Cardinal Collages Inspired by Charlie Harper

My students recently learned about the art of Charley Harper, his love of animals and nature, and the use of symmetry in his work. After looking at his artwork, and some photographs of cardinals in the wild, we set out to create our winter scenes. We cut and pasted colored construction paper, then used markers, crayons, white tempera paint, and glitter to complete our collages. We talked a lot about symmetry, as the shapes of our cardinals, bird baths, and leaves were created. The bright colors and winter theme were a big hit! The children had lots of choices throughout the lesson. They had a variety of background colors to select, and the choice to create a male or female cardinal. They could use a selection of templates for the cardinal and/or bird bath shapes, or they could fold and cut their own symmetrical designs.

Inspiration for this lesson came from Shine Bright Zamorano, one of my favorite Art Ed blogs! 

Best Artists in the Ocean Paintings

As I continue the unit on literacy in the art room, our young artists read the book 'I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean!' by Kevin Sherry, and learned about squid, their tentacles and their ability to squirt ink.

We then created an ocean background using cake tempera and large wash brushes. Next we made a directed line drawing of our artist squids. The pencil drawing was painted with liquid tempera, and then cut out and glued to the background painting. Options for our paintings were to include an artist's cap and/or mustache to the squid character. Younger artists painted solid black lines for the tentacles and older artists created outlines of black filled in when painting the entire body of the squid. I was inspired by fellow bloggers  Dali's Moustache and by This Little Class of Mine among others. I hope you enjoy our "Messterpieces!"

Three Sisters Patterns

During my teaching assignment last fall I tried out a new lesson plan with first graders to learn about the Thanksgiving holiday, creating a pattern, and to highlight a living artist's work.

We discussed the companion gardening technique of the Wampanoag people, and why they called beans, corn and squash The Three Sisters. While researching this assignment I came across the website of a New England artist named Janice Schupak Frishkopf, whose works inspired my students to create their own autumn harvest patterns!

To make our patterns I provided tracing templates for ears of corn, beans and various types of squash. Students were asked to show each of the Three Sisters in their patterns, to repeat shapes, to let their shapes reach outside the border of their paper, and to start with the largest shapes first. They could also let shapes overlap. The first class they worked in pencil to trace out their patterns.

After the pencil drawings were finished, I placed ears of dried Indian corn, and decorative squash at each table. We looked at all of the different colors and textures, and then added color to the drawings with oil pastels. The last step was using cake tempera to add a wash of color to the background and/or as a resist.

Their color choices and attention to detail were more than I had hoped for! And they really had fun creating their own distinct patterns. I actually left this lesson in progress for the returning art teacher, and she finished up the assignment with the children. When I had a chance to sub again I saw their finished pieces on display. I just had to take a few pictures! Thank you Emily for letting me introduce this lesson in your class room, for helping the children complete their art, and for letting me share this lesson on my blog.