Be a Buddy -- Not a Bully!

The motto for our school's anti-bullying program is "Be a Buddy, Not a Bully!" Third grade classes are making posters that illustrate examples of bullying behavior and contrasting that with "buddy" behavior.

First, here's mine:

Here's a couple finished posters by third graders:

Here are some up-close details of a buddy behavior and a bully behavior.

The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush

Little Gopher was smaller than the other young Indian boys of his Plains tribe, and although he tried hard, he could not do what the others did. The tribe's wise shaman assures him, however, that he has a different gift.

This book is a vivid retelling of a Wyoming legend of the origin of their state flower, the Indian Paintbrush. We read this together in kindergarten art classes, and talked about Native American life and art. Then students made their own drawings of Little Gopher.

Painting -- Andy Warhol Style

Fourth grade classes have been looking at the paintings of Andy Warhol. This artist often used repetition of the same image (like a can of soup or someone's face) to create a pattern. If you look at his work, you can see that he often used unexpected colors and didn't always "stay within the lines."

In some ways, each image is exactly the same, but when we consider the color, each one is completely different. To learn more about this fabulous artist, we've read these two books together. Did you know the author and illustrator is also Andy Warhol's nephew -- and that he'll be visiting our school in the spring?

The book above is his brand new book. Andy Warhol had 25 cats -- all named Sam!

One of the students was excited to find that his family owned the special edition commemorative stamp plaque below!

To duplicate our image, we made a sketch, scribbled on the back of it, then traced over the lines in the drawing over and over again. If you've never done that, try it! It's a lot of fun.

Now we're painting each one with some experimental and expressive colors and techniques. We are ready for our fifteen minutes of fame!

Splat! Good thing she's wearing a paint shirt!

Family Fun Night

A couple weeks ago, we had a Family Fun Night with the theme of "Carnival". Mr. Macik and I covered the Caricature Station. I don't know how many caricatures of kids we drew -- it seemed like at least a hundred!

Kids: "Mr. Wales, when will it be my turn?"

Me: "I'm drawing as fast as I can!!!"