Famous artist Andy Goldsworthy is fascinating. Our 5th graders were amazed at an artist who creates and photographs art made from gathered leaves, mud, twigs, ice or rocks.
We began by viewing brief videos of Andy Goldsworthy on YouTube.
We discussed the repeating motifs in Mr. Goldsworthy’s work, including serpentine lines, spirals, and a circle with a hole in the center. We also looked at examples of stacked stone.
Students wend to the school garden and created temporary art works from materials found there.
A group of fifth graders worked together to make this dry-stacked rock arch.
Leaves arranged by color.
Early finishers made insect sculptures!
I took the photos initially, then turned over the camera to some early finishers who shot the rest of the photos.
Most students chose to work in pairs or groups for this project. Several said it was their favorite art project EVER! A few watched the YouTube videos again at home.
Next time you have good weather, consider an Andy Goldsworthy project.
Armed with camera-equipped iPads and iPods, our fourth graders spread out in our school garden in search of alphabet letters. Each student was assigned a letter to photograph.
Letter O
It was interesting to see how they completed the assignment: some students found letters in the branches of trees, some created letters from stones and twigs. Some poured water on the pavement to draw their letter. If they were absolutely stumped (get it?) , I let them use a letter from the garden signs. I asked students to take 5-10 photos of their letter.
I am happy to report the fourth graders LOVED looking for letters. They were completely engaged, and helped each other. I heard a lot of shouts of “I found a T! Who has T?”
This week, students used their devices and the Pic Collage app to turn their best photos into a photo collage. I asked them to zoom in so that we could really see the letter – aim for making a letter so clear a kindergartener could recognize it. They emailed me their files and we reviewed them as a class.
Great work fourth graders!
Our fourth graders are in a pilot 1:1 iPad program, and it is a huge success. The goal is to turn all the photos into a free digital book downloadable through Apple’s iBooks store.
Inspiration for this project came from www.alphabetphotography.com.
UPDATE: see the completed whole-alphabet collages in this post.
Need a group art project? 4th grade just completed a pointillism mural based on Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon at the Island of La Grade Jatte”.
‘La Parade’ by George Seurat. 1889
Day 1:
Introduce pointillism. We discussed how Seurat made paintings in a whole new way: instead of blending colors, he placed different colors of dots side by side and let the viewer’s eye mix them.
Close up view:
I passed out some greeting cards with pointillist art and let students examine them closely. They really need to see the art works up close to appreciate how many dots Seurat put in his paintings (tip: pass out magnifying glasses for a close up view). I added some great close-ups to this Seurat Powerpoint (sadly I am not sure who posted this Powerpoint).
Individual warm-up project: make your name in dots on a 4.5″x12″ strip of paper. Color the background with dots as well. We used Q-tips and pan watercolors.
Make your name in dots as an introduction to pointillism.
Days 2-3:
Group project. I purchased the downloadable pdf mural ‘Sunday in the Park’ from Art Projects for Kids ($8). The pdf contains a 28-piece mural (perfect size for a 4th grade class!) which you print onto cardstock. Each student ‘dotted’ their respective part of the mural, using the coloring guide included in the download.
Seurat’s famous ” (aka ‘Sunday in the Park’). Seurat’s masterpiece contains over 3 million dots and took over 2 years to complete.
28 individual pointillist artworks come together to form Seurat mural.
The assembled mural is 55 inches x 40 inches.
We carefully assembled the mural by attaching long strips of masking tape on the seams (note: get a helper for assembly!). Bonus: it folds up like a map! Easy to store until the art show.
The completed mural.
The kids really enjoyed this project. I did notice there was a lot of variety in the assembled mural – some students made a near-solid dot pattern with almost no white paper showing. Others had sparsely dotted areas. Next year I will use this pointillism practice worksheet from Miss Young’s Art Room blog.
Pointillism worksheet from Miss Young’s Art Room blog.
Options:
Individual coloring sheet for ‘Sunday in the Park’. From Practical Pages blog.
Want an individual project based on ‘Sunday in the Park’? There is a great post including download on the Practical Pages blog.
Try out different materials for pointillism:
Q-Tip + tempera
Marker
Unused eraser tip from a standard pencil + pan watercolor
Unused eraser tip from a standard pencil + stamp pad
Stamp pad + eraser tip
How do you teach pointillism to your students? Leave a comment!
UPDATE 10/17/13:
NEW!!! Pointillism art project – make pointillist FOOD using watercolors, q-tips and markers! AWESOME pointillism video! Click here.
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Famous artist Andy Goldsworthy is fascinating. Our 5th graders were amazed at an artist who creates and photographs art made from gathered leaves, mud, twigs, ice or rocks.
