4th grade artists
Claude Monet Birch Tree Snowscape! Write up to follow.
One Point Perspective Art Galleries. 4th grade learned about the rules and concepts of one point perspective. One point perspective can be pretty tricky but these bright 4th graders weren't tricked by it. We talked about horizontal lines, vertical lines, diagonal lines, parallel lines, vanishing point, and objects getting smaller as they get closer to the vanishing point. We drew together to start the art galleries. We made the walls, ceiling, checker pattern floor, and door. The rest was on their own. They added at least 4 picture frames to each wall using all the rules of one point perspective. The top and bottom of the frames went to the vanishing point and the sides of the frames were vertical lines. When they drew a horizontal or vertical line they really concentrated on lining the end of their ruler up with the end of the paper. They drew the frames, had to have a light source, and filled the frames with artwork. They could put anything in their frames. Once they were done drawing in pencil, they used a sharpie and a ruler to trace over their straight lines. They erased any missed pencil lines and colored with color pencils. We talked about blending colors, pressing harder and lighter for different values, and being creative with our coloring. I don't think we had any boring white walls! They did an excellent job and I was very impressed with how they grasped one point perspective. Next year, onto 2 point perspective!
Fabric Monsters. After the paper texture monsters came the 3D fabric monsters. Students discussed geometric and organic shapes to use in their monsters. When planning their monsters on paper, they had to use the 2 finger rule. No spots could be smaller than 2 fingers width. This was to make it easier to sew around and work with. When they had a plan, they started by cutting out their paper plan. Once they had their tracer it was time to trace onto felt. They had a front and back piece. Once it was traced they needed to cut out the fabric. After the front and back felt was complete they started to cut out their details such as eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and any other silly creative embellishment. They could glue or sew these details on depending on time. The running and whip stitch were shown. Students did a nice job of threading their own needles with the yarn, tying knots and starting on the backside so the knot was hidden. Once details were complete it was time to use the whip stitch to sew the front and back together. Students did a great job with consistent sewing. This took about 3 class times to complete the sewing and stuffing of the monsters. The kids LOVED these monsters and wanted to take them home right away, but the monsters had to stick around for awhile to be shown in the Fine Arts Night.
Monsters have been in the art room for quite some time now! We started our monster mania by making texture monsters. We took a day to discover a lot about texture. We discovered tactile and visual texture. Students went around the classroom and found all different textures and used descriptive words to describe them. Then they drew textures and described them also, with the time left over they started to plan their texture monsters. The had to show at least 2 different textures. They drew in pencil first and colored with oil pastel. They got very creative! This was a warm up for the fabric monsters that are coming!
4th grade artists started the year out by painting Romero Britto pumpkins. We talked a lot about Romero Britto and how his art was broken down into sections and filled with at terns. Romero Britto wants his art to bring joy and happiness to people with the fun patterns and colors. This is the kind of art that I love introducing to students. We then explored mixing tints and shades. First students practiced making tints and shades and pulling their brush to create straight lines. Once they were comfortable mixing they started to draw their masterpieces in pencil. They drew their pumpkin which had to have at least 5 sections and the background had to have at least 3 sections. While they started to add patterns to their sections we talked about balance. Balance could be created by using the patterns or color. Then they were off to paint. Once they were done painting they outlined the pumpkin and the sections with black oil pastel. This really cleaned up the edges and completed the pieces!