Rousseau Lions

Kindergarten was introduced to the artist Henri Rousseau and looked at his paintings of wild animals. We looked at the faces of the animals and talked about the expressions we saw. Afterwards, I showed them how to draw a scary lion. We painted our lions and used a pattern to make the mane.

Artist: Henri Rousseau

Elements: Line, Shape

Concepts: Pattern, expression

Materials: White tag board, tempera paint

Modigliani Portraits

How cool are these?! Second grade made portraits inspired by Amide Modigliani, one of my favorite artists. They were permitted to choose to make a portrait of someone they knew, a self-portrait, or a portrait of a made up person.

Artist: Amedeo Modigliani

Elements: Line, Shape

Concepts: Dramatic features, simplicity

Materials: Black construction paper, oil pastels

   

Kindergarten Self-Portraits

I love doing self-portraits with Kindergarten! We started by drawing a large oval for the head, and then drawing a neck and shoulders. I helped them use black crayon to draw the eyes, nose, face, and mouth. We didn't start painting the first day, so I had to explain to them why they were leaving while all the portraits were bald!

The second day, we chose a skin color, hair color, and shirt color and carefully painted those things in. I loved giving them the freedom to paint their hair themselves.

On the last day, students used crayon to color the background in, and then used oil pastels to decorate their backgrounds and design their shirts and accessories.

Artist: n/a

Elements: Line, Shape, Space

Concepts: Self-Portrait, Face Drawing.

Materials: White tag board, black crayon, tempera paint, crayons, oil pastels

Hairy Textured Monsters

2nd grade learned about creating a visual and physical texture. They used paint to create a visual hairy texture to their monsters, and the poked hole and thread yarn through to create a physical hairy texture! Poking holes was tough, but they had so much fun with this project!

Artist: n/a

Elements: Value, Texture

Concepts: Threading, painting with value

Materials: tag board, black crayon, markers, white construction paper, tempera paint, yarn

Patterned African Figures

Students looked at traditional African art and practiced drawing the patterns and designs they saw. I taught student how to draw figures by showing them step by step. They separated the outfits in sections and drew a different pattern for each one. They completed their projects by writing their name as a pattern border.

Artist: n/a

Elements: Line, Texture

Concepts: Pattern, African art.

Materials: brown construction paper, whit construction paper, black sharpie, construction paper crayons.

Complimentary Color Frogs

Every time I browse for art lessons on Pinterest, this adorable picture of a frog painting comes up, even though there is no lesson involved. I thought it would be a fun and simple image for my kindergarteners to draw and color to learn about complimentary colors!

Artist: Link to Painting

Elements: Line, Shape, Color

Concepts: Drawing using line and shape, Complimentary colors

Materials: White tag board, sharpie markers, crayons

Value Poppy Firlds

Seeing how well the Kindergarteners did with the value caterpillar project made me curious to see how well they would do with paint mixing to create value. Students were give red and white to mix different tints of pink to create these poppy fields!

Artist: n/a

Elements: Line, Shape, Value

Concepts: Color Mixing, Value

Materials: Black construction paper, white and red tempera paint, black tempera paint, green construction paper crayon