Flamin' Flamingo Sculptures & John James Audobon

Well...they weren't supposed to be "flaming flamingos" but since I do not have kiln at my school I have to bake my clay in the ovens.  For some reason...one of the ovens was not working properly and my flamingos began burning...smoking...and yes at 2:59 pm just as students are getting on buses, lining up, going in 75 directions...yes, you guessed it.  I set off the school fire alarm.  :)  Happy Days!  (see part of the burned flamingo below).  Needless to say the next day, yours truly won the Flaming Flamingo Award at school.  

On a serious note...my students have LOVED these.  We began learning about 2 artist and their works.  Audubon & Calder.  I showed my students this you tube clip that gave them more information on John James Audubon.  http://youtu.be/7gozLgMAq38

We looked at some of his art work and I asked them to be listening for answers to guided questions about the clip to give them a purpose for watching the piece.  For example, Why does the lady have white gloves on in the video?  How often do they turn the pages in the book?  How many pieces did Audubon create?  

  Next we compared Calder's Flamingo Sculpture to Audubon's work.  Before they created their sculptures we need to know more about flamingos...so we read the book For Pete's Sake (see below) and did a labeling writing art piece to go along with our sculptures.  Finally we were ready for the clay.  You can see the steps below.  Next week we are adding final touches, possibly a feather coming out the back...I just cant decide if I like it or not and glazing. 

 Roll out a 6-12" snake to coil around like a snail.
Fold the head backwards and press to make the beak.
Pinch the tush to make the flamingo's pointed body.  Use 2 long skinny sticks for the legs and create a solid base for the flamingo to stand on.

Art is a HOOT!

Love these water color owls.  We did the wet on wet technique and my artist completely stressed out because they could not be so precise.  We talked about how the colors would blend and give it a cool tie dye look.  I really think they turned out well.
They wanted to define their owls at the end so they used sharpie to go back over and outline their pieces. 

             We used the book Little Owl's Night by Divya Srinivasan because I LOVE the illustrations. View the book trailer here:  http://youtu.be/RS7I2tfWQMU

Alphabet Canvas Art

My after school art class made these adorable alphabet canvases painted with acrylic paints.  I gave them just the primary colors and white and told them to make me happy!  They are adorable!

Monet, Shaving Cream & The Wreck of the Zephyr

Love Chris Allsburg's books and I tied it in with a piece from Monet to inspire these 2nd graders to create their pieces.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514axYiXkEL._SX258_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

To create these we used shaving cream and water color paints instead of actually painting our background.  Love how these colors turned out and they looked so much like Monet's sunset above the water,

The students created their boats to collage on top of the water backgrounds.  I am not sure what has happened to my final pictures that I took...but you get the idea.  As I reflect, I think in my next attempt...I will use scrapbook paper or fabric to create the sails. 

Here some of my 3rd graders did Monet's Waterlilies using finger prints and adding a bridge on top.  We looked at how he did his brush strokes to paint his piece.  They are lovely.