FireWorks Canvas Painting



A School Favorite!



We constucted our most recent painting on canvas.   The students were able to finish it up in the last days of school.  It was a fun way to use up some bonus round weavings that we had on hand from some ambitious fourth graders. 

Painting up the Edging of Weaving

A sixth grade boy was inspired by Van Gogh's swirled skies and he and a classmate painted out the dark blue background.  At this time, the canvas edge was covered in a mixture of blue, black, and purple.

We tape looped the weavings into positions as the students went about deciding where each firework would burst open.  When the composition was decided, I hot glued the cardboard looms to the canvas.

Fourth grader volunteers used acrylic paint in bright colors to highlight and bring extra pattern to the sky. 





Bordering the canvas Edge

Several girls finished off the edges with a repeating pattern of finger and thumb prints in the bright acrylic colors.  I think they enjoyed this step a whole lot!

Thumbs Up!



Fireworks Over the Mississippi River 2011



Five Finished Winter Murals

 I couldn't be happier with the murals that came out of the art room in the last 2 weeks!  They were made with all students in my 3rd- 6th grade classes.

They hung in the gym very easily from bulletin board strips and   were focal point at the winter concert on Monday January 17th.  We received many compliments on the work.

Winter Village




Winter Sports





Winter Wildlife




Winter Fantasy

Winter In the Polar Region

I am just delighted with how the murals look, now that they are finished.  It was a great collaboration and worthy of repeating in a different season or with another topic! 

The frames happen to be 4 inch by 18 inch strips that are folded down the center.  They were overlapped with the edge of the mural to make it sturdy and prevent torn edges.   It worked beautifully and it is also where all my students put signatures. 

Clipboards and organizing boxes are definitely recommended for organizing mural parts as they are made.  We found it was best to wait for the individual parts to come in and glue them when we could compare them by size. 

Winter Mural Project: An Update on our Progress

Pine Trees Made by grade 4 and 5

Snowflakes Cut by Gr 6 and 3



Winter Mural in 4 Panels at the end of the 4th day

The pine trees have been designed and painted.  Now the snowflakes were cut today and we have started to glue them to the windy sky.  Tomorrow we must determine the horizon lines for the landscape and define the snow hills and the icebergs.  I think we will paint those in with an icy blue. 

Soon we will cut the village houses and then we will build the snowman figures.  We need to research winter animal tracks and get some more ideas for making the winter sports figures.  There is still a lot to do, but we are moving forward eagerly.

The Start of Our Winter Mural

 Thanks to the inspiring posts on Art With Mr. E's blog and TaraMarie's We Heart Art, I was able to get some murals started at my school too.  Mr. E's fall mural videos were very helpful.  Thank you so much for making those.  I liked the idea that Tara had her students construct the mural in separate sections.  That is making it easier to split up the jobs in my classroom, as we work on the collage components.

Panels A and B



We are off to a running start on our winter mural project.  It has just been two days since Christmas vacation ended and most of our background work is done on the 4 panels.  Considering that we just started Monday, I think that is excellent progress.


Panels C and D



 Grade three students got started with the swirly, whirly sky using only oil crayons.  Later in the day the sixth grade students were able to mix similar winter colors by tinting blue, purple and turquoise with lots of white.  They applied the paint with 1inch and 2 inch foam and bristle brushes. 

Close up of Panel A

Under my guidance, the sixth graders were able to attach 2 or three panels in a row and overpaint the transitions.  This helped each separate page blend well into the next.

Pieces to join to panels B, C, and D




Vincent Van Gogh and his double motivate us from the bulletin board.

 

Inspiration for the Sky of our Winter Mural

Today, many of the fifth graders were able to help create 9 more panels to make each of the sections a little longer.  Several volunteers from that fifth grade class were interested to submit some pencil sketches that will guide our collage parts.  We are thinking to do one panel for each theme:  Winter Sports, Nature, Arctic Animals, and Scenic Winter.

Tomorrow we will start of some pine trees for landscaping.  I'll have more information later this week and perhaps next week too.

Our Newest Painting on Canvas: A Patriotic Flag for Veteran's Day

Here is our latest collaborative project in which we are painting a flag image on a canvas. 


Our newest flag painting on the easel



I set up the stripes by having a long strip of cardstock cut to the correct size to get 13 equal stripes on the flag.  Students shaded along the edge of this strip with red and orange watercolor pencils. On the stripes outside edge it was shaded with blue and purple.   It was blended into the white gesso with a damp cloth.  They wiped in the direction of the stripe. 








A group working on bringing out the 50 stars from the dark BLUE background.

A different group working at bringing out the lettering on the prayer for veterans.



an older painting entitled "America's Heart"



Pictured beneath the easel is painting that was made in the year 2001.  We worked on it following the tragic events of September 11th.  We had painted the heart as a symbol for America and the doves in the lower corners were to remind of our school of the peace and healing that needed to occur for our country.  It was exhibited once at the local gallery, The PumpHouse.  We also showed the painting at a Veteran's Day Program just a couple of years ago.  This year we hope to have the new flag done by the end of Ocober.

Collaboration as a Theme for This Year In the Art Room

Last year the theme in the art room was about getting inspired and finding specific sources for inspiration.

I used a very large image of a paint brush and on the bristles we made it look like it was dipped into all the colors of the spectrum.

Our new theme for the 2010 - 2011 school year will be COLLABORATION

Close up of one of the speech bubbles to help students be familiar with our theme this year.

This year the new theme centers on the word "Collaborate".

It has been defined as working together and cooperating with one another to get the most accomplished in art class.

My students are coming up with some expressions to be written on speech bubbles to go above the lions' heads.

I hope to encourage more student talk about the theme of collaboration in the very near future. 

Perhaps those student that finish assigned work early will  make some collaborative art.  I am going to encourage early finishers to work on artist trading cards and I hope to have one painting on stretched canvas completed for each quarter of the school year.

Assembly of our Butterfly Mural

I wanted to share with you more details about our mural process with Kathy Barbro's butterfly mural.

The children arrived in homeroom groups and I had a total of 6 groups. I estimate that there were about 125 children. Adding the color went very well. We used Crayola oil crayons this time. They worked fine and blended into the card stock just fine. I do prefer the Portfolio oil crayons for their ease of use. They are so much softer and creamier. However, being the end of the year our gold wrapped ones were in short supply.

Because the children were at the mural station for only 25 minutes the time went by rapidly. I gave each group a little run down of what we were doing and had specific goals in mind on which each group could focus. For example, the first group worked with just warm colors and did spots of the butterfly. The second group also did warm colors for the spots on the panels that hadn't been started yet. By the time the third group got there, we were ready for the introduction of the areas between the spots. For that we tried to blend in just cool colors. At this time we talked about doing the outline and the segmented body with a blend of the cool colors and touches of black to create a shade. By the fifth and sixth group, we were ready to do the fingerprinting and small swirls or spiral shapes in the background. I tried to encourage the children to use the hues of the color wheel, rather than neutrals for the background. I had to say "Avoid black brown and gray!!!" a few times.

Organizing was important to do between the groups. We put away the oil crayons before the next group entered and to stack all the like pieces of the butterfly into 3 piles. We collected the panels that were completely wings, partial backgrounds with wings, and only background. That worked well so that I could hand out the sheets for more oil crayon or marker work.

I wish I had thought to take photos of us while we were involved. Sadly, I was much too into the process and only thought of it after we were all done for the day. Next time a mural is on schedule, I will have the camera in my hand! I really liked the switch to the softer print from coloring fingertips with marker ink and stamping them on the white negative space. The band instructor commented that it already was starting to look like Seurat's work! I don't know how I really feel about the swirls though. That may get a little out of control when everyone's idea of a swirl is a bit different and more importantly the size is a bit harder to regulate.

Children in the last group helped lay out the panels in the correct numerical order. We all were delighted to see the image come together.

After the children were gone I trimmed up two edges with the rotary paper cutter. I was careful to align it with the dotted marks. Next I used Tacky Glue to assemble a row at a time, then lastly I joined the rows.

I guess I prefer the glue to masking tape so that it stays together for more than one display. I also thought that it might be easier to line up the design with the art facing right side up.

Lastly, as a museum touch, I painted the outer border with a gold acrylic. Voila, a beautiful garden butterfly!