Primary Gumball Machines! First Grade!

In First grade, we had so much fun making mixed media gumball machines! We used our prior knowledge of lines and shapes to create the different pieces of the machine. Then, we glued all of the parts down to our background paper, and last, but not least, we got to use our fingers as a paintbrush to paint the gumballs!!!! The students mixed the primary colors together if they wanted orange, green, and purple gumballs for their machine! These turned out absolutely fabulous!

Here's Ms. Carney's!

and here are some great student examples!

Great work, First grade!!!

Russian Matryoshka Dolls - 2nd Grade!

For the past couple of weeks, our 2nd graders have been creating mixed media paintings of Russian Matryoshka dolls! These are the fun dolls, usually made of wood, that have smaller versions of each one inside one another. I actually collect Matryoshka dolls myself, so this project was extra fun and special!

First, the students drew out their dolls and designed them with a bunch of beautiful patterns. Then, they created a background for the dolls with watercolor paints. Check out some of the wonderful projects below!

Piet Mondrian Collages - 1st Grade!

Our first graders created some fabulous collage paintings as an hommage to the great Piet Mondrian! We've been learning about primary and secondary colors and this was a great opportunity to put our knowledge to work to create an amazing piece of art!

First, the kiddos put in the black lines by cutting strips from black construction paper. Then, they filled in all of their spaces with red, yellow, and blue watercolors. Amazing work!

Mixed Media Flamingos - 3rd Grade!

This week in 3rd grade, we began our project for the art fair. The students drew flamingos and then got to add a pink feather at the very end!

Here is my finished teacher example:

And here's some of the student's wonderful finished drawings!

Picasso Hearts - 1st Grade!

Since Valentine's is right around the corner, what a great time to learn about Picasso and symmetry! This is our second Picasso Project this year in 1st grade! The students first painted a lovely design on pink or red paper and then learned how to cut a giant heart out of their paper while it was folded in half! Then they got to add even more decorations to make it really special! Check out the great hearts below:

This is our lovely hallway display right outside the art room!

Holiday Carolers - 3rd Grade!

Our 3rd graders created these wonderful carolers before the winter break! I didn't get a chance to write about them before now, but these are just too awesome to pass up!

The students cut out and designed each and every part and the hard work paid off!

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!

Pointillism Snowmen/women - 3rd Grade!

Sorry, its been so long since I've posted fellow art lovers! (The holidays were super crazy!) Time to jump right back to the art world with we have been working on!

Our 3rd graders learned about pointillism last year in 2nd grade. (Pointillism is where we fill in our artwork with tiny dots of color so that from far away, it looks really neat!) We also learned about having our subject not show all the way in our picture - this changes the balance of our artwork. (Which is really awesome, too!) and because I love mixing mediums, we added details with construction paper and oil pastels! These turned out absolutely lovely!

Silly Sock Snowmen - Kindergarten!

In Kindergarten, we've been learning about mixing our drawings with cutting and gluing. To ring in the colder weather, we made some lovely snow men and snow women with silly colored socks!

These look awesome!

~Ms. Carney

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!

Picasso Monsters - 1st Grade!

During the first couple weeks of October, our first graders got to make mixed media monster faces after learning about Pablo Picasso and his unusual portraits of people. They really had a lot of fun cutting all of the pieces out and putting them together. This was another great idea from Mrs. Picasso's Art Room! Here's how they turned out:

I think the most fun part for the kids was adding in all the hair, bats, and pumpkins. Some of them even added in caves and the moon! How creative!

There's No Place Like Space! - 3rd Grade

So, our 3rd graders are currently learning about the solar system in science and I came across this wonderful project idea from What's Happening in the Art Room? . It was our first experience using my brand-new liquid watercolor paints! The kids loved how all the colors would smudge together and still keep their original hues, it was awesome! Then, they got to splatter paint their space background using white paint in a spray bottle! So much fun! And the cherry on the sundae was getting to put their very own face in the space suit of the astronaut!

Here's the example from WHITAR:

Here's what my students created:

(the blobs over the faces are just to follow our photograph rules, but I assure you, they look great!)

I think the overall favorite part might have been cutting up all of the "space junk" and gluing it on! :)