Oil Pastel Cityscape

I'm switching gears with my 3rd graders from their biomes to their neighborhood.   We have begun a cityscape project incorporating stencil making, painting, drawing and poetry.  To better understand what a cityscape is, students listened to Round Trip by, Ann Jonas.  

This captivating book is read in a "round trip" manner where your read the story forward and then flip the book over to see the illustrations differently on the way back.  In the story there is a series of pages that emphasize a cityscape which we carefully observed and then tried and replicate in our own artwork.  Students noticed the variety of shapes used in the buildings such as rectangles, squares, trapezoids, triangles and half circles.  

We then applied those shapes to the roof lines of Boston to try our best to capture some of the significant buildings in our city - Prudential, Hancock, State House, etc.

 

Students then tried using a contour line to make their silhouette of the Boston skyline.   The next step was to cut the contour line to create a stencil for their artwork.  This was then taped onto a 18x20 inch paper and then the sky and water was painted in.

Once their papers were dry, students then removed their stencil and got busy adding details to their buildings, background and foreground by using oil pastels.  

Bravo to work well done!!!

Pattern Windsocks

The classic windsock. . . Colorful tube, long, dangly tassels, they really brighten up any dreary day with their ability to dance across the sky.  I decided to capture this spirit by having my Kindergarten classes make pattern focused windsocks.  We discussed AB and ABB patterns before designing and coloring in five different variations for their artwork.  

Beautiful patterns!

Carefully cutting the boarder for his windsock.

How sweet are these!!!

OGPS - 2 Point Perspective Style

Orchard Gardens Pilot School has distinct architectural features.  From it's bold lines, to primary colors, it stands out in the neighborhood.  In this next project, 6th grade students are using OGPS to better understand and practice 2 Point Perspective.  What makes this assignment tricky, is that the picture above, doesn't allow for the vanishing points to rest on the paper, rather we had to think of a strategy to make this work.  We designed paper extenders to attach to the sides of our papers.  They looked much like limbs dangling off the sides!  None the less, this allowed for students to place the vanishing points far enough away to accomplish this perspective of the building.

   Students worked on adding expressive skies.  Working the paintbrush to make movement with the clouds and wind.  

Awesome results, 6th graders!!!

Boston Cityscape

Cityscapes, the next area that my middle school students are focusing on.  I saw an image from a PaintNite advertisement and instantly wanted to try it out with my 7th and 8th graders.  I really wanted this group to tryout color mixing and get a better grasp on the primary colors.  I distributed palates of red, yellow and blue for the first session and we discussed this chart to help us with our decision making when mixing hues of oranges and reds in order to make the bricks for the buildings. 

 Students developed some frustration when miking their first batch of orange.  Many added too much red which resulted in a fiery color instead of the orange they were expecting.  It was a teachable moment to discuss mixing in small batched so we minimize the amount of "wasted" paint when trying to achieve the color we're looking for.  Overall, I think the students really got the hang of it and enjoyed making these Back Bay/Fenway pictures!

UglyDolls Pop Art

Now that the UglyDoll stuffed animals are complete, what shall we do with the templates?  I wanted the students to dabble with making pop art specifically in the style of Roy Lichtenstein.  In the spirit of Lichtenstein, I had student make a four block comic book grid of their UglyDolls.  Students were asked to trace their templates four different ways and consider the implications of off-centering their composition to make for a more dynamic artwork.  Once their character was placed in their grid four different ways, students used oil pastels to color them in and then a variety of stamping tools to paint a comic book style background.  

Snowy Day in Boston

A true classic, The Snowy Day by, Ezra Jack Keats is the perfect book to get us through these tough winter months here in Boston.  The students can unquestionably relate to the main character, Peter, and all his experiences in the snow. This collage activity started out by painting the background.  I choose purple to resemble the illustrations in the book, but really any color will do.  We then overlapped five different sized rectangles onto the paper to represent the buildings and then glued them down.  To get the affect of snow capped buildings, I showed the students how to tear paper to get a "fuzzy" edge that resembles the same line as snow.  They then practiced ripping paper and glued it down to their buildings.  

The next lesson was focused on making Peter, the traffic light and his footprints in the snow.  The final pictures are precious!

Cardinals

Ugh, the never ending winter here in Boston has forced me to try and appreciate something other than the endless cold and snow.   After staring out my window, I saw a glimmer of hope!  A beautiful cardinal perched on a tree branch made me think about creating a winter still life with my 2nd graders.  To get the students thinking about cardinals I grabbed a favorite book, In Novemeber by, Cynthia Rylant to read to the class.

Although this book is about Thanksgiving, its illustrations capture winter scenery and is perfect for this lesson.  I had the students pause and look carefully at the pages where the cardinals were present. We talked about their coloring, shape and appearance.  I had the students practice drawing cardinals in their sketchbooks before making a commitment with Sharpies for their artwork.  

Next steps will be to add some branches, berries and snow!