Collaborative Dotty-ness.

Wowza, it's been a while.  Sorry about my hiatus Arties, but it's been a busy summer so far, full of graduate school classes, house projects, and planning an upcoming trip which you'll find out more about later!

So, I've gotta admit.  I'm cheating just a lil' bit.

How am I cheating? Wellllll, since I am taking the summer off from teaching summer school (MY FIRST SUMMER OFF EVER may I add, can you sense my excitement?!), my posts this summer may consist of me sharing projects from the school year past.  Don't worry, there won't be any re-runs, it'll all be fresh and new, just like a box o' Crayolas at the beginning of the school year.  Don'tcha love that smell?!

I want to share a little collaborative project I did at the year's end with my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders.  I had seen similar stuff on the Land-Of-Oh-Geez-Where-Did-Three-Hours-Just-Go, AHEM, I  mean, Pinterest, and since I was determined to pack up my Art Room in a timely fashion this year, I decided to give the project below a whirl, as it uses very few materials.

Materials:

• Lids, all sizes to use as tracers
• Leftover LARGE paper (sturdy enough to hold up to tempera paint)
• Pencils
• Tempera Paint (liquid or cakes works--we used tempera cakes to keep it low maintenance)
• Waterpots and brushes
• Q-tips

I've gotta say, I LOVE doing end of the year collaborative stuff because:

1) I hold onto them until next year and hang them on our super sad and empty bulletin boards until we get cranking in the Art Room

2) It's a great way to encourage collaboration between my students and I get a kick overhearing the kids being kind and encouraging to one another.

Now, it's not always lollipops and unicorns when we're doing a collaborative project, and sometimes there is a friend or two that needs a little 1:1 chat with Miss French Fry, but all in all, I would vote this project a SUCCESS.

I had my 1st and 3rd graders create large murals about the size of our art tables.  Some papers were square-ish, others were rectangular...I used what I could dig up in my end o' year bin of leftover scraps and schtuff. They traced the templates first (after I had demo-ed and talked about concentric circles and referred them to Master Kandinsky).  After the pencil, our steps were bright tempera colors, then the addition of a black tempera paint outline.

The First graders added lines and dots to create designs and patterns inside and around their circles too, adding a movement effect to them.

The two close-ups below are by 3rd graders and these two tables bypassed the black tempera in favor of a black crayon outline BEFORE adding on the paint.  You know, just a little watercolor resist up in here!

I wanted the 2nd grade murals to have a different look, so we skipped the tracers for their murals, and instead...

1) used bright tempera paints to fill our paper with irregular circles
2) added a black outline and details with a Q-tip

I loved using papers in this long strip format as students were able to work with a partner on their mural.

I think these babies are going to come in handy when Dot Day strikes on September 15th.  I always miss out on this great day, but looks like we are going to be going DOTTY in Miss French Fry's Art Room this year!

Connect the Dots, Kandinsky Style.

So, I have a polka dot problem.  Possibly an addiction. While I was pulling out an ensemble for the school day in my fuzzy pre-coffee state, I was overwhelmed by the amount of polka dots in my closet.  And I did ask myself, is it right, or is it wrong?  And I said to myself, my god, what have I done?!  (if you don't get the allusion to Talking Heads, shame on you).

Anywho, back to the dots...

So many dots, so little time.  Like so many art teachers, I love The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds.  His beautiful illustrations and the art teacher's sage advice to "make a mark and see where it takes you" is down right inspiring and lends itself perfectly to all things Kandinsky.

I recently came across this adorable circle painting lesson here on the site Small for Big.  The lesson of course borrows inspiration from Kandinsky's Squares with Concentric Circles.

 

Since I can never get enough of good ol' polka dots, I always do some variation every year, usually with my little Kinders.  This year, our project continued our study of cool and warm colors.  I started with an introduction to Kandinsky's work and looked at multiple pieces.  After setting up each table with the following items, the Kinders waited for directions...

• pre-folded 12" x 18" watercolor paper
• Sax liquid watercolors
• brushes
• water pots
• tray to hold the materials
• great listening ears!

To ensure each composition contained a variety of colors, my students were given directions to turn on their listening ears as I gave steps to use a "warm color of sunshine," or the "cool colors in the ocean."  Here's a sneak peek into some of their pieces...

 

I love all things the little Kindergarteners make (just not always the messes they make), but what made my day was having a parent tell me her 5 year old came home bubbling non-stop about Kandinsky and his dots and lines and EYEBALL ART (he meant abstract art by the way).

Now go and make your own EYEBALL art, I dare you!