The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau

Yesterday I had my first Visual Communications class for this second half of the year. Since this year our theme in the Art room is "The Art of the Picture Book" I wanted to integrate yet another story, artist, and activity combo! We only have one computer lab and one new lap top cart so it has been challenging getting in there to teach the class during our CDT testing in the school. With my younger primary students grades K-2 we watched this really cool video that uses the children's book "The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau" by Michelle Markel and combines some great Parisian music in the background. I read the story to them through he slides and we discussed the pictures and some of the words used in the stories. We then looked at a power point presentation of his works and discussed his use of overlapping, color, and played an "I Spy" activity out of critiquing his work.

Henri Rousseau Video 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9VHjJvRcFw

(Above is the link to the video, for some reason the video wouldn't load on here for me, sorry!)

After we discussed Henri's art work and style, we then went onto the NGA KIDS website to create our own compositions in the style of Henri Rousseau. We recently downloaded the NGA Kids APP to our I-PADS and we used this for the Kinders which worked out fabulously. They were engaged, excited, and really enjoyed putting their own pieces together. Their compositions rocked! If you are interested in integration technology into your art classes this is a simple and easy way to do so and it allows the students to use an interactive website geared towards visual arts. Enjoy and I hope you have as much fun with this activity as my students and I did!

Creative Wishes,

Ashley

Kindergarten Shape Frogs and Printmaking Hearts

So usually I do not do holiday "Crafts" or holiday projects but in this case with my kindergarten this year I thought it would be something they would enjoy and I found this great idea that inspired me in a calendar I came across.  Usually during the holiday's because so many students do not celebrate this holiday, or that holiday, I usually do a seasonal art lesson or I try to tie in artists that do artwork relating to that season, for example it is Valentine's Day coming up so I have done a few Jim Dine lessons with my students!

Since we have been talking about the heart shape, collage, and printmaking, we tied all three together in this collage piece. We used our left over Eric Carle paper's that we made and some construction paper to make the frog, they practiced their motor skills cutting out their own eyes and tongue, The tongue had to have a heart shape at the end, and then students used their fingerprint to create their hearts in the background. I actually came across this project in a calendar a teacher gave me a couple of weeks ago and thought this would be a cute yet multi-dimensional lesson for the students. We were able to review some Eric Carle concepts as well and added in the complementary color discussion with the red/pink and green!

Hope you are inspired and I hope you all enjoy your Valentine's Day this weekend!

Love and Creative Wishes your way,

Ashley

Art and Literature Integration: Exploring the work of Eric Carle

This year my librarian at our elementary school and I are working hand in hand to put both art and literature together for our students. We are using sketchbooks that students take from my class to her class to take notes, complete activities, and to critique art and illustrations. It has been a huge success and the students are making amazing connections. We are only doing this with our upper level elementary students grades 4-6.

Right now I am finishing up my Eric Carle units with my K-2nd graders. They have made some really awesome stuff and collage and paper making has been a super success! Can you guess which famous Eric Carle books these artworks are inspired by?

 We use hole punchers to make the leaf appear as if the hungry caterpillar was very hungry! Kinder's and 1st grade students loved punching away the holes. It was a great added detail to tell a story.

 Students created their own papers for this lesson and they had to use a ruler to design their webs. We discussed octagons and put a little bit of math into this one!

 Kinder's loved making these stars! We looked at the illustrations and read the story Draw Me A Star. We discussed texture, tints, and shades and used that for our backgrounds. We used a cake icing scrapper to do the background, these are cheap and you can find these at the Christmas Tree Shop's or cheap in the baking isle :)

Mister Seahorse was done by 2nd graders and we used tissue paper, tempera paint and watercolor paints for the background. The papers used to make up the seahorse were created by 2nd graders before we started the collage. We discussed and watched videos of Eric Carle making his amazing textured papers.

I hope you can be inspired and enjoy these fun lessons. For more ideas visit my teachers-pay-teachers shop or my Pinterest boards! Happy Creating Artistic minds and Creative Souls!

Creative Wishes,
Ashley 

My Sunday Fun day!!!!

Today was a great day to make some art. Do you have some art laying around that needs some revamping or was forgotten about? Well today was one of those days! I love layering paint and textures. I especially love spray paint and stenciling! It's always fun to be expressive and layer paint on with tools you can find around the house. 

Here are some of today's tools I had fun with!