Friday Favorites: 'Merica.

So turns out, having a baby takes up a lot of time. I haven't been able to keep up with the blogging as often as I'd like. But, time with Little French Fry is really important and I keep telling myself I'll get to blog when she naps (which lately is for 15-20 mins tops and seriously cuts down on the ability to do much, other than down a coffee cup). Thus, in an effort to blog more often, I'm going to aim to do Friday favorites as frequently (or infrequently) as I can. The posts may be shorter (and not necessarily sweeter), but without further ado, here goes Friday favorite number one.

Every year, my school celebrates our military children during Month of the Military Child.  I like to work on projects that tie into not only celebrating our patriotism, but also connect to my art curriculum.  This year's project involved the Fourth graders studying Peter Max's many versions of Lady Liberty and the Fifth graders working on some pretty rad op art flags.

The Fourth Grade Lady Libs were large tempera paintings (24" x 24") and we used matboard scraps to create the blended backgrounds (channeling our inner abstract expressionist).  Each student then added in text that summed up what the military means to them.

 

 

And my fab Fifth Graders used a limited color palette to create their own op art-inspired waving flag.

 

 Annnnnnnd that's all she wrote, because I hear a baby beckoning for me.  Happy Fourth of July!

Printmaking and Summer Break Celebrating!

I am now two days into summer break after finishing the world's longest school year and so, so very happy to get on with the summer.  I mean seriously, June is half over!

I gave a sneak peek into the printmaking project my Fourth graders had been working on here and we finally finished up our carving and printing this week!

I love my Fourth Graders and they are very slow and careful, conscientious artists which can be great.  Buuuuuut, when we have two art classes to finish carving and printing a series of Illinois Wildflowers, they needed to turn off the molasses and turn on the Red Bull!

Students had to select one Illinois wildflower to use for their prints.  We sketched out our plan onto paper first, traced over our final design with charcoal, and then transferred it onto our 4" x 6" rubber block.

There will be more projects coming soon, as we were busy busy bees at the end of the year!

O'My, O'Keeffe!

And with one whole week still left of school, this is pretty much how I feel right now...

OVER IT.  Pretty sure my students and I are counting down the days in a BIG way.  The days lately have been perfect summer days and being cooped up inside is tough.  So we've been going out to our butterfly gardens and doing a lot of nature sketching with chalk.

Our last artists of the month this year were Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe.  We read Through Georgia's Eyes to kick off our study of Georgia in 1st grade and 4th grade.

The Fourth Graders studied the work of Lauren Fensterstock, an artist whose work I had previously seen at the Kohler Arts Center last summer.  I also attended a fantastic workshop studying her pieces while at the NAEA convention this year too!  Her work will blow your mind.  She sticks to mostly black paper and will throw in some mirrors amongst her intense quilled installations.

Seriously, research her if you get the chance.  Her pieces fill up and take over a room in such a remarkable way.  They have this crazy effect of "creeping" around a room's perimeter.

My Fourth Graders borrowed inspiration from Lauren Fensterstock to create their Georgia gardenscapes.  Each gardenscape had to address the following criteria:

- at least 5 quilled pieces
- the foreground, midground, and background
- elements from Georgia's paintings
- a clay skull

I had a bazillion scraps of white paper stored in my hoarding boxes,  so we looked specifically at O'Keeffe's Cow Skull with Calico Roses, as this piece features the black and white contrast we were trying to achieve.

Check out our Georgia gardenscapes below:

The student above created a mini bed for Georgia on the roof, just like hers since she would climb onto her roof to sleep at night.

I'm digging the pop-out sun in this one!

And my little First Grade friends, created their own versions of O'Keeffe's Sky Above the Clouds (housed locally at our very own Art Institute).  

This piece is HUGE in real life, measuring about 8 feet by 24 feet.

Now, our pieces weren't that big, but we used about 16" x 20" paper for our skies.

After folding our papers in half, we used cool colors on one half and warm colors on the other.  Clouds were added the next class.  I had students paint big and little clouds on a separate sheet of paper too.  The big clouds were used for bulletin board decor and the littles as pop-outs on our paintings.

Welp, that's all for now folks.  More artwork coming your way soon, don't worry!

It Just Got Surreal.

How many Salvador Dali's does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Clock.

Welllll, this joke went way over the heads of my elementary students (like much of my off-the-wall humor does), but I will say, this whole wearing a costume or accessory thing is FAB-ulous.

My students are stunned into silence (maybe a little bit concerned about my sanity too) from minute one.  BEST classroom management tool ever.  

Total twinsies, right?

Best part about my costuming this year, is that the kids are getting into it.  This little friend below was proud to show me his mustache sweatshirt he purposely wore on Art day.

Before kicking off the artist intro, my kiddos were given a few minutes to design their own mustache, which naturally they had to wear for the rest of the day.  Tell ya what, it is SERIOUSLY hard to guzzle coffee with a 'stache.  I had coffee all over my smock!

Surrealist art is our focus this month, so we continued with a little Dali up in this Art Room.

I forgot how totally wild Dali's paintings are...and I also forgot how many undressed ladies there are in his paintings.  One of my fourth grade artists paged through a Dali book at her own home to do some research and (thank the art gods) is a totally mature student, and quietly reported to me that she found some cool paintings, but "gosh, Miss D., there were a lot of ladies without clothes."

Therefore, Miss French Fry had to do some serious combing of images before presenting them to her students.

The Persistence of Memory, 1931

The Elephants, 1948

Check out our 4th grade finished works below:

 

Those are some vicious carrot-chomping teeth right there.

What a shifty-eyed selfie, am I right?

Annnd the 2nd grade's Dalis in development:

Okay, no more dilly Dali-ing for me.  Off to update my CPDUs online, ugggh.  I don't know what your state's Education website looks like, but Illinois' is super dull.  They really should have hired an Art teacher to jazz up their page, so it's at least a little fun to look at...

Matryoshka Madness.

Nesting Dolls are the "it" doll of the moment.  The first Matryoshka dolls were carved in 1890 in Russia.  The outer layer is traditionally a motherly figure and the inner layers stack inside, progressively getting smaller.

I snagged my own matryoshka for my art shelf from Ikea a few years back...

I love how Matryoshkas are reminiscent of Mother Ginger from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.  That was always my favorite part in The Nutcracker Ballet!

I even picked up this luggage tag in Target's dollar spot a few months back.  Love that dolla' dolla' spot, ya'll!

                                                                                                 

And, no blog post is complete without an Anthro peek...I've tried on these sweet loungers at Anthro, but couldn't quite stomach the 50 buckaroo price tag, so off they go to the Pinterest land of lust.

 Anthro Nesting Doll Flannel Loungers

Loving this Etsy poster too.  How cute would this be in the Art Room?!

Russian Nesting Doll Poster on Etsy

Alright, onto what I hope you're here for: The Artsy Smartsy stuff!  I picked up this beautiful story at Half Price Books a few months back and boy, what a find.

The Magic Nesting Doll (2000) by Jacqueline K. Ogburn, illustrations by Laurel Long. Katya is gifted a magical nesting doll by her dying grandmother.  She is told that she can only use its magic three times.  Katya is immersed into a magical kingdom and it's up to her to save the prince.  Laurel Long's gorgeous paintings and Ogburn's magical tale were inspired by Russian folk art and tales.

I read this story aloud to my Fourth Grade students to kick off this project and they loved the beautiful illustrations.  We also talked a bit about the history behind nesting dolls and looked at many examples of traditional dolls versus more modern and "themey" dolls.

My students created their own little matryoshka dolls from 2 pinch pots, taking great care to add in hand-drawn tiny details.

Merry Matryoshka-making to you!