Jungle Safari

This project is a great way for kindergarten and first grades to really get excited about art and an easy way to teach them warm and cool color schemes. This safari project can only be viewed with your ruby red glasses. The students must first draw an animal on a piece of drawing paper with a sky blue pencil. Next the students choose warm color crayons to draw lines and shapes over the other drawing. They check to make sure they can still see the drawing underneath with their ruby red glasses. Continue to draw with the crayons until you can no longer see the drawing with the naked eye.

An extension exercise for this project would be to have the students would be to let the students act out different animals in a PE class. They will be excited to pick an animal that is special for them and have the freedom to express themselves.

Abstract Sculpture Inspired by Kandinsky

Low fire clay

Kandinsky inspired slab built form

Kandinsky inspired abstract tree form

Pinch Pots

Display case showing students work

This 3-D lesson is designed to jump start the 8th graders imagination about abstraction. First the students are introduced to the father of abstract expressionism Wassily Kandinsky through a glog http://jkodonnell.glogster.com/glog-1149/. Students are motivated by a quote from Kandinsky relating art to music and how they are both abstract in nature. The students will also get excited about using a new media as well. Students sketch a couple ideas about what they are going to construct out of clay. As a warm up exercise students are handed a ball of clay and pinch pots are demonstrated. Pinch pots are a great way for students to get acquainted with a new media and they are able to see instead success. Next the teacher demonstrates slab construction and works with the students step by step in order to make a free standing sculpture in full round. The students have to incorporate at least five elements and principles of design relating to Kandinsky's work. The teacher also demonstrates a free standing hand built sculpture of a abstracted tree form.

An extension project would be to do this lesson as part of a Language arts class. Instead of having the students look at images on the computer the teacher could plan to visit a near by gallery. While visiting the gallery students must choose one piece of work and write a paper about the meaning of the work. Students would address elements and principles of design in the paper as well as how the work made an impact on them and why they choose that specific work.

Where the Wild Things Are

After reading the book "Where the Wild Things Are" students were instructed to draw a monster either from the story or from their imagination. The monster had to take up the whole page and was drawn in crayon so when the student painted with water colors the wax repelled the water for an interesting effect. The teacher demonstrated lots of ideas of how to draw the ears, eyes, mouths, body types and even teeth. Next the students needed to decide where their monsters was located at. My monster is a cookie sneaker and is traveling down the cookie hallway to the kitchen in order to sneak his favorite cookies in the whole world "monster cookies." In each drawing the students have to use at least five different colors when painting their monsters.

I could see this project going hand in hand with a language arts class. After the students draw their monsters they have to write a short story about it. They could include background about the monster who he/she is and what they do all day and then talk a little about what the monster is doing in the picture they have created.

Op Art

This peer lesson incorporate's art history and creativity. The students learn both op art terms and learn how optical illusions work. This is accomplished by looking at Bridget Riley's work. The students place 20 random dots on a piece of paper, next starting at one end the student draws a line across the page. When drawing the line if there is a dot in the path of that marker the student must go around the dot and continue this process until the page is filled. After which the student will fold the paper in half the long way and write their name in block or bubble letters. Then the name is cut out of the piece of construction paper being careful to keep all of the pieces in order to show positive and negative space.

I think this lesson could be incorporated in a science or geology classroom. More specifically how the students can create topographic maps after they have drawn their 20 dots now comes the challenge of what dots are at what elevation. Could give them a list of specific elevations you want them to have represented on the map and the students can go from there.

Painting with Gravity

This project is a great why to incorporate science and art history. Students first look at images of Morris Louis, discuss his techniques and brainstorm how the students can recreate his work. Using diluted temper paint and spoons students were able to recreate Louis's style with gravity and a little patience. One of the requirements for the project is the students had to use at least five different colors. After getting a feel for the media students were then allowed to let their imagination run wild and to see what they could come up with using gravity and paint. I first placed a drop of paint in the center of the paper and picked it up and moved the paper in a circle a couple of times to get a more organic feel just letting the paint run which morphed into dancing people. I found this very interesting so I tired to recreate the process again with a different color I also wanted the color to touch almost as though the dancers were holding hands. I could see this project being used in a science classroom to demonstrate why things don't just float off into space.

Watercolor Weaving

This watercolor project is a great way to let the students have freedom of expression while having fun. Students have to create two watercolor drawings, one must inoperative only warm colors. The other drawing is composted of all cool colors. The drawings are expressed while listening to different styles of music to help channel creativity. After the two drawings are dry the students must cut lines in one of the paintings leaving a one inch border around the paper. The other painting is then cut into strips either straight, curvy or serrated. The two sheets of paper are then woven together to make a very interesting textured and contrasted work of art. Students will get excited about this project because it allows the students to express themselves while listening to music. There is no right way or wrong way to this project it is left up to the individual working on the piece.

Lexicon Collage

FEAR

"You gain strength courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop and look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."

-Eleanor Roosevelt

CREATIVITY

"Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties"

-Eric Iromm

AMAZING

"The best day of your life is the one in which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours it is an amazing journey, and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins"

-Bob Moawad

ADDICTIVE

"The biggest liar is addiction"

-Anonymous

The Lexicon Collage project is a collaborative piece, were students choose a word from a predetermined list of words. After writing the word and the definition on the back the students then paint the background to express the descriptive word. Then the cards are passed to other students who complete the next step. They can either distress the background with sandpaper or x-acto knifes. Students then add more color lines using oil pastels, crayons, conte, and watercolors. The cards are then passed to other students again were they are able to add collage ideas. Either by gluing on magazine pictures, drawing textures, or doing transfers to further develop a visual definition of the word on the back of the card. After this step the cards are giving back to the original owner to add any finishing touches to make it their own. The card is then mounted on a piece of paper and labeled with the word it depicts and a definition or description of the word.

Playing with light

In this image movement is the main design element represented but not the only. The abstracted radio makes for a very interesting lines and textures. The primary colors are also incorporated in the subject matter. The composition is very asymmetrically balanced, which also creates interesting shapes that keep the eye wanting. The black background is contracted by the light or darkness of the lines. By shooting a longer exposure you have a little bit more control of the values that are achieved in your image.
To create this effect you will have to use a camera with manual controls. After deciding the subject you would like to experiment with, open up the shutter on the camera and move the camera or lens different directions. When you think you have exposed the film (or card for a digital) long enough close the shutter. This technique is best used on a digital camera so you don't have to wait time and money on developing film, since the success rate can be low.

The Big Apple

This photography taken in New York City is a wonderful representation of positive and negative space. There are also many other design elements at work here as well. The building's construction and windows brings and interesting element of texture to the image. The lines on the street and the building's themselves draw the eye into the photograph. The sky and building's balance out one another not only in size but in contrast as well.

Eric Carle

This Dragonfly scene is inspired by Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Each person in the class created a different textured or colored piece of paper. We shared our different backgrounds and created collages, based on the style Eric Carle. This collage project could be in different subject matters. The only draw back when doing this project is drying time.
I enjoyed this project and had to pay special attention to make sure my pieces fit together like a puzzle. I used a mostly warm palette contracted by the cool background. The wings of the dragonfly lead your eye through out the composition.

Starry Night Revisited

In this project students (grade 5-6) have more freedom when introduced to art history. The students are to make their own representation of a city either fantasy or some where they have visited.
Cut out swirls and various shapes out of tissue paper to represent the movement of the wind and the structure of the stars found in our own "Starry Night," these shapes are then glued to a black sheet of construction paper. Making sure to cover the whole paper, since you won't know how much of the background will be seen through the building in the foreground.
After a little drying time the paper is then covered with a gel medium to protect the tissue paper with drawing on it. When the medium is dry you can now make marks using oil pastels and metallic sharps, to give the piece more flow and continuity.
On the back side of another sheet of black construction paper draw out your city scape. Carefully cut out the building and on the reverse side color in windows and outline the building for definition using a metallic sharpie. The buildings then get glue to the down over the sky. Van Gogh is a great artist for students to relate to, since he didn't really fit into one particular group and like most of us he was just misunderstood.

Finger Painting

In this activity, students are exposed to art history through the introduction of Vincent Van Gogh's "Strarry Night". After a brief history lesson and discussion of techniques.
The students practice finger painting like Van Gogh first in the air and then get to move into the real thing. We tried to compose our painting as though we were Van Gogh himself with a foreground, middle ground and a background.
Since the this is a night scene the tree is the closest thing to the painter this is why it is bigger and one of the darkest parts of the painting.
This lesson is great for teaching kindergarten students design elements with out being over the top. Simple lines make up the wind, stars, and building in the composition. The lines in the painting also show movement and brings your eye across the painting to the city below. Van Gogh "Starry Night" also uses the primary triadic color scheme.

About Me!

This project is an introduction of myself to the class. I feel it gives more of a visual representation of your personality using symbolism!
I used two footprints to signify moving forward and learning from mistakes made in the past and to get going when things get tough.
I have Egyptian and Mayan images on the footprints to represent both art history and the thrill of traveling around the world.
The bust represents my current employment and my favorite color purple.
The dragonfly is symbol for myself and is represented in all of my artwork. The dragonfly is also a symbol in most cultures are renewal and a positive force.
I have drawn a paint brush to not only represent my passion for painting, but to express my interest in art and design. I am also very athletic and enjoy playing Volleyball as a means of exercise.
My footprints are composed in such a way to make visually interesting positive and negative space.