Fifth graders focused on the art principle of contrast and the painting technique of masking with this lesson. First, we looked at the photography of Ansel Adams, a master of using contrast, to better understand the concept and effectiveness of contrast. Then, using a 9"x 12" piece of drawing paper, students drew a ground (snow) line and then used masking tape to compose what would become their birch trees. They were urged to think about asymmetrical balance. Students then painted the areas between their trunks with dark blue and/or purple watercolor paint. On a second day, students used black tempura and tiny brushes to bark details to their trees while studying some photographic examples on the Smartboard. On a third day, for a final touch, they used cotton swabs to add snowflakes and watercolors to paint blue shadows across the snow.
Mr. O's Art Room
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." Picasso
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
4th Grade Ceramic Faces
Art pottery is one of North Carolina's most important and enduring cultural traditions. We spend some time looking at and discussing the origins of this tradition, focusing in on historical and contemporary face jugs (or "ugly jugs" as they are sometimes called), which came to our state by way of the traditions and art of Africans enslaved in the Carolinas. In this unit, we adapt the idea of these ugly jugs to a simple ceramic face. Students learn about the "scratch and attach" method of connecting decorations or other features to ceramics, and they create their faces -- some animal, some human, some...I don't know what!
After a first firing, the students glazed their creations with underglazes, and, after I dipped each one in a clear glaze, the faces were fired for a final time.
After a first firing, the students glazed their creations with underglazes, and, after I dipped each one in a clear glaze, the faces were fired for a final time.
3rd Grade Snowmen at Night
In addition to being a cute little poem about the antics of snowmen after dark, the book Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner contains some beautiful illustrations by the author's husband, Mark Buehner. His work offers the students some great examples of using shadows and highlights to give form to what would otherwise be the traditional "flat" snowman they've drawn, painted, or built as collages before. They use the native color of the light blue construction paper for the "in between" color of their snowmen, and add dark blue oil pastel for their shadows and white for their highlights. (Compare these highly realistic snowmen with the collages they created as kindergartners and first graders to get a sense of how far these Dolphins have come in art!)
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