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Native Fish Art and Writing Contest

When the middle school science teacher came to me and asked if I would do the art portion of the Native Fish Art & Writing Contest with her class, I of course said yes.  I love teaming up with other teachers to teach a lesson- it really gives the students a better understanding of the subject matter.  

The sixth graders each researched their NJ fish and then brought their information and photographs to me.  I had the students do this project in two steps.  The background or environment of their fish in water color and their actual fish in colored pencil and glued on top.  Because these students haven't had art yet, it was a more controlled project and it makes their fish stand out!  

The backgrounds are to replicate the environment in which their fish would live. 

For the fish, the students were encouraged to press hard and light with the colored pencils and build up layers of color to produce a more realistic fish.  

Shadows and texture for the scales were added at the end.  

Although none of our students won, I think they did a very impressive job!

Joan Miro "Nocturne"

                    I wanted my seventh graders to do a lesson on artist, Joan Miro.  I wanted our focus to be BALANCE.  The problem was, I wasn't actually sure how to start off this lesson and inspire the students aside from showing them lots of examples of Miro's work. As I was struggling over this I began to think how Miro's paintings have always intrigued me because it seems as though he just made a bunch of scribbles and then made those scribbles into recognizable images- almost like laying out at the beach and turning the clouds into a dinosaur or tractor.

And then it came to me!  THe students would start out with a random line that filled up their entire paper and swirled and crossed over itself again and again- almost like a scribble line and then they would look at their paper and see what parts of their scribbles looked like and add to it.

While the students drew their lines, I called back two at a time to splatter their entire paper with paint using a toothbrush.  The students enjoyed this and it gave their backgrounds a more interesting texture.

Once the students had the lines drawn, I encouraged them to keep turning their paper so that they saw it from different angles.

The pencil lines were outlined in permanent marker.

For the painting.. I took the opportunity to introduce the students to color schemes and the principal Balance.  The students were using a color scheme similar to Miro's (red, blue, yellow & green)  A color scheme is a limited set of colors.  This is a good trick to make a painting cohesive and really have unity.

Sandwich Day!

I love Holidays!  Usually we celebrate the typical holidays by making a themed art lesson, But today I decided to celebrate the little publicized holiday known as National Sandwich  Day.  National Sandwich Day is celebrated each year on November 3rd. 

The Sandwich

Students were given a rectangle piece of oaktag, A yellow Triangle for cheese, Green Tissue paper for Lettuce, A red oval for the tomato, white string for onions and either pink paper for ham or brown paper for a burger.  The students were to make their sandwich on the oak tag.   I was given some old seat cushions which ended up being perfect for our crust.  

Amate Bark Paintings

For Hispanic Heritage Month I chose to do a project focusing on Amate Bark Paintings.  This worked out well because we had limited supplies and the brown food store bags worked great for the faux wood backgrounds.  The paper bags were painted with black ink and ironed with wax paper to give the appearance of the traditional Amate Bark Paintings.  Next the students got to work by choosing their animals and drawing their scenes in chalk on the brown paper so that it could be seen easily.  I supplied them with visuals of animals such as lizards, alligators, and parrots.

Once the students drew their animals they were able to start painting.  I talked to the students about color schemes and balancing their colors.  To help the students to remember to plan out and balance their colors, I gave each table once color of paint at a time.  This forced them to use that color, check if it was evenly balanced throughout their drawing before they moved on.  The results were stunning!!

Vincent Van Gogh Sunflowers

Vincent Van Gogh was our Mystery Artist so I read the students Camille & The Sunflowers: A Story about Vincent Van Gogh  by Laurence Anholt and then we began to make sunflowers!

If you haven't realized yet, I love doing lots of different layers to one project.  

1. Students created a Horizon Line on their paper
2. The top half (the wall) was sponge painted
3. The bottom half (the table) was done using tissue paper and modge podge (glue mixed with water) 
4. The students drew and cut out a symmetrical Vase on a separate piece of brown paper.  
5. Stems were arranged and glued on the vase.  Remind students that the stems cannot come off the vase
6. The stems and vase were glued onto the backgrounds.
7. The water was sponge painted on and white was used to show the glass.
8. The scrap brown paper from the vase is cut into circles to be the center of the sunflowers
9. Petals are painted on using tempera paint
10. Students sew on addition petals and leaves using Burlap and large needles safe for kids.