Grumpy Cat Animal Portraits! 4th and 5th Grade!

Hello again! For the past couple of weeks, our 4th and 5th graders have been learning about animal portraiture! For our project, the students drew a portrait of Grumpy Cat. Now, if you dont know who Grumpy Cat is, this is what he looks like:

He is has become an internet sensation! And as you can see, he just naturally looks grumpy! So, we started off with pencil sketches and used a black oil pastel to add some definition and shadows, like this:

Then, the students were given red and orange paint for the background. They were able to use the paint however they wanted, in whatever design they chose. These are the awesome results!

Great Job, 4th and 5th Grade!!!

Back for a new school year!

I am so incredibly excited to be back for another awesome school year! We are rounding the end of the 4th week of school already! Man, time flies! My first big project for the year (and it was a biggie!) was to create a Dot Mural for the entire school! So the first week in art, we read the awesome book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds, and it was just in time because International Dot Day was coming up fast on September 15th!.

After reading and discussing this wonderful story of bravery and creativity, each student created their very own dot, just like Vashti in the story! We hung up all of our Dots in the cafeteria, students and teachers, and boy! It was a bunch!

Here's to another great year! Talk to you soon!

~Ms. Carney

Picasso Number Face!

Right now at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, they have a WONDERFUL Picasso exhibit called "Picasso Black and White". It features a bunch of his monochromatic pieces over his career including paintings and sculptures. They do a wonderful night once a month called "Evening for Educators" where art teachers get to come to the exhibit, look around, go on guided tours, and listen to featured lectures! Its awesome! At one of the little break out sessions, they taught us how to draw the human face in the style of Picasso using numbers, and of course, I had to bring it back and try it with our kiddos!

So, here's how we get started!:

First, we have to draw in our numbers all connected together. Try to get up to 12!

Then, you can add in eyes, nostrils, eyelashes, eyebrows, whatever you want!

Here's a student example!

And of course, my favorite: COLOR!

Angry Bird Pop Art Plushies - 5th Grade!

For the past couple of weeks, our 5th graders have been working on a very exciting project: Angry Bird Plushies!!!! There are so many awesome contemporary pop artists out there who create plushies, and so I thought it was about time that we made our own too! I found this amazing idea on an art educator's blog, but I couldnt find it again to give credit where credit is due! So if this was your idea, let me know and I will for sure give you all the credit! ;)

Our students started out by cutting their pieces from felt, then sewing them together. Then, they cut out all of the features from felt as well, glued them on, stuffed it with stuffing, and then finally sewed their plushie closed! Here's how they turned out:

Of course, the girls made there's fabulous and sassy with bows!!! They turned out just great! I just love sewing projects!!

Japanese Koi Fish - 5th Grade!

Our fabulous 5th graders just finished their koi fish project! We learned about the history of the koi fish and all of the different variations that are out there! We also learned a new technique: watercolor painting with markers! Check it out:

Pop Art Experiment - 5th Grade!

Our 5th graders just finished up their first project of the year, Pop Art!!! I felt this was a wonderful starter project for the year because it was a nice introduction to blending colored pencils (which is an essential skill to have for middle school art), it was a nice introduction to digital art, it involved photography (my favorite!!), and it didn't require a bunch of drawing.

Before we started, we looked at a bunch of examples of Andy Warhol's pop art pieces that involved repetition of the same image, but all of them are different in some way.

Then, the students were able to pick 4 copies of 5 pre-selected photographs to work with. They had to follow certain color guidelines for each of the 4 copies:
1) a set of complimentary colors (red/green, purple/yellow, blue/orange)
2) the primary colors (red, yellow, blue)
3) the secondary colors (orange, purple, green)
4) any colors

(Sorry about the glare,  I laminated these to be able to hang in the hallway) :)

When they were finished, I had them glue the edges together to create one big giant piece of art. I think the kiddos thoroughly enjoyed this project!