Indian Elephants

This project was inspired by the wonderful Ink Elephants at Fun Art 4 Kids and Deep Space Sparkle and Indian Elephants at Painted Paper. All my classes created multi-media Indian Elephants. We learned a few facts about these animals on the endangered species list who have been a common subject in Indian art for ages. They are a symbols of wealth and royalty. During the Elephant Festival in Jaipur rows of painted and decorated elephants parade up and down though the crowd.

To create their own Indian Elephant the children followed a lesson using a combination of circles and ovals to create the large volume of the animal combined with a contour drawing lesson to capture the details. Washable makers and water create the inky, watercolor effect. While drying a decorative border was created on a colored piece of construction paper. The children created a printed pattern using the backs of paint brushes and sometimes fingerprints. Scrapbook paper and markers were used to adorn their elephant.

Weather Themed ATC Swap

Taken last week from outside our window

Considering the terrible weather that is effecting much of the nation right now, I hope no one will resent the timing of this post. A big thanks to Mrs. Hahn (Nichole) from Mini Matisse for inviting our 3rd-5th grade after school class to participate in her weather themed ATC swap. A couple weeks ago I told my students that since our weather in Orange County, CA is so different from Minnesota, the theme was ideal. On this particular day the fog had rolled in (as often happens near the coast) and the temperature dropped to a chilly 55-60* (tongue firmly placed in cheek :) One of the girls said that our weather was probably not that different. I told Nichole this and she wanted me to share with my kids that the temps at that time were well below zero. I think they have a better picture now. They especially enjoyed the slide show of her family's ice fishing excursion on her blog.

So each of my children received an adorable one of a kind printed snowman. On there way to Minnesota are our sunset with palm tree silhouettes. We created the sunsets with watercolors and used fine black markers to create the palm trees and ocean (in some cases).

Thanks again for the opportunity Mrs. Hahn!

Rhinos Who Play Soccer and Baseball

Rhinos in progress

Last summer several of my classes did pieces based on Julie Mammano's children's book, "Rhino's Who Surf." It was such a hit with the kids, (and I recently received a wonderful compliment from the author and illustrator herself) I decided to do a project based on 2 of her other books, "Rhinos Who Play Soccer" and "Rhinos Who Play Baseball." I did provide a head template for those who needed it to make sure we didn't end up with any "pinheads." From there they followed a loose line drawing lesson. These were fun for them to create since the shapes were big and bold. They could design their own soccer or baseball uniform any way they wanted, coloring in with oil pastels. They then created the backgrounds using watercolors. These fun and lively rhinos mirror the personalities of the artists (5-8 yr olds) who created them.

Jim Dine Valentines

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

my experiment above

In honor of the approaching Valentines Day I thought I'd have the children create a Jim Dine inspired heart print. This session has been all about finger painting. So that is how we created our base. There were no rules here. I just reminded them to watch out for what colors might create a muddy look: all the complimentary pairs, red and green, yellow and purple, and orange and blue. This was a great little color theory lesson. After our base had dried we cut out styrofoam hearts that we carved designs into with pencils. We printed these hearts with black acrylic. After these were dry some children used oil pastel to finish their pieces. I loved the looseness of this project. It was a nice departure from all the direct line drawing lessons we've been doing.

Matisse Mishap

Love your bold shapes and patterns Daniella(8)!
Violet's work in progress

*No fish were harmed in the making of these paintings." (but it was awfully close)

I had to post my memorable art class experience today. Half of my class is away at Outdoor Science Camp for the week. So I just had a small group of 5 girls. Several of the girls are still working on their Matisse inspired goldfish still lifes. Last week I had this still life set up for them to create their pieces. Today I decided to put my niece's goldfish bowl in the center of our art table. Midway through the class the legs on one side of the 6 foot table collapsed sending the fish bowl rolling off the table and sending paint and water cups along with it. Imagine five girls screaming, one very wet 3rd grader and 2 goldfish (not the beta shown above) flopping on the ground. Fortunately this girl was a trooper with a wonderful sense of humor (thank you Violet), I scooped the goldfish back in the bowl as fast as I could and they survived and her artwork was salvaged. Note to self: always double check table legs are fully snapped. ;D

More paintings to come..

Georgia On My Mind

I've been seeing a lot of wonderful O'Keefe inspired flowers around the blogs lately. I've done them in the past with oil pastels. This time I wanted to try out simple line drawings with watercolor and glue on black paper finished with with chalk pastels. My students used photos of flowers and zoomed in with view finders. I had them try both techniques using the same composition. Some used the colors of the photo for inspiration and others chose to create fantasy flowers. Nice work girls! (Kindergarten - 4th)

Matisse Goldfish Still Lifes

When I was in art school, a professor went around the room asking each of us what artists inspired us. He winced and grimaced at some of the answers he got, Nagel comes to mind (yes, this was the 80's!) One person offered Picasso. He answered something to the effect of, "of course, that goes without saying, Picasso has something for everyone." I think the same of Matisse. His body of work is so broad and vast, there is surely something for everyone's taste. I think he is a wonderful artist for children to be inspired by because of his fearless use of colors and patterns. This week my classes looked at Matisse's Goldfish painting. We also looked at some of his other paintings that showed his bold use of patterns and color. We followed a direct line drawing lesson to create our fish bowls. From there the children (Kindergarten - 3rd) used oil pastels, watercolor and acrylic to create their pieces. I think they are lively, bright and bold - very Matisse. (For the record, my answer was,"El Greco, Paul Gauguin and Georgia O'Keefe", but of course I adore Matisse)

My older children did the same lesson but used Phyl's method (from There's a Dragon in My Art Room) of setting up a real still life for them to use for inspiration. I will post those soon. Thank you Phyl!