Chihuly Melted Glass

4th grade viewed the glassworks of Dale Chihuly and recreated his Maccia using melted plastic. We used permanent markers to color on hard plastic plates. Then we used heat guns to melt the plastic. They were amazed at the process and the results are gorgeous! Check out more on our Artsonia page. 

Chihuly Paintings

3rd grade nailed it again with these gorgeous paintings based on the work of Dale Chihuly. We viewed his glassworks and discussed how he relays his ideas to his team using drawings and paintings. Then we created these amazing artworks with many layers!

The first step was to create a background. We are working on tagboard because we needed to add a lot of paint to these. They used large dry brushes, texture rollers, and paint scrapers to create a textured background. 

After the paint dried, we viewed videos of Chihuly painting and talked about how he used movement in his artworks. Then we played a matching game, matching some of his paintings to the sculptures.  I really wanted them to understand how the 2D and 3D artworks were related, and this help a lot!

You can find a link to the images I printed for the game here.

After playing the game and talking about the shapes he would use in his paintings, we used oil pastels to add quickly-drawn shapes inspired by Chihuly's glassworks.

To finish them off, we use liquid paint in squeezy bottles (official name) to add a few more details. I tried to stress that "less is more" in this case and that we just needed to add a little more interest to our paintings.

These are always a hit and they were so proud of their work!

Lesson Plan Layout

As I've been trying (trying) to organize my lessons, I made a new layout for my lesson plans. The less information to type, the better! I'm sharing a link to the Word Document of this "Pattern Snake" lesson in case anyone would like to use this format.  Enjoy!

Andy Warhol Handprints

This 2nd grade project was way easy, super fun, and very beautiful as a display. We simply traced our hands on black paper with white colored pencil 4 times. Then we used chalk pastels to add color around the hands.

Love how these look all together! ^_^

Kusama Collages

While Kusama is known for her installations, she also creates amazing paintings using organic shapes and intricate designs. 5th grade viewed many of these as the inspiration for these collages.

Original paintings by Kusama

We used this as a chance to review complementary colors. Students chose 2 papers and cut organic shapes from one to collage onto the other.

Then we used Sharpie markers to add designs like we found in Kusama's paintings. Gorgeous results!

Check out these awesome artworks!

3D Kusama Rooms

4th grade did an amazing job with these rooms! Im often worried about open-ended projects like this, but they nailed it! We started by looking at images and videos of Kusama's Infinity Rooms and Obliteration Room. We sketched our ideas first, then constructed a room.

Students were given colored dot stickers, mirror boards, and Crayola Model Magic clay for their 3D items such as pumpkins and tentacles. 

Starry Night meets Kusama!

Love how original each room is, while staying true to Kusama's style!

Yayoi Kusama Classroom Decorations!

In October, we studied modern Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (or Kusama Yayoi, if you're following Japanese grammar). This was my favorite artist to decorate for so far, so check it out!

I got a Star Shower projector from WalMart for about $15. Huge impact and gives us the sense of being in one of Kusama's Infinity rooms!

Infinity Room by Yayoi Kusama

To make sure we could see the lights, I covered the windows with dotted black paper.

A few examples of the pumpkins 3rd grade made, and some spotted pumpkins from Target helped complete the effect. And some Obliteration Room dots on the mannequins. ^_^