Jasper Johns inspired number painting

Can I just say, I love kindergarteners? They are so cute, and pure and willing to learn. They literally are dry sponges waiting to soak up whatever you are willing to offer them.
Over the last few weeks, they have really been working on mastering their numeral writing skills. Yeah, that's right, just learning how to write the numbers. I was instantly inspired to help them learn about an artist, Jasper Johns, who uses themes like the numbers, maps, flags and other symbols from popular culture to create beautiful encaustic paintings.
So, of course we did our own version. The first day, students were given a template with numbers 0-9 and we practiced writing each of the numbers to a cute little song. Then in each number's rectangle, we drew that number of something. So for example, in the box with the #6 we drew 6 spirals in crayon, and the next day painted a watercolor pattern over the top.

Sir Ken Robinson

Ever heard of TED talks?
This is a really, really inspiring one. Ken Robinson talks about how "schools kill creativity."

He has some really great points in this talk. It is about 20 min long, so if get a chance, it will be worth every minute you spend watching it.




So for some reason, if you are checking this blog on google's Reader, the video is not showing up. If you visit my actual blog, you will find the video. :)

Klimt Self Portraits

I have talked about Gustave Klimt a few times on this blog before. Once when I featured him as an artist of the week, and another time here, when I completed a portrait of my friend inspired by his work.

Well, here is another one. This is a project that I did with my 3rd graders when they were in the middle of 2 units. One, talking about their bodies, and the other was while they were writing "star reports"--stars as in the stars in the sky, comets, metiers, black holes, and other things that you would find in outer space. I went into their class a few days before we stared and took pictures of each of them. Then printed the pics and when they came into class, we wrapped it all together with the help and inspiration of Klimt. They had to cut out their face and arms, glue them onto black construction paper and then draw their bodies, a border and background using simple shapes--shapes of things you would find in outer space. They first used oil pastels to fill the space with patterns, and then went back and added another layer with metallic sharpies.

I love how they turned out, and I know that the students had a lot of fun.

Utah Landscapes

This project was to help 4th graders learn about the 3 major regions of Utah: the Rocky Mountains, Great Basin, and the Colorado Plateau. We incorporated the art ideas of impressionism and used oil pastels and complementary colors to create landscapes. The students chose one of three black a white photographs to copy. They were only allowed to use 3 colors: two compliments and white. Before they could start adding oil pastels to their drawings, I had them complete a value scale to practice blending their pastels and to figure out which colors they should use.


Here are some completed of the Rocky Mountains:





This is the Colorado Plateau:





And here are 2 of the Great Basin: (the photo they copied was of the Salt Flats)







One of the highlights of this project for me was, we got to finish it up with a field trip to go see this exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art.

Mondrian inspired compositions

One thing that is great about the kindergarten and 1st grade core subjects is that there is so much overlap between what they learn in the classroom and what is in the art core. This was a simple lesson for 1st graders about horizontal and vertical lines and the primary colors. I cut black strips of paper and had students glue 5 horizontal/vertical lines anywhere on the page (accept the edges). Then the next week, they painted one square yellow, blue and red. It was great fun.

Earth and Moon globes

My 3rd graders just finished a huge project yesterday, and I couldn't wait to share. We have spend the last month or so making huge Earth and moon globes out of paper-mâché and balloons I found at a party store that are about 3' in diameter. We spent a week learning about 3-dimensional shapes like cubes, spheres...etc, two weeks covering the balloons in newspaper and paper-mâché, and the next week painting them. We split the class in half and each half worked together to complete their globe. While some students were covering the balloon, others were in charge of making mountain ranges and craters.








We hung them in the library just in time for parents to come see them during parent teacher conferences and the book fair.

This is the extent of my sewing skills

A good friend of mine invited me over to her place the other night to make headbands for our little girls (her's is 8 months old, and mine is still 29 weeks in my belly). It was a really good excuse for me to make a flower out of fabric scraps that I have been wanting to make for a while. I originally made it for my baby, but loved it so much, I decided to keep it for myself. Hope that's ok!