Pop Cats

After reading James Warhola's book Uncle Andy's Cats, we were inspired to make "Pop Cats" -- art that combines paint with found objects and collage created by images from popular culture.

American Flamingo by John James Audobon

Kindergarten and first graders are learning about the artist John James Audobon. Many artists have a favorite thing to draw -- his was birds. His life work was to create life-sized engravings of 500 species of North American birds.

There are two books in our library that helped us understand this artist more. From The Boy who Drew Birds we learned the scientists of his time didn't know much about birds. For instance, to answer the question of where birds went for the winter, some believed that birds transformed themselves from one species of bird to anther. Others claimed that they hybernated underwater all winter. One scientist even claimed that birds traveled to the moon each fall and returned in the spring. He claimed the trip took 60 days! Do you see why it was so important for an artist/scientist to study birds and learn the truth?

From Into the Woods, we learned about Audobon's methods for observing, studying and painting birds.

After learning about the artist and painting, students learned which shapes and colors can be used to draw flamingos.

Below are some finished drawings by kindergarteners.

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.

Kindergarten Clowns

My favorite drawing instruction book is Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes. In her book, the author stresses the importance of teaching students the five elements of contour shape. It isn't enough to show kids how to draw, you have to give them the vocabulary that describes them. A good way to introduce many of these shapes is through making a drawing of a clown.

Making a Splash with Watercolor

Kindergarten classes are making fish paintings in watercolor. We combined simple lines and shapes -- like ovals, straight lines and curved lines -- to draw a fish. Then we painted with watercolor paints.

Shapes in our World

In their first kindergarten class, students learned about using shapes to make things. We used patterns of triangles and squares to make a house, then added details with shapes drawn freehand.

Porcupine Fish Drawings

Meet Pokey -- my kids brought him home as a souvenir from Ocean City, MD -- but they said he could live in the art room for a while. Pokey is a preserved porcupine fish. This kind of fish can fill up with water or air. This prevents predators from getting them into their mouths. Another deterrant is the needle-sharp spikes. When the fish puffs up, the spikes go straight out. Ouch!

In kindergarten classes we looked at this and read a book about it. Students then made their own drawings of porcupine fish.

Color Drops

The Parent Teacher Group borrowed the art room for Family Fun Night and left behind some supplies. They said I could keep them and I'd say the art room made out like a bandit! The kindergarten class is using the droppers and liquid watercolors to create autumn leaf designs -- a nice addition to our color mixing unit. Students dropped paint onto maple leaves precut from color diffusing paper.

A Return the the Racetrack

This lesson was such a hit with Mrs. Twedt's class, we decided it would be a great lesson for kindergarten. The main idea is that primary colors can be mixed to make secondaries. First we had a drawing lesson on how to make a car. Then a little red, yellow and blue was dripped on the paper. Each child was then given a toy car and told to "make tracks!" It's interesting to see the textures and colors achieved by making a painting with a toy car.

Mouse Paint

"Once there were three white mice on a white piece of paper. The cat couldn't find them..."

Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Wash is a lighthearted introduction to color
concepts for young children. Three white mice find three jars of paint -- red,
blue, and yellow. They jump in and out, dance in the puddles, and discover some
amazing things -- things like green and orange and purple. Yet they never
forget about the cat.

After hearing this story from Mr. Malloy, kindergarteners learned how to draw mice using basic shapes. They are then painting each mouse a primary color and using secondary colors in the background. Everyone has started this and will finish their painting during their next art class.

Mixed-Up Chameleons

The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle is a great children's book. In this story the chameleon is bored with his life changing colors and catching flies. Then he visits the zoo! He discovers he can acquire the characteristics of any animal, just by wishing. He gathers an attribute from each animal until he is quite mixed up. However, he is so mixed up, he can't catch flies anymore! The moral of the story is to be yourself!

After we read this story in kindergarten art class, we have a good time making our own mixed up chameleons out of Super-Dough (kind of like Play-dough). We then make the chameleons mixed up using feathers, glitter, buttons, pipe cleaners, etc. Lots of these little odds and ends were donated to us by someone who thought, "What will I do with this bag of doo-dads? -- I know, I'll give them to the art teacher!" You'd be surprised what we could use.

Art Takes Flight

"Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist."-- Rene Magritte

This group of butterflies was created by Mrs. Hughes kindergarten class. This is how we made them. First we squirted some red, yellow, and blue paint on a 12 x 18 piece of white paper. Then we folded the paper using a "taco fold" (as opposed to a "hot dog" fold). Then each student rubbed the paper with their hand. When they opened the paper, Voila! A beautiful butterfly shape appeared. But, wait a minute! We only used three colors of paint -- where did the orange, purple and green come from?! This project is a fun way to experiment with color mixing through random application of paint.

We cut out the butterfly shapes and made a body and details from construction paper, pipe cleaners, pom-poms and googly eyes.