Inspired by Henri Matisse- Kindergarten

Henri Matisse is a popular artist to teach about in the elementary art classroom.  I've seen a lot of Matisse-inspired artwork from other art teachers.  His artwork is bright and colorful and lends itself well to teaching about shapes.  We read the book Oooh! Matisse and watched the video Dropping in on Matisse

The students learned about organic shapes and geometric shapes.

They also used their fine motor skills to use shape punchers.
 

Featuring Magazine

Have you heard about Featuring Magazine?
In the Spring of 2012, an inspiring magazine will see the light: FEATURING.
FEATURING is a printed magazine that can be ordered online only.
FEATURING will appear as a quarterly publication.

I am pleased to tell you that I have been working on writing some articles for the magazine, and I have been accepted as a contributing editor for the magazine.  Writing for magazines has always been a dream of mine.  In fact, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a magazine writer for celebrity magazines.. lol. 

The focus will be mainly on art journaling and mixed media, but other types of art will be highlighted as well. FEATURING wants to bring a spectrum of art-related articles and stories. You will also enjoy seeing pages jammed with collaborative projects, glimpses of studios, interviews, background stories, layouts, paintings, photos, poetry and much, much more!

There are many people whose work stays out of the spotlight. These people remain a bit in the background, but in silence, they create amazing art pieces. FEATURING is especially interested in these artists – their work, their stories and their sources of inspiration. So ‘silent ones’…come forward. Let us know you are there and submit your work! It might end up in the magazine! Oh, and all you not so silent friends, we would love to hear from you, too. The more the merrier, we like to say.
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Right now, here is a way you can participate immediately and quickly!
We have a new, quick survey for you to fill out for the upcoming magazine Featuring, which I am a part of.  It only took me a minute or two to fill out.  It's about Etsy.com shops. Have you ever shopped there?  Do you have an Etsy shop?  We are going to write an article in Featuring magazine about Etsy shopping.  So, would you pretty please fill out this survey for us?

Piet Mondrian-- Kindergarten

What are the Primary Colors?  Who was Piet Mondrian?

The Nest will be looking at artwork by the artist named Piet Mondrian.  Some of his artwork was characterized by use of a very simple color scheme (usually the primary colors and black and white). His art had strong, straight lines and repeated use of squares and rectangles.  The students will be able to name the primary colors and recognize Mondrian's artwork.  They created their own artwork using the primary colors and black construction paper.

 

We also read the book The Color Tree, which is a colorful story about the primary colors.  The Color Tree

Oil Pastel Landscapes-- 2nd grade

Oil Pastel Landscapes

By the Upper Primaries

This project focused on learning about foreground, middle ground, background, shadows, and color mixing.  The students learned simple depth techniques.  The Upper Primaries used oil pastels to draw a tropical landscape.  They learned how to mix and blend oil pastels to create rich colors.  Paul Gauguin was studied and in particular, the students explored his painting Tahitian Landscape.

Pointillist Trees

 

The 3/4s painted Pointillist Trees.  They have studied trees in Science.  We learned about the artist Georges Seurat by reading Scholastic Art magazine.  Students identified and described Pointillist paintings.   They created a Pointillist painting of trees showing dimension and form by color mixing.  Tips:  use the back end of the paintbrush, a q-tip or a small brush.  Keep the size of the paper small (9x12" is plenty).

Grandma Moses Landscapes -- 2nd Grade

The goals for this project are to

• Classify artworks as landscape, still-life or portrait.

• Identify and use foreground, middle ground, and background in two-dimensional works of art.

• Use size relationships and simple depth techniques to show space in an artwork.

We learned about the artist Grandma Moses and created a winter collage using various materials.  We read a couple books about Grandma Moses and looked at her artwork.

These are two books about Grandma Moses which are great for this project:












Grandma Moses (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)

Steps:  Day One-- I teach this as a step by step project so the kids don't get confused.

1.  Cut a mountain range from gray paper.  Tear a white piece of paper for the snowy ground.  Glue to a blue background.

2.  Draw and cut out houses.  Small houses go in the background, medium sized houses in the middle, largest houses in the foreground to create the illusion of depth.  Draw details on the houses with crayons.

Day Two:  Add more details with crayons:  animals, people playing in the snow, river or road (showing depth by going back into space), etc.

Day Three:  Paint trees and white snow with watercolor paints.  Finish up any remaining details.