Brooklyn Bridge Silhouettes

2nd graders drew Brooklyn Bridge silhouettes after looking at Walker Evan's Brooklyn Bridge photograph.  We discussed perspective and what it would look like if you were standing on the bridge looking at the towers.  Students were instructed how to draw the image and then colored their drawings with black crayon.  The last step was to add a sunset using colored pencils.  The results were stunning!

Brooklyn Bridge Drawings

 

2nd grade is learning all about the Brooklyn Bridge.  After their field trip we discussed what the Brooklyn Bridge looks like and what all the different components are called- towers, deck, cable, hangers, anchors, etc.  After looking at some photos 2nd graders were instructed how to draw the Brooklyn Bridge.  They added details and textures to make it more realistic.  When we were done drawing we outlined our lines with black sharpie and erased our left over pencil marks.  They came out great!

Hot Air Balloons

This is an image from a first grade bulletin board that I hung.  We made hot air balloon drawings.  I gave students a blue paper with four different sized circles on them.  We looked at images of hot air balloons and discussed what shapes we needed to complete our drawings.  Students used different designs, lines and shapes to decorate their balloons.

The Lorax

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday on March 2nd and the opening of the Lorax movie, 1st graders drew their own version of the Lorax.  We began with a read aloud and then a demonstration of how to draw the Lorax by breaking it down into simple shapes.  I also gave students a How To Draw paper showing them the steps one by one.  The drawings came out great! 

Hot Air Balloons

1st graders drew hot air balloons after looking at various images and discussing how they work.  We talked about how the closer hot air balloons appear larger than the hot air balloons that are further away.  We also discuseed how to draw a basket that looks three dimensional.  Students added other details in the sky, baskets and down below.  This lesson was borrowed from Mrs. Brown's website.

Picasso Portraits

I have seen this lesson on several blogs. Students draw abstract portraits based on Picasso's. They begin by drawing a circle and draw a profile line down the center. We discuss how he shows different points of view at once and how to draw features from the front and side. Students then divide up their drawing using a large figure 8 and horizontal and vertical lines. Students use different colors and patterns to fill in the spaces.

Op Art Opposities

This lesson follows up a lesson about Op Art. We spent some time looking at and discussing Op Art and optical illusions. Students created two drawings of opposite images. When the drawings were colored they measured 1" vertical strips across both drawings. Students cut one strip from one drawing and glued it onto a new sheet of 9x12 paper. They then cut the first strip from the second drawing and glued it next to the strip from the first drawing. They continued cutting and gluing one strip at a time from each drawing. Once all the strips were glued down they folded their paper accordian style. When opened up each opposite can be viewed from a different angle. The next time I do this project I think I would try using images that show movement so that when you look at the drawings it appears that they are moving.

Winter Landscapes

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5th graders used oil pastels to create winter themed landscapes. We reviewed lots of vocabulary- landscape, horizon line, foreground, middleground, background... Students could include whatever winter elements they chose in their landscapes but each object had to have a shadow (colored in the same direction and away from the light source) and they had to make sure that they paid attention to atmospheric perspective- objects in the distance are smaller than objects that are closer. These came out great but we blew through white oil pastels!

Snow Globes

First graders designed their own snow globes. They traced a snow globe shaped template and drew a winter image inside the globe section and designed the base with decorations and phrases. When their drawings were complete and colored in they added dots of glue which glitter was poured onto.

Modigliani Style Self-portraits

After learning how to do a self-portrait using proper proportions, 3rd grade students are introduced to the work of Amedeo Modigliani. I originally saw this project on www.artprojectsforkids.org where I borrow many of my ideas from. Students began by folding their paper in half vertically to get a fold right down the center. They then folded their paper horizontally in half, also folding the top half down to the center fold and the lower half up to the center fold creating 8 rectangles. These folds were used as guidlines. We looked at the works of Modigliani and discussed the proportions he used and why. They drew a narrow oval along the center fold in the top half of the paper, the neck was drawn in the next section and the upper body in the last section. After adding facial features and hair, drawings were traced with black oil pastel (these are done on black construction paper). We reviewed how to use oil pastels and how to blend them to create new colors. Students had to blend colors to create skin tone and hair color. The oil pastels on the black paper made the colors very vibrant.