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!

Winter Tree Collage - 4th Grade!

Our 4th graders designed their very own papers to create these wonderful tree collages. We also collaged the foreground, middle ground, and background! (Which we've never done before!) These turned out just great!

Statues of Liberty Collage - 4th Grade

Our 4th graders made some patriotic artwork too! We created pictures of the Statue of Liberty with torn pieces of paper we found in magazines! First, we sketched out the shape of the statue, then we got to work finding all of the colors we would need to fill in the statue. We learned about collaging and how its better to tear the paper, than to cut it.

At the very end, we outlined the statue with a black oil pastel to add some extra definition.

Drawing with Scissors - 4th grade!

In 4th grade, we talked about Henri Matisse and how he used collage techniques and scissors to cut out different shapes to create a piece of art! My students really loved the idea of getting to be spontaneous with lots of different and unique papers and a pair of scissors!

This one is awesome because this student made theirs into a low-relief paper sculpture and it turned out great!!!!

I had a decent collection of old scrapbook papers of some that I had gathered myself and some I was able to get from the Center for Recycled Art Teacher Warehouse. They have a sale once a month for educators to come and explore all of their recycled materials. Each paper bag full is only $5! Whatever you can get in the paper bag, you get for just $5! It was a really great experience and I cant wait until the next sale!