Tag Archives: painting

Peter Max Statue of Liberty Round Up

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I just finished up a Peter Max Statue of Liberty project with my first graders.  To plan this lesson, I took a look at a lot of elementary-level Peter Max lesson plans on the internet. All my research is contained in the Round Up collage above.

Do you like this collage? Click on the collage. Hover over each image and you will see an arrow.  Click on the arrow to link directly to the lesson.

I made this graphic using a free website called ThingLink.  It allows users to make images interactive. I learned about ThingLink on the Free Technology for Teachers blog.

Here are some more resources you can use for your lesson:

Meet Peter Max:

Wikipainting.org has a great selection of Peter Max artworks, including a Liberty Head, psychedelic artwork from the 1960s, and Warhol-like portraits of famous people.

Our students watched Peter Max prep his canvases this EXCELLENT 2008 video from CBS This Morning. (Requires flash. Reading this on an iPhone or iPad? Click here)

Our Art Project: We ended up doing a two-day art project using  tempera cakes and black crayon on 12″x18″ sulphite and manila paper.

Day 1:Paint backgrounds in style of Peter Max. Students made patches of color, stripes or even polka dots.

Day 2: Use black crayon or oil pastel in directed draw of Statue of Liberty head. BE SURE TO TELL STUDENTS TO GO BACK OVER THEIR LINES SO THEY ARE THICK AND BLACK.

Here is one of our first grade artworks:

peter max statue of liberty

 

Enjoy!

Blue Dog Gets Dressed Up

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blue dog gets dressed up 2Our first graders learned about artist George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog. They had a fabulous time creating their own blue (or green or magenta) dogs and dressing them up in paper collage. The George Rodrigue Foundation website has every resource you could possibly need.  I downloaded the Blue Dog PowerPoint slideshow, and learned the Blue Dog was inspired by Rodrigue’s late dog, Tiffany. The PowerPoint  has lots of  ‘dressed up’ Blue Dog paintings, including a secret agent dog, hula dog and motorcycle dog. Of course the first graders LOVED that! I also showed students the first few minutes of this video from CBS Sunday Morning.

Now on to the art project!

Materials

  • white sulphite drawing paper – 12″ x 18″ (or other white paper that is strong enough for painting)
  • black crayons
  • tempera cakes
  • water cups and brushes
  • glue sticks
  • scissors
  • colored construction paper scraps

Day 1: Students watched Blue Dog PowerPoint, then did a directed draw of the blue dog using black crayon. Next they painted the dog in a single solid color using tempera cakes. Amazingly, this took only 40 minutes thanks to the easy-to-handle tempera cakes.

Day 2: Students decorated their dogs using scrap paper and glue stick. blue dog 123   blue dog pin ableThis was a popular and super successful project with easy clean up. I will definitely repeat next year.

Enjoy!

 

Bonus: FREE Blue Dog app on the iTunes store!

Blue Dog Books You Might Like:

Kindergarten Birthday Cake

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We all know kindergarteners love birthday parties. Cake, presents, decorations – what’s not to love? So it was no surprise that this  birthday cake art project was super-popular with the kinders.

Day 1:

Kindergartens started by viewing my birthday cake powerpoint  (note: if art class is before lunch your students will say they are hungry!). We discussed the lines and shapes we saw on the cakes, and in the frosting and decorations.

Cake drawing emphasizes lines and shapes.

Kinders drew the cakes with crayon. I emphasized that they didn’t have to color the large areas with crayon because we would paint the cakes next week. However, they should use crayon to color in the small areas such as candles, flames, balloons, numbers, etc.

Day 2:

We added cut paper birthday gifts with glue stick, then painted with regular and metallic pan watercolors.

Kindergarteners painted their crayon drawings with regular and metallic pan watercolors. Allow two 40-minute sessions.

Completed birthday cakes:

This would be a great end-of-the-year lesson to celebrate all the ‘summer’ birthdays that occur when school is out of session. This could also be a nice project for a Wayne Thiebaud lesson.

How about adding a book to the project? When I was little, Dr. Seuss’ Happy Birthday to You! was one of my favorite books and I still remember reading it on my 6th birthday (I also remember Baskin-Robbins clown cones plopping all over the back yard at the birthday party, but that is another story).

I’d love your suggestions on a book to read along with this project.

Do you have a special birthday-themed book for primary students?

 

Paul Klee Cats

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This week the second grade made Paul Klee cat paintings ON FELT!!

Second graders made Paul Klee cat paintings using white felt and liquid watercolors. Allow one hour.

The lesson plan is adapted from this post on The Art Annex blog.

We started out by watching this brief video on YouTube:

We used only three materials: white felt (9″x12″), black Sharpie and liquid watercolor, plus spray bottles of water.

I did a directed draw of the cat, focusing its lines and simple shapes. Students drew directly on the felt with their sharpies. Then we painted the cat by dabbing on liquid watercolor. The final step: spraying the felt with water so the colors could bleed and blend.

I dried the art on large sheets of cardboard.

Just in case you are wondering….I did this with just 12 students AND a volunteer. Students got to spray their own art. If I did this with a large class, I would probably assign the spraying to s few responsible students.

This is the second project in our Paul Klee unit. You might also like our Paul Klee abstract name art lesson, inspired by Klee’s Castle and Sun.

 Do you have a favorite Paul Klee lesson plan?

Roar! Lion Paintings (and a book) for First Grade

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First graders love lions. They are sure to enjoy this fabulous painting lesson from the John Post website.

I allowed two 40-minute sessions for the drawIng and painting. After the paint dried, students glued pieces of colorful yarn onto the mane.

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Inspiration for the yarn mane came from Splish, Splash, Splatter.

If you have extra time after gluing, you may want to read a book to the class. I like the website www.wegivebooks.org. It features full length, full color children’s books online to read for free. It works great with the computer and projector in my art room. We recently read Tinga Tinga Tales -Why Lion Roarrrs!

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