….grade 5s created these wonderful works of art, inspired by Dali
The assignment was to paint a simple watercolour landscape with a foreground, background and horizon line and then have fun cutting out pictures from magazines and newspapers and create a fantasy piece of art. The goal was to create a piece that told a story and hopefully some writing will accompany each piece of art in the near future.
….I introduced four different art projects this week
I had to think quickly this week as to what I was going to teach in art. I ordered some supplies before Christmas and they hadn’t come in yet so I scrambled to find a project(s) that required the materials I had on hand. Of all the projects that I assigned I think the one I introduced to my grade 3 class is my favourite so far.
We talked about landscapes and reviewed the components: foreground, background and horizon line. I demonstrated how to tear the tissue and overlap the colours to give the picture more depth. I then explained that once the tissue layer was complete we were going to cut out shapes from construction paper, magazines and art papers that we had created last year to create a foreground of flowers.
In the first class most of the students only finished gluing down the tissue paper. In the next class they will cut out their shapes from different materials, glue them into place and then using a fine tip black marker they will add detail to their cut outs and add some line drawings behind their collaged flowers.
I had lots of art books and posters to demonstrate the technique and show a variety of flowers that they could draw. I didn’t want everyone to gravitate to the blue tissue for their sky so I read them Peter Reynolds new book Sky Colour. It’s a wonderful book that every teacher who teaches art should have in their library.
All my classes loved the book and took the message to heart. Very few chose a solid blue for their sky colour.
I started a sample with the children as they worked so that they could visualize what I had in mind. I think that the process is more important than the product and I find giving them a sample to look at helps them better understand the process. No two pictures are ever the same.
Today I finished my sample at home. The first picture shows the tissue in the background and the simple cut outs that are glued on top. In the second picture you can see a close-up of the detail that I drew in after with a fine tip black Sharpie and the third picture is the entire finished piece.
I’m looking forward to seeing what my grade 3s come up with.
Cheers!
….my Fantasy Art and You
I can’t believe that I actually got this done on time. I’m not sure if I’ve hit the mark or am completely off. I’ll find out in the next couple of days when I get my mark back.
Close-ups:
My artist statement:
Artist Statement
by
Carol Cormier
Assignment: Fantasy and You
Title: My Life
My art work consists of acrylic paint, India black ink and collage done on hot press watercolour paper, 140 in weight.
In this piece I am trying to create a series of images that convey the path my life has taken. The left side of the paper is backed in lighter colours of yellow and green, representing the the happier periods in my life while on the right side the mood is definitely more somber. The top half represents the first 20 years of my adult life and the bottom half is a portrayal of the last twenty years and the years yet to come.
I’ve always felt that throughout my life someone has been watching out for me, either physically or spiritually. My early life was filled with children and pets as I did a balancing act between work and home and trying to keep everyone else happy.
At forty I experienced a very dark period in my life when death took my mother from us at the age of 61. For the next five years the ‘tentacles’ of death continued to take away very close friends and family members.
The bottom right hand corner represents the cancer that my husband has been fighting with for the last 3 years. The arrows represent the chemo trying to fight off the bad cells and the tiger jumping through the TV represents my husband’s remission.
I used to look for quick fixes for my weight problem for most of my life, hence the pill bottle. It’s only been in the last year that I’ve discovered that a healthy me involves healthy eating and exercise and a healthy mind is nourished with books and on-line courses. I’ve never been happier or healthier and I look forward to exploring the world, now and in the future.
Your input is always appreciated.
Cheers!
….art produced in my grade 4/5 class
I don’t often post photos of my 4/5 class. They take longer to finish projects and some of their assignments involve many stages. The op art pieces were somewhat time consuming and the assignment is a good one to leave for a supply teacher because it uses only black and coloured markers, a pencil and a ruler. These were done on large pieces of paper and could be done on sheets of paper half the size.
For instructions on how to make these colourful pieces check out Artisan des Arts.
The watercolour landscapes using collage teaches children about foreground, background and the horizon line. The students were instructed to cut out magazine pictures and place them on the paper that they had painted ahead of time with watercolours. They simply had to paint in a foreground colour (land, beach, etc.) and then another for their background ( usually the sky). The largest magazine details where placed at the bottom edge of the paper and then smaller pieces were glued down further back giving the illusion of distance and depth.
….or how grade 2s paint when left alone
Yesterday in my art class I worked closely with my grade 3s while I asked the grade 2s to work more independently. In the last class the grade 2s started a monochromatic multimedia painting. They were instructed to find black and white pictures, puzzles, headings and text from the newspaper that represented a theme (e.g., numbers, words, sports, puzzles, love, money) and glue them onto a piece of paper in an interesting pattern. Then they had to choose one colour and using water colour paint they created a wash over their pictures and words.
In yesterday’s class they continued adding more paint and detail to their art work. I allowed them to use acrylic paints, stamps and sharpies. The only instruction I gave them was to bring the paints to me so that I could squeeze a small amount onto their plates. They were very excited about using acrylics for the first time.
As I was helping the grade 3s with their quilting project the occasional grade 2 came to me to ask for advice. No one brought the paint to me. I should have been suspicious about their use of the acrylics but I was so caught up in the sewing project that I didn’t check how the acrylics were being used. I was totally oblivious until one of my students came to me to tell me that the brand new tube of white acrylic was empty. What????????? I couldn’t believe it.
I couldn’t really fault the grade 2s for using too much paint, except that the only instruction I gave they chose to ignore. In the end I love the finished projects. Some of them need a little more tweaking but they are 90% done. Only one student didn’t quite get the monochromatic theme but I liked how it turned out and it is mostly green.
Some of the students finished early so I gave them an old floppy disc that we had gessoed in an earlier class. I showed them some pictures of famous paintings for inspiration and then gave them free reign to create anything they wanted. They loved it. Here are some of their masterpieces.
Mama Cormier 