Blue Dog

Throughout all of the grade levels one things that I focus on teaching again and again is teaching students to draw using basic shapes that they know and are familiar with. For our most recent project in first and second grade we looked at the artist George Rodrigue and his paintings of Blue Dog as inspiration.

We started off by reading Why Is Blue Dog Blue? by George Rodrigue and Bruce Goldstone, students looked at the illustrations and identified all the basic shapes that they knew and could use to help them draw their own blue dog such as oval, circle, rectangle and triangle. 

After completing several planning sketches students moved onto larger final drafts; drawing blue dog then adding in a background from their imagination. Lastly students painted their blue dog. 

Blue Dog at a Museum 

Charley Harper Tints and Shades

Over the last several weeks the fourth graders have been learning about the artist Charley Harper and trying their had at creating a painting inspired by his work. Harper is an American artist best know for his stylized paintings of animals. If you would like to see some of Harper's work check out the video below that is part of a larger interview.

Our students focused on creating images of bugs, birds or fish using simple and repeating shapes as seen in Harper's work. They also worked mixing their tints and shades at add detail to their work. Below you can see photos of their in progress and finished works.

 

Kandinsky

Earlier this week the Google Doodle was in celebration of Wassily Kandinsky's 148th birthday.
So it seemed like the perfect time to share two projects that we have done this year inspired by his work.

First, way back in September the third graders learned about Kandinsky's life and art, noticing his use of lines and shapes. We also read The Noisy Paintbox which taught us that Kandinsky had a rare condition, synaesthesia, which means he could experience sounds as colors and colors as sounds.

For their project the third graders listened to music and drew lines and shapes inspired by those they saw in Kandinsky's work!

Currently the kindergarten has been learning about color mixing and honing their painting skills. For their project they tried their hand at creating their own version of Kandinsky's famous circle painting.