Missouri Institute of Natural Science's photo
A picture is worth a thousand words!

WooHoo and way to go!!!  Three of my best and brightest have art works going to the state art show this year and one student won Best Graphic Design at the regional show!!  I am so proud of all of them!!!

Who doesn't love Eric Carle!  My first graders sure did enjoy creating their "Very Grouchy Ladybugs".  We started with the story and a good look at Carle's amazing illustrations.  Then the kids took flight making construction paper ladybugs with wings split for flight and a vibrant tissue paper collage for the background. As a finishing touch we added some google eyes for a touch of whimsy.

Inspired by Picasso's "Petite Fleurs", my kindergarten students made these pictures using a combination of oil pastel, silky crayon, tempra paint and construction paper. First we talked a bit about Picasso's life and art and looked at examples of his work including "Petite Fleurs". We then practiced drawing some simple flower shapes and talked about what would be a good size for the flowers we would put on the paper for our project. The kids then made about three flowers using oil pastel. Next I demonstrated the use of one of my all time favorite materials, silky crayons, and the kids added several more flowers with these. We added stems, leaves, vines and grass with green tempra. After tracing and cutting out the students arms and hands, they were given an opportunity to trade one with a friend. The project was finished by attaching the hands to the page so that it looks like one hand is picking a flower to give to the other. Check out more of our finished pieces at Artsonia.

My Signature Project

Of all the projects that I have done over the past thirty years this has become the one that I will most remember and be most remembered for. The "Patterned Cats" that my students have created have won many awards over the years and always cause a great deal of excitement when displayed in the halls of our school. This project is a review of concepts learned throughout the year in second grade. The contrast of the black and white cats on the brightly colored backgrounds is stunning.

NEW INSPIRATION

My journey into the world of web 2.0 tools has been productive in so many ways and one of the best has been finding ideas and inspiration from others using the same tools. Recently I tried two new projects that I found through fellow bloggers.

First was a third grade project using the artist Laurel Burch as inspiration, found on Jodi's blog, One Crayola Short. The kids were truly inspired by the art and life of Laurel Burch. I found a video interview with Laurel on youtube that I showed to the kids. We then discussed the video and looked further at her work with cats. Following some of Jodi's guidelines and a few of my own the kids were soon creating Fabulous Felines of their own.

The second came from the blog, Art is Messy and was a lesson on cave paintings that I did with my first graders. We began by touring the caves of Lascaux and then we talked about the art that was in the caves and about the artists who created it. We did some practice drawings of animals and then used those ideas to paint onto sand paper our own version of cave paintings. I found a short, out of the way hall in our school, put paper over the lights and we created our own cave to display the paintings in. We then went to explore the caves flashlights in hand. It was quite an adventure.

4th grade owls

Learning the basics of working with clay to create sculptural forms my fourth graders created their interpretation of an owl. We began by doing several drawings of owls and then working with clay turned them into three-dimentional versions of the drawings.