Painted Paper Cave Art Collages

We used liquid tempera paint in natural colors to create painted papers for our collage. I have a set of "line tracing" cards (basically just blue credit cards) that I cut to make into paint combs. We discussed texture and what it must have been like to draw on a cave wall versus on paper. Then we made our textured paper. ALMOST too beautiful to cut up. ;)

The next week, we drew images on the back of common cave art pictures like handprints, animals, and stick figures hunting. I tried to get them to understand that we have to make shapes, not lines, to cut out more easily. Some of them understood, others got it once they drew line people and tried to cut it out. It is a learning process. ^_^

Then we crumpled another piece of paper to make a bumpy cave wall and glued our cut-out painted paper shapes on top. I was very happy with their work, they are beautiful. 

Here is the PowerPoint I showed them.

Here is the page of reference images I gave them when they started to draw. 

Meath Spirals

I really wanted to spread out from the same old "Cave Art" for my Prehistoric Art unit. I love cave art, but I didn't want every project to look the same. So I found amazing artworks and learned a lot in researching what other things were created in "Prehistoric Times". 

The Meath Spirals are stone carvings found in Meath County, Ireland from around 3200 BCE. They have a variety of designs so it was easy for my 4th graders to create some really unique works. 

We started by creating a glue and yarn collage of a spiral on cardboard. I gave them a handout of Celtic spirals for inspiration, but they could deviate on these as they pleased.

Then we wrapped the designs with copper tooling foil and burnished them until the designs came through. We stamped a square of paper with some Celtic knot stamps that I luckily had, and glued the metal to the background.

ALL of these were beautiful, no matter what the skill level or the amount of work we put into them with the time we had. They were really nervous about this because it is a lot of "hard" work, But in the end they were happy with their results. 

You can find the PPT I created for this here. 

I borrowed a lot of the technique here from a lesson I did with my Frist camp kids this past summer. You can see what they did here.

Curriculum: Art History

I finally completed a project that has been in the works for a while. I have planned out all of my lessons for the coming school year based on the year-long unit "Art History". 

I made two lesson grids to keep organized this year; one with descriptions and one with pictures. You don't know how many times I write some obscure description and not remember what that was supposed to look like at all. 

I color-coded the projects by media so that I could make sure every grade level gets a variety of experience. Sometimes I can get into the rut of using the same materials for every project and that makes no one happy. 

I also left December and May open. With snow days, holidays, and half days, I'll need those times for classes to catch up. I'll be sure to post some fun one-day activities for those days. :)

I'm sure a lot of those pictures look familiar. I spent hours scavenging the internet for art history projects and snatched images when I found them. This is just for me to know what I'm talking about and it's not intended to be published. My next goal is to make an online version of this with clickable pictures that take you to the websites from which these images were pulled so that you can read about the process there. When I have that done, I'll post it on my Curriculum tab. For now, you can use my PDF versions of these on my Google Drive. Enjoy!

Art History Curriculum

Art History Visual Curriculum Guide

MES Origami

I was so intimidated to teach this, but also thankful because I have a lot of origami planned for summer camp and this was great practice! Students worked to complete origami cat & dog heads, stars, hopping frogs, and kites. Some of them got really creative in their designs. A few classroom teachers also did origami in their classrooms this week, incorporating angles and fractions, which we also discussed in the art room. So happy to have cooperative and enthusiastic coworkers. :)

You can view the PPT I used here. Not a lot of direction, but the images for the projects are posted. 

Henri Rousseau Pop-Ups

In May we focused on environmental artworks and artists who use nature as inspiration. In this project, we viewed Henri Rousseau's Jungle series and discussed animals in their natural habitats. Then we created pop-up cards of animals in their natural habitats. We also discussed foreground, middle ground, and background. The PowerPoint for this project is available under the pictures.These were a lot of fun. :)

Rousseau FMB Animals PPT

Egypt

All classes just completed their Egyptian inspired projects. All projects were based on different artifacts found in Egyptian ruins and were embellished with shiny gold.They also used Hieroglyphs to write an Egyptian message on their artworks. There are many versions of Hieroglyphs, but I chose to teach them the one with the easiest images to draw.

Before we began, we played Pharaoh Bingo to learn which symbols stood for which letters. 

First grade created a Cartouche using patterns and gold with a message in the middle. You can find a printout and many helpful resources on this Egyking website.

Second grade learned amount Mummification and designed a sarcophagus with patterns and gold. The handout for the sarcophagus can be found at the Activity Village page to download.

Third grade chose between four designs of Canopic Jars.I drew my own jars and made copies based on this image:

 but you can download and print some jars from this Activity Village page.

Fourth grade practiced Zentangle designs on their Cat Mummies. I drew my own to copy, but I'll try scan and upload it.

Fifth grade practiced portraits to create a face inspired by either King Tut's burial mask or the bust of Queen Nefertiti. I had a few students who were unable to complete the project because they missed days, so they designed a pre-made face found here. 

Very proud of these, the kids really stepped up and did some amazing work. :)

View the Power Points:

1st Grade Cartouch

2nd Grade Sarchophagus

3rd Grade Canopic Jars

4th Grade Zentangle Mummies

5th Grade Pharaoh Portraits

Be warned: I gave them copies to decorate because I didn't think it was necessary to have them draw their own jars, sarcophagus, etc. for this project, and those are difficult shapes to draw. However, this caused my students to treat their projects like a "coloring sheet" and many didn't take their work seriously. In the future, I'll take my chances on their drawing abilities so that they take more pride in their work. Anyone else ever notice this happen to their students?