Lady Liberty, Peter Max & Andy Warhol

                                                                                               My 4th graders made these cool pieces after learning about 2 artist Andy Warhol & Peter Max.  We looked at several pieces of their art work and did a study on Lady Liberty.  We looked at the map of New York and discussed what other landmarks were in New York.  Some of my classes did the print making piece with foam and my final classes did theirs in the style of Peter Max with water colors.  Unfortunately my print making photos were deleted and these are all I have to show, but they did a great job!  Each student created a red, white and blue background for their artwork to be mounted on as well.

We used this book The Story of the Statue of Liberty by Maestro to learn more about Lady Liberty.

Hokusai's The Wave inspired Printmaking

3rd-6th grade did a study of Hokusai's artwork.  See my power point of his artwork and the poem's link below.  My intern taught the lesson where the students used foam plates to do their printmaking.  They read the poem and selected phrases or words to describe their wave and printed it on their pieces as well. 

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/huskeyj72501-1554544-katsushika-hokusai-power-point/

In LOVE with Reading...Printmaking & Zentangles Heart Art!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!  We have been following up our Jasper Johns printmaking creations with I would say what has turned out to be some of my FAVORITE pieces!!   Below I posted our steps and some examples.

First I gave my student foam rectangles and we use old ink pens to create the Embossing. 

Embossing

Any process used to create a raised or depressed surface, sometimes without ink.

Drypoint

Drawing directly on the copper plate with a sharp point creates a rough ridge of metal--a burr--along the furrow. When the plate is inked, the burr catches the ink, producing dark, velvety accents.

They cut out the heart shape from their foam piece.  Then we rolled colored ink over their hearts and began the printing practice.  After they felt confident with printing then we used old book pages that had been falling apart.  Glued them to colored backgrounds and they did their final heart right in the middle of the text. 

              

WE HAVE HAD ENDLESS COMPLIMENTS ON THEIR PIECES.  I used the caption "In LOVE with READING" and displayed the art in the hall.

As my 5th & 6th graders finally finished their alphabet sculptures we moved into the zentangle heart art that I borrowed from SmART Class at:

http://elementaryartfun.blogspot.com/2012/01/heart-works

I love the ideas on Natalie's site!

Jasper Johns & LMNO Peas

These are still a work in progress...but I am already loving them so I wanted to post what I had so far!

We began our project with the book LMNO Peas by Keith Baker. 

It is a fun alphabet book about these tiny green peas that show action.  It is a great book for talking about action verbs and having students come up with verbs that would go with each alphabet letter.  I had mine try and predict what action the peas would be doing as I turned each page.  By the end of the book they were getting much better with developing their action verbs!

One of my friends that teaches Kindergarten had given me these great alphabet stamps that she had purchased from Lakeshore.  They are jumbo and perfect for little hands.  So, naturally, printmaking came to mind and who better to go along with the alphabet book than the king of printmaking....JASPER JOHNS!

So we did an artist study on Johns and I displayed several copies of various art pieces in the room.  Then my 2nd and 3rd graders completed an art writing piece about Johns where they reflected on interesting or intriguing aspects of his work and stated some facts that they had learned about Johns.   They glued these writings to the back of their finished art work (I decided if they actually keep their artwork then they will always have the background information on Jasper johns.

We did print making with the alphabet stamps in cool colors then we painted around the letters with warm colors.  I love them!  My K-1^st graders completed a slip with the photo of the cover of the book printed on it and the statement “___ is for ___”.  I had them put their first initial and their first name in the blanks.  This week they are finishing by using green paper and cutting out small peas and giving them faces to glue on their piece.

Here is a short power point on JJ:  http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/huskeyj72501-1347957-jasper-johns/