More Cartoons… and Printmaking Posters

After a week-long hiatus, I have many pictures to share! Here are some of the grade 4’s completed cartoon prints:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

One of the problems I ran into with this project, is that I needed time to work with individuals. This left the majority of the class waiting at their tables and needing something to do. I wanted to give students a task still related to our current project and not just ‘busy’ work. One of my goals of this project was to have the students learn all the steps involved in making a print. So I decided to have them make a poster to show me these steps, which we had gone over several times. Many of the posters turned out really well, with creative, thought-out  page layouts (although I had a hard time convincing them to add nice bright colours). This assignment was great way for them to show me their learning!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Portraits

This week I finished a favourite project of mine with the kindergarten and first grade: self portraits! They always make me smile. We did our drawing first in black pastel, then painted the shirt, background, face and hair. Once the paint dried, we added detail to the face and shirt using coloured pastels. We also filled in our backgrounds with pattern, using line, shape and colour, which was a great review of previous learning!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Cartoon Prints

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

These fantastic, colourful, cartoon prints are the results of a very LONG printmaking unit with my Grade 5’s. Despite the project dragging on for a few too many classes, it was worth it to be able to hang these up at the end!

Happy Birthday Renoir!

I decided it was high time to introduce my students to another famous artist, and one of my favourites just happened to have a birthday during this particular week. The French impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir would have been 172 on February the 25th. For this lesson, I introduced Renoir by showing the students his photo and the painting Bal du moulin de la Galette, which I explained was done in an impressionist style. We looked closely at the painting and I asked them to talk about what they saw. The first graders were very observant and noticed a lot of little details about the piece, which they said looked like a party at a wedding! We then worked on our own pictures of people outside enjoying themselves. First, we covered our papers with a layer of yellow pastel and did our drawings overtop with other colours. I showed the students how to scratch through the top layer of pastel to show the yellow (or ‘light’) underneath, similar to the way Renoir painted impressions of light. This was a fun birthday lesson to teach!

Negative Space Compositions

In my high school drawing class, we have been working with negative space. The students just finished this assignment: to create a triptych composition, drawing the negative space of three objects. The contrast of the black and white on these is so nice I thought I should share them! I included the ones done by last semester’s group as well.