Kindergarten's Clay Houses

This is one of my favorite Kindergarten projects. 

 

Everyone's idea of a home is different or at least it should be ... this is something I remind them. We don't all live in houses that look like a square with a triangle on top. To help move away from that common idea, we start by visualizing and then drawing our homes before making them in clay.

 

we colored the bisqued clay with construction paper crayons and then painted over top with black tempera

:)

 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

First, I would like to thank Jim Dine for his amazing art. Second, I would like to celebrate the simplicity in his heart themed art.  A heart can say soooo much!  1st grade compared some of Jim Dine's heart art.

What do you notice?  Do these paintings have a different feeling?

Concentrating on printmaking (using the negative space) and making a symmetrical design (on our positive space)



LOVE

 



We watercolored the background and then added our own symmetrical heart using the stencil printing technique.  We added paint and pattern as a final touch.

Jasper Johns Collagraphs

In all honesty,  I used to dislike the artwork of Jasper Johns.  I thought it was boring, sloppy, and meaningless.  My opinion began to change once I saw his art hanging in the HIGH museum.  It was this experience that led me to introduce Jasper Johns to 3rd Graders in the form of collagraph print making. Now, I enjoy his art even more.  Thank you 3rd grade for opening my eyes.

 

After reading bios on 3 different artists (one being Jasper Johns), I showed this slide show

http://prezi.com/cz-9fqwseazf/untitled-prezi/?auth_key=566ebdf1c96c125428d34b1bc87cfe8c20c06f22&kw=view-cz-9fqwseazf&rc=ref-16871561.  At first I did not reveal the name of the artist that made the artwork. Instead, we investigated an artwork till we figured it out.  Funny, many started out by not being too keen on his art but then changed their mind.  Hum?

 

preparing our prints for display - adding oil pastels to the negative spaces, mounting and signing our art



flag

initials

meaningful numbers

date of something special

place setting

name

 Jasper Johns also did an artwork called Cups for Picasso.  Some of us had some time to make our version of a friend's profile. I certainly wish I had taken more photos of these.

 

action shot - adding pattern  to the negative space

 

Self Portrait Reductive Prints

Here I am, once again, with folders of art saved to my computer just waiting for a debut in cyberspace. I decided to post these reductive prints first ... for no reason in particular, just because.

Before beginning our printmaking, we focused on drawing our self portraits with correct placement and proportions.  We traced these drawings into a Styrofoam printing plate and then we printed layer one of our reductive print.

 

Afterwards, we cleaned off our printing plates, added pattern or a background to the negative space and hair and/or shirt if we wanted to jazz it up a bit.  This was simply done by pressing directly into the foam.  Then we cut out the skin (neck and face). This took some concentration, but we all did it like a master.  Now, using  remainder of the printing plate, we printing over top of our initial prints.   Enjoy!