2nd Grade Still Life Paintings

Armed with the knowledge and awe of color mixing, 2nd grade students went on to paint their drawn still life.  I asked them to paint the background first, a single color of their choice.  I requested that it be a tint because then it would not stand out quite as much as the things in the front. 
Students spent a long time painting these.  Most students were very engaged the entire time.   They spent a lot of time mixing colors that they wanted for each object.  They referenced photographs of the still life when they wanted to. 

Other students struggled to stay engaged in painting, partially because they are such young kids.  Next time, I think I will have students draw and observe a still life, but will have them use watercolors instead of tempera paint.  

The best things to come out of this project were the students' profound interest in color mixing and their interest and confidence in drawing from observation.

Below are come examples of paintings both in process and complete.  Those students who were able to fully engage and persist made come absolutely fabulous work.  Keep in mind that the students mixed all of the colors you see from only the primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and white. 





Along the way the students learned about brush strokes and how artists use lines to show how forms are round or flat and to lead the viewers eye in the right direction.  We also learned that each object has many colors in it, not just one.  There may be 20 kinds of green in just one pasture!   Van Gogh, Cezanne and Gauguin were some of the artists we learned from. 

Carlie did an amazing job color mixing as she tried to match the colors she saw in some objects. 

 

Architectural Sculptures

As their last project for the year, students in 4th Grade created sculptures that were based on geometric forms and architecture.

First in order to begin thinking about architecture and public sculpture, I showed the students several slide shows of how sculptors and architects use drawing and collage to sketch out and play with ideas.  

Next, I xeroxed drawn forms, as well as pieces of architectural structures such as domes, arches and columns. Students then added to and combined different aspects of the xeroxes, in order to create an idea sketch for a new building or public sculpture.

This student's idea and building design is based off of the form of a mug. He combined a dome and an arch, and cut up some columns as well.

Next, students chose one of their sketches to base their sculpture off of, and began building using cereal boxes and found forms such as paper towel tubes. They also had to include at least one geometric form (cube, pyramid, cylinder, or rectangular prism), which was built using a net. They traced this net and created their form, getting practice that helps reinforce concepts on the ISAT math test. 

After building all of their forms and joining them with masking tape, students were taught about paper mache, and how it is a great permanent attachment tool.   
Students added paper mache (glue+paper pieces) to secure the places where two forms connected.

 

You can see how this student utilized many found forms.

Next, the students and I talked about how architects need to really sell their idea to contractors and the public, before it can be realized.  In order to do this, they add "skin" to the models they have created, to give their audience an idea of the colors, textures, and building materials, that will appear on the building.

Students had access to acrylic paint (painting station), as well as many other materials in the sculpture studio, which they selected to show what textures and colors they wanted on their public sculpture/building. 

I forced all of the students to apply a base coat of paint to their sculpture, before gluing on extra materials such as paper, feathers or fabric.  In this way, the cereal box labels were covered up, and the overall craftsmanship was better.

I would love to see this sculpture larger than human size, downtown in Grant Park!  

I like how this student used the rubbing (texture) plates we had in an innovative way.  They embossed tin foil which was not a demonstrated technique. Yay for coming up with your own solutions!

In the end,  I think most students chose the materials they did for "skin" because they looked interesting or pretty, and not because these were real textures they would want on a building.
However, the resulting sculptures were pretty interesting and for the most part, the students liked their sculptures and were motivated to finish them.
It was also interesting for both the students and myself to see how their sculpture changed and morphed from their original design/collage.  This mainly happened because the students discovered that some things were too difficult to construct or attach in the time we had.

This student added cardboard people to show a sense of scale and building usage.

This student, Brody,  wanted to use organic forms to create their sculpture. They formed an idea without using collage and used drawing and imagined forms instead.  Although they ran out of time to truly add skin in a well-crafted way, their structure was huge and really well constructed and thought-out!

Brody's sculpture before adding paint and "skin"

This student used paint, wall paper, feathers and ribbon for skin.  I really like the novel use of straws as walls.