pieces.  You will need one quarter piece for each child.  The kids looked in a mirror to draw themselves on this paper.  Draw with pencil, then outline with a thin black sharpie.  Urge the kids to finish in one class period.  At the end of this period, take the pictures and photocopy them so each child has 4 copies.  Cut these apart for the kids.  Then, they should color each photocopy with bright markers.  When they are finished coloring all of the copies, they should choose a 9x12" piece of colored construction paper to glue all of their pictures on.

Here is the book and video we discussed.     

Tile Mosaic

The other tile mosaics I posted were just an "art illusion".  See I didn't actually glue anything down.  I was just trying to play with different arrangements before I actually made it permanent.  I decided the more tiles the better, make it look really busy.  My motto always tends to be "More is more."  These tiles include 4 large ceramic floor tiles that I bought at the hardware "reStore" and 10 smaller ceramic floor tiles.  These were painted with inks.  Then I have 8 small commercially made tiles.  Finally, 10 more pieces are made from Sculpey.  These clay Sculpey tiles were "test runs" for a project I want to do at school with the kids.  We make mosaics in the 4/5 class and I think it would be more fun to have them make some of their own tiles.  I tested out making some with regular firing clay also.  We'll see how those look when they are all finished.

Mondrian Collage-- Primary Colors

kindergarten Primary color Mondrian design

We did this project last week to introduce the primary colors-red, blue and yellow to the kindergartners.  We looked at the artwork of Piet Mondrian and discussed his use of color-- primary colors + neutral black and white.  We described the lines and shapes.  The kids then made their own Mondrian-inspired artwork using construction paper shapes. 

Artwork by Piet Mondrian

 

 

Farmers' Market

Farmers' Market Collage

Painting Tiles

OH, painting tiles!  How I love them!

Water bottle Flowers

At the very end of last year, my third grade students cut apart plastic water bottles to make these flowers.  I started them off by cutting the bottom of the bottle off, then they continued with scissors.  You can round off the edges to make the petals look more realistic.  Then, these were painted with acrylic paint.  I hot glued these down to a large white piece of foam board.  Some kindergarten students also made little round lumps of model magic and then poked wire, beads and chenille stems through the model magic.  These were also glued to the final piece.

Alphabet Art from the First Graders

What is a focal point?  How do artists arrange their composition?  What is emphasis?  How have words and letters been used in art?   

These are some of the questions the Primaries explored in their first unit.  We looked at the art of Stuart Davis by viewing a slideshow. 

The Primaries created a work of art using letters and numbers.  They choose one letter or number to use as the focal point and then surrounded it with other letters and numbers.









More examples from the 1st graders:

What can you do with a dot?

What is art?  What materials can be used to create art?  How do we properly use art materials?  These are the questions that the Nest (grade K) discussed at the beginning of the school year. 

They also learned about the most very basic mark in art... the DOT.  The class read the book:

They also looked at a slide show of artwork that uses dots.  These are some examples:

Aboriginal Art made in Australia.

Georges Seurat and his Pointillist technique.








Then, to make their artwork the Nest students cut out large dots (circles) and glued them to their background.  The next class period, they used paint dabbers and markers to add more dots.  Look what you can do with a dot!

the arts map! put yourself on the map.

Check out this arts map.  "Connecting the arts, artists and the community."  How cool!!!

Here is one of my clay pots.  I made it in college but I have it and still love it.

Flower Collage

I'm trying to find a way to use up all the photos I take.  Here is a mixed media collage using a flower photo I took.

Primary Self-Portraits and Machinery Drawings

I started out the year with the Primary students (1st grade) drawing small, quick self portraits. One kid drew himself as a pirate! lol.

The 4/5s (4th/5th graders mixed) looked at gears and drew them from observation.  I also had pictures of gears and machinery for them to look at.  I showed them basic steps to add shading and value.  After they had drawn 3+ gears, I told them that we would be turning them into inventions.  We had things like a cupcake maker or lego sorter!  We read the Scholastic Art magazine about Leonardo DaVinci's sketches and viewed pictures of his inventions. 

gears to draw

 

 

I'm still trying to figure out how to format pictures on this blogger.  Every time I try to place 2 pictures next to each other, it either looks wonky or just does not work.  Am I doing something wrong?