Spring Paper Mosaics

Here are 2 different mosaic projects I have done with my students. One is a mosaic butterfly that I do with my 1st graders. the other is a mosaic flower I do with my kindergarteners.

Materials: Photo examples of glass or tile mosaics, construction paper,  scrap pieces of paper, glue.

Vocab: Mosaic, pattern, design, repetition, space, shape, symmetry

Start by cutting the basic shape of your mosaic from a 12x18 piece of colored paper. Using scrap paper, cut small squares and rectangles and outline the entire shape with one color. Repeat this process until the entire piece is complete (Kindergarten). First graders will get a little more creative with their mosaic tile designs. When butterflies are finished, add a body and a face. When flowers are done, add a stem and leaves.

Mother's Day Jars

My third graders used their clay project as a mother's day gift this year. This was my first time teaching how to make jars. We ended up with many different sizes, shapes, and decorations on the jars. Below is a photo of some of my favorite "basic" jars. Some students made their jars more complex.

Materials: clay, a mat or cardboard, cup for water, clay tools (or a sharp pencil), paint brush and water, tempera or acrylic paint.

Vocabulary: clay, pinch pot, slab, pattern, design.

Method: Students will form a small piece of clay into a ball and make a pinch pot. With a smaller piece of clay, roll another ball and then flatten it into a slab (like a pancake) so that it is the same size as the opening of the pot. Roll another small ball for the knob to go on one side of the slab.

We then used a sharp pencil to etch a design of choice into the clay. Some kids wrote a surprise message inside the jar. In the kiln they went.... and we painted them with tempera paint. The jar pictured above is the blue and orange jar below (upper right).

Hopefully the moms loved these! 

Pointillism Hot Air Balloons

This is the last project my 4th graders dove into this year. We learned a lot about Georges Seurat and his pointillist technique.

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

 "Georges Seurat (December 2, 1859 - March 29, 1891) was a French painter and draftsman. His large work Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, his most famous painting, altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-impressionism, and is one of the icons of 19th century painting.

Seurat was born into a very rich family in Paris. His father, Antoine Chrysostom Seurat, was a legal official and a native of Champagne; his mother, Ernestine Faivre, was Parisian.

Georges Seurat first studied art with Justin Lequiene, a sculptor. Seurat attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1878 and 1879." Taken from http://www.georgesseurat.org/

Pointulism is a technique of painting similar to impressionism. For this technique, dots or dashes of pure color are juxtaposed so that from a distance they blend creating a new color. Take a look at the color wheel below!

Materials: 12x18 white paper, watercolors, pencil, crayola markers, example photos of hot air balloons

Vocabulary: George Seurat, pointillism, shape, outline, watercolor wash, primary colors, secondary colors, foreground, middleground, background. 

After learning about Seurat and the pointillism technique, we looked at images of hot air balloons. On a 12x18 white piece of paper, we drew 5-7 hot air balloons in pencil. We started with the largest/closest balloons in the foreground first, then some medium sized balloons in the middleground, and very small balloons in the background.  We also drew a ground line in the background.. 

For the next class we watercolor washed the sky and ground. Once it was dry, we began the pointillism technique with regular crayola. 

The bad news was that we ran out of time to finish these.

The good news is, most kids have crayola markers at home and could finish them there :)

I wonder if any of them did finish them at home. I hope I have the opportunity to do this project with another class. I can only imagine how pretty these would look as complete works!

The Dinosaur Who Lived in my Backyard

In 2nd grade, we reinforce what we learned about foreground, middleground, and background with this dinosaur landscape. I like this project a lot because it really takes a lot of imagination :) We begin by reading "The Dinosaur Who Lived In My Backyard" by B.G. Hennessy. We then imagine what our backyard might have looked like during the time dinosaurs lived. We then imagined a dinosaur in our backyard and what it might have looked like.

Materials: 12x18 white paper, black permanent markers, watercolor paints, paint shirts, paint brushes.
Vocabulary: Dinosaurs, outline, pattern, foreground, middleground, background, landscape, size, shape.

Some of the second graders at Ball Elementary have been learning about dinosaurs in their classroom, this this project was a blast.

Georgia O'Keefe Flowers

Every spring my third graders learn about Georgia O'Keeffe and her large scale flower paintings. We did our own using oil pastels.

Materials: 12x12 square paper, photos of flowers, chalk, oil pastels

Vocabulary: Georgia O'Keeffe, complementary color scheme, alagus color scheme, monochromatic color scheme, texture, technique,

We talked about different color schemes to use when filling in the flower and background. 

It's always been one of my favorite projects to do!

-Miss Scannura

Torn Paper Caterpillars

We are back from Spring break. It's finally SPRING! kindergarten made these adorable caterpillars out of torn pieces of paper.
We talked about variation of color, pattern/repetition, and overlapping.

Materials: black background paper, small pieces of colored paper for tearing, glue, black markers.

Next we will be making butterflies!

"Parade of Pigs" For Kids

The "Parade of Pigs" is a fundraiser put on by the Ball Chatham Education Foundation, the Chatham art teachers, and young artists in the Ball Chatham School District. This is the 2nd year we have done the parade of pigs in my school district. It has been a huge success! Each teacher paints, over-glazes, and fires his or her own pig in our brand new kilns. Kilns we did not have last year, but were able to purchase with the funds raised from the Parade of Pigs last year!! Yes....I love my new kiln!

The following was taken from the Ball Elementary website:

"Meet 2013’s Parade of Pigs from Ball Elementary. Our St. Louis Cardinals pig, “The Baseball Hog”, was design by Art teacher, Emily Scannura. Levi Vorreyer, 4^th grader, designed “The Amazing Pork of Art”. Our pigs will be on display at local sponsors until May 16^th . If you see a pig, feel free to donate money. Money raised will be used to upgrade the high school auditorium. On May 17^th the pigs will be auctioned off at the Island Bay Yacht Club. Please see any schools home web page or the Ball-Chatham Foundation’s web site for ticket information."

All 20 of our district's pigs were on display and accepting money at this years all district arts show on May 10th.  Guess which pig made the most money....You guessed right!  Miss Scannura's pig, by far.  This can only mean two things, there are either some diehard Cardinals fans or some diehard Miss Scannura fans out there. :) 

Hope to see you at the auction on May 17th!

-Miss Scannura