Ton Schulten cityscapes

Ton Schulten is a Dutch painter who mainly paints landscapes using bright blocks of color.  His geometric style draws you in as your eyes bounce between color and shape.  I came across a post by the blogger Paintbrush Rocket where she tackled this artist with her 2nd grade class.  The results were stunning and I knew I wanted to give a Ton Schulten try with my students.

We started by mapping out the paper.  I helped students make a grid of 2" square.  From there we blocked out our paper with triangles, squares, rectangles and more.  I found it helpful to use construction paper to block off sections as we worked.  The abstract quality of the artwork can make it a tad confusing for little ones.  After the pencil lines were drawn in, students started with the sky.  I encouraged students to put a small letter "B" in each of the blocks that were to receive blue paint.  Again, this really helped minimize errors and have the students feel successful with their painting.  

Adding tints to the sky as students mixed white with blue to create various shades of blue.

Next came value.  Students explored color value by isolating their buildings into specific colors.  Above, a student is working the "red" family and was given dark red, red, pink, and yellow to mix different values with.

More to come as the project progresses!

Romero Britto paintings

7th grade students wrapped up their Kimmy Cantrell masks and rolled right into a painting project in the style of Romero Britto.  Britto's colorful cheery pictures instantly please the eye and captivate a wide audience.  Here, students were asked to start their work by brainstorming a list of 10 activities they love to do in their sketchbooks.  Answers ranged from:

• cheering
• playing football
• playing basketball
• reading
• shopping
• eating pizza

Students then selected 2-3 of their favorite activities and began to sketch a person in the action(s) they selected.  These sketches were then transferred onto larger paper using a grid method.  Then the fun began by adding the color!

More to come as they progress on this project!

After many weeks, here's a selection of finished artworks

Clipper Ships on a maiden voyage

In conjunction with Columbus Day, my 5th graders embarked on a nautical journey working on bringing a clipper ship to life.  I drew inspiration from the fabulous blogger Deep Space Sparkle for this projects.  Students began by drawing their clipper ship with nothing more than pencil, ruler and eraser.  We paid close detail to the masts (3 of them) and sails (at least 9 on each boat) as we sketched out our ships.

Once the clipper ships were complete, students traced over their boats with black marker and used water colored pencils to add color to their ships.  

After the ships were complete, students began to work on their seascape.  We used warm colors for the sky and cool colors for the water. Then we added land on the horizon by diluting black paint and making an organic line across the paper.  

Finally, it's time to put all the pieces together!  I encouraged students to partially glue their clipper ships onto the background thus giving the appearance of wind actually catching its sails.  Some finishing touched included, fluffy clouds and cresting waves. 

 I must say the final pictures are quite impressive!

Jasper Johns inspired American Flags

My middle school elective class is making some patriotic art to display for Veteran's Day.  We drew inspiration from American artist, Jasper Johns and his iconic flag artworks.  I had students look Johns' work and talk about it's meaning.  The next step was to tape down stripes onto the first layer and then brush red paint all over.

After they dried, students removed the tape and took to adding details.  They used oil pastels and modge-podge to create the star(s) and patriotic words onto the flag.  I gave the students copies of patriotic lyrics as well as a word bank to cut from.

More to come as we get going on the second tier!

Happy Veteran's Day!

close, closer, closest

Keeping with the desert theme, my 6th grade students switched gears from portraits to landscapes. These landscapes will be presented as a tryptic, three pictures with in the art work, and focus on the saguaro cactus.  Students will also work on zooming in and understand the concept of close, closer, and closet in their artwork.   Each time they zoom in, the desert landscape get less significant and the emphasis on their art work becomes the cactus.  Here's a sneak peak at the work thus far.