photography

One project that I really enjoy doing with my 5th grade students is PHOTOGRAPHY. It is one of their favorite lessons as well. We focus on photography as an art form and how important FRAMING is to the compositon. This is a real mind bender to my students because they rarely think of photography as anything but a memory maker. To actually have to THINK about the details in a shot or the position of the camera to create more interest is challenging. Here are a few examples. I will add more so definitly come back and visit!

Textural Still life

One of my 4th grade classes has been working for quite a while on this one project. It was time consuming, but worth it. These still life collages are all about depth, perspective, and TEXTURE! Students were given time to create a drawing of their desired still life. Then, many different types of art media were made available with which to fill in the different objects. These have paint, tissue, patterened paper, silk flowers, cotton balls, and just about anything else they could find in my art room.

5th grade close ups

Some of my 5th grade students were assigned the task of looking closely at different objects. The reason was to notice detail, much like Georgia O'Keefe and her huge flowers. The students were given 18" x 24" paper and were instructed to really enlarge their object, bigger than life (with exception of the trees). Many of them really did a great job.

After School Artists

Above are some beautiful examples of Figure Painting from my after school students.








As promised,above are some of the incredible encaustic paintings done by my afterschool students.

3rd grade landscapes

Mrs. Lipsky's third grade students were learning about landscapes and how depth is achieved on two dimensional surfaces. We discussed what the artist must do to "trick the eye", by making objects appear farther away or closer to the viewer. For these landscapes, the students were to create a reflection. I was impressed how well these students achieved the goal!

Encostic Painting

This is the first time I have tried my hand at teaching students about Encostic Painting. It is actually a very old form of painting, using melted wax. We used melted crayons in a variety of colors. I am doing this with my after school art students, who prove to be my artistic guinea pigs, and they are LOVING IT!

Process: I have had people donate old electric skillets (and I could use a few more). We fill them 1/4 to 1/2 full of water and set them on 250 to 300 degrees. I put a muffin tin in each one and put different colors of crayons in each space. After melting, the students begin filling in their drawing with wax. I have them draw on scrap mat board, because it is heavier than regular paper.

Students can use the hair drying to melt and smooth wax on their boards. This gives those areas a shiny finish.

Can't wait to see them finished! Will share :-)