Recently the 6th graders each completed an accordion book about the elements of art! This great project idea was gleaned from the blog A Day in the Life of an Art Teacher. Each page of the book illustrates a different element of art. The students were able to choose from four different painting techniques to create the cover for their book: sponge painting, blending colors, splatter painting (oh my!) and water color/salt technique. This resulted in a variety of book covers that proved to be an array of visual stimulation! The following week, when the covers were dry the students wrote the title of their book including their name which gave the books a more personal touch. The books allow me to assess each student's understanding of each art element.
The berry sixth graders are creating landscapes that have depth. The students have been learning about how artists show depth in landscape paintings. Back in the fall they completed a one point perspective landscape with a barn. Several techniques were used to show depth including size difference, the height/placement of objects on the paper, atmospheric perspective and one point perspective.
This chalk landscape is the second in a series of landscape projects the sixth graders are doing this year. The students show their understanding of atmospheric perspective and include a background, middle ground and foreground in their own vibrant chalk landscapes. The next landscape project I have planned will be of silhouettes using more atmospheric perspective and overlapping.
Please leave a comment and tell me if you have a good landscape art project! I would love to hear about it!
Our fundraiser has been a success, raising over $1,900! Berry 5th graders made sea turtle water color resists and the 6th graders made prints of sea creatures. We worked with Art to Remember a company that does fundraisers for schools by printing student artwork on keepsake items for parents to purchase (scroll down to the bottom of the post to see two examples). Below are some of the 5th graders' sea turtles and the 6th graders sea creature prints. The funds will be donated to The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing a method of removing plastic pollution from the Pacific Ocean.
Two students with their Art to Remember keepsakes!
The 6th graders have recently completed a landscape project. The purpose of this project was to teach the students how to draw a landscape that has depth. They learned how to draw a building in one point perspective and we also explored the concept of atmospheric perspective. The colors that are in the distance seem to be less intense than colors that are closer. The students also included objects appearing to be larger if they were closer and smaller if they were farther away. Color was added with markers and crayons. The students used the markers to outline and then applied water with a paint brush to spread around the color of the markers. Although the students followed specific directions to draw their barns I encouraged them to make their landscape unique. Each person created a different landscape by adding details of their own and I think they were a success!
The Berry Intermediate 5th graders have been working very hard in art! Self Portraits are one of the projects that they have recently finished. Here are photos of some finished pieces.
Hello and welcome to the 2015-16 school year! It has been a great start to the year in the Berry Intermediate art room because we are kicking off with a fundraiser to benefit an organization called The Ocean Cleanup.
The Ocean Cleanup started out as a high school science project of a boy in the Netherlands. He learned about the plastic pollution problem and couldn't stop thinking about it. Later, in college he invented a method (there was not a good method before this) of removing plastic pollution from the ocean. You can find out a lot more on The Ocean Cleanup website.
The reason we are doing this project is because I recently learned of the global plastic pollution problem and felt that I wanted to do my part as a piece of the solution instead of living a life that contributes to the problem.
I felt that the fact that I have almost one thousand growing minds in front of me each week gave me an opportunity to be a model of what we should be doing to counteract this problem. I have explained to my students that there are two things we can do.
One thing we can do is this fundraiser that we are doing as a school where the students are making art work that will be sent to Art to Remember who will print their art work on gift items their parents can purchase.
The second thing we can do is make small changes in the way we do things at home, like using reusable shopping bags and reusable water bottles.
The 5th graders are doing a water color resist of sea turtles for their art work. I will post post pictures when they are finished. They are stunning! The 6th graders are print-making sea creatures and fish. The drawings that they are using for their prints are quite impressive! I can't wait to post pictures of all the finished art work. I am very excited about this project because it is teaching the students to be good to our planet and it will ultimately have a positive impact on our environment!
Here are some videos to explain further about the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans. Another recommended documentary is Plastic Paradise: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This documentary can be found on Netflix.
