Blooming Into Spring

This was the first peer lesson that was taught. The title was Blooming into Spring. We were taught how to create a crayon resist flower. To start the lesson off, the teachers gave us definitions of some of the vocabulary that was to be used that day. They also gave us examples of Gloria O'Keefe's  work, which included beautiful, full displays of flowers that took up, and sometimes went over, the whole canvas. This was to be our inspiration for our project. 

We were instructed to use oil pastel to create a flower that filled a 9x9 piece of paper. We were told to fill the paper as much as possible without being scared to make the flower run off the page. It was also suggested to press hard while using the oil pastels so that when we painted over it, they could still be seen. 

I decided to draw a sunflower because it is my favorite flower. I started out by drawing a large brown circle in the middle. The circle was surrounded by a smaller orange circle. I then drew on the yellow petals and smeared the orange and brown up into them. 

Once we were finished with our drawing, we got some watered down black tempera paint. We had to quickly paint over our flower, following the direction of the petals. When we finished painting we had to use our fingers or a paper towel to rub off most of the paint. We once again had to follow the direction of the petals. We could take off as much or as little as we wanted. 

As an extension activity, this technique could be used after writing letters to someone in the past in a social studies class. Once the letters are written, it would be cool to paint over it to make the letters look old and weathered. You could also be learning about different types of flowers and parts of a flower in science while this project was done. 

Hidden Safari

This activity was very hard for me because I am not very good at drawing and this took a lot of drawing. It really caused me to focus and try my best which is all we can ask for in our students! 

To start out, we created ruby red glasses. We took red construction paper and using a template, we traced and cut out the shape of glasses. We also got a sheet of red film or plastic, that we glued to the construction paper. These created our ruby glasses in which we would use later to be able to see our animal. 

In order to create a safari theme, we were given a packet of animals that we would see on a safari. We were instructed to pick an animal of our choice and draw them lightly in sky blue pencil. To make the drawing a little easier, we turned our animal outline upside down. We were instructed to draw the animal upside down. By drawing the animal upside down, it makes our brains focus on the line itself not the whole picture, which allows us to break it down a little more. 

Once we were done with the drawing of the animal, we then had to choose three warm crayons that we wanted to use. We were using these to draw patterns on top of our animal. We had to draw a different pattern with each color. We started with the lightest color (yellow) and moved to the darker colors (orange and red). Drawing these patterns on the top of the animal hid our animal. The only way you could see it is if we put on our ruby red glasses! 

Once our patterns were complete and our animal was hidden, we were instructed to write three clues about our animal so that if someone walked by them they could guess what animal it was without seeing it first. 

My three clues were: 1. I am a medium sized cat who lives in Africa and Asia. 2. I have gold fur and dark spots. and 3. I like to hang out in trees. I drew a leopard! 

Once our drawing and note card were completed, we glued both of them to a 12x18 sheet of construction paper to create a boarder around it and make the project easier to hang up. 

As an extension activity, students can study safari animals in science to see the similarities and differences compared to animals we see every day. They could also study where these animals are located in the world and create a map with each animal placed in the right spots on the map in a social studies class. 

Eric Carle Collage

This week we were inspired by Eric Carle. We started by watching a video of how he creates his books. He starts by painting his own colored papers using many different techniques. As those are drying, he draws out a scene for his books. He then places the scene he just drew on top of the colored papers he painted. He uses an Exacto knife to cut out the different pieces and then uses the original drawing paper as a template of where that piece goes on a blank sheet of white paper. I thought the video was very interesting and would be a great way for kids to get inspired and motivated to create their own collage.

After the video was done, we were able to create our own colored papers. We got 12x18 sheets of paper along with red, blue, yellow, white and, black paint. We were then instructed to create our own colors in which we could use to paint our own papers. We could also use many different textures in our painting. We had to paint the paper with water first and then we added the paint. I started out by making a purple which you can see ended up becoming the background to my picture. I also painted a sheet of paper brown to make the owl shown above. As we let the papers dry, we began sketching what our scene would look like.

Once our sketch was finished and the papers were dry, we were able to start creating our scene. To start the process, we cut out the pieces of our scene using an Exacto knife. Then we placed those pieces over the colored paper that we wanted to use and then cut them out. This step took a lot of patience because we had to cut each piece out of the template and then cut it out of what color we wanted.

We then placed the pieces where we wanted them on our white sheets of paper and glued them on when we liked where they were. Once they were all glued the scene was almost complete! I also added oil pastel stars and a fence post to my collage. The last step was to add a sentence to our scene. My story was about Timothy the Owl. The sentence I chose was, "Timothy the Owl was in charge of watching over the night sky."

There are many different ways to extend this activity. I would do a whole Eric Carle unit in which we would read a lot of his books and do different activities with them. For The Hungry Caterpillar, we could collect caterpillars and watch them turn into butterflies in the classroom as a science activity. We could also read,  The Little Cloud, and talk about different clouds that we see. We could create a cloud scope in which students can hold it up to the sky and see what type of cloud they are looking at. This would also we a science activity. 

Starry Night Tissue Paper Collage

Final product!

This collage was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Van Gogh was known for his abstract work using line, movement, color, and other elements and principles of design. We were assigned to create our own Van Gogh type collage using tissue paper. The directions were to take a 12x18 sheet of construction paper and add as much or as little tissue paper, however we wanted, to represent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. We then painted a gel medium on top to make the glossy look. Once it dried we had to add a landscape to it. I decided to do a wire fence to make it look like a field and stream behind the fence.  I used brown construction paper to make the fence posts, black pipe cleaners to represent the wire, twisted pipe cleaners to represent the barbed wire, and I had a cowgirl leaning against one of the fence posts. I also used my black oil pastel to rub a darker sky in the background. I then drew different lines and swirls using a sharpie and oil pastel to show movement like you see in Starry Night. 

Picture of the gel medium, tissue paper, and rubbed oil pastel background. 

Close up of the tissue paper, gel medium, and oil pastel background. 

Picture of the collage with the landscape added...not quite finished!

In the world of an Elementary education or Special education teacher, the two words, art criticism, can be very scary. Art criticism is the term used when writing and thinking about artworks. In Chapter 22. it discussed art criticism and stated that even if the teacher knows only a little about a piece of art, such as who made it, its medium, where or when it was made, student's can still learn as long as an attitude of questioning prevails. Three questions that could get a students mind rolling are: 1. What is it?, 2. What does it mean?. 3. What it its value?

An extension activity that can be used for criticizing art is to play an observing game. One student will face away from the rest of the class and have to describe the piece of art they are looking at. The rest of the class will close their eyes and imagine what the student is saying. They can either just think about it or draw it out. After a few minutes turn the piece of art around and see how different each students envisioned what they were told. 

Elements and Principles of Art.

This piece of artwork found in my roommates room shows radial balance because the design starts in the center and moves out. 

This bulletin board border is a great example of color because there are so many different  hues. 

This shower curtain shows a random pattern of circles. 

This wall in the Barnett Center shows texture. 

Footprint Project

For this activity, have the students trace their foot or shoe onto construction paper. Next give them all types of media; crayons, markers, paper, magazines, paint, ribbon, pictures, etc., to tell a story about their life. Explain to the students that the point is to use this to tell a story about themselves. On my foot I have nail polish because I love painting my nails; I made the  biggest bottle of nail polish purple because that is my favorite color. I also included post-it notes because I have many different types and colors and use them all the time. On each post-it note is one of my favorite quotes because quotes mean a lot to me. I find new ones all the time and really use them as motivation. The picture is of my cousin Danny who inspires me every day in many different ways. I also included part of a Dr. Pepper Label because it is my favorite drink.

There are many extension activities that could go along with this project. You could have the children do a footprint for each person in their family and introduce themselves that way. You could also give the student a character in a book or a famous person in history and have them create a footprint of what that person's life was or is like. Another way would be to compare the students interests and make a bar graph to show the class how similar everyone really is.