"Close, Closer, Closest Snowmen" by Grade 7

This is a cool perspective lesson that I have been doing for a few years. I remember getting the idea a few years ago somewhere, but I can't remember where, so I apologize if it was your idea and I don't give you credit. Feel free to comment and let me know! Although I only have 24 followers (sad face) so I somehow doubt the original lesson planner will stumble across my post. If you are reading this and are not a follower of my blog, please join! I'd love to feel that my students' audience is growing.

Anyway, the object of this lesson was for my students to draw the SAME snowman three times as if they were digitally zooming in on a picture. They needed to take the whole picture into consideration, and also add more details and texture as they got closer to their snowman. Many of them found it was not as easy as it sounds! Some of them were quite successful.

"Collage Snowmen" by Third Grade

How beautiful are these snowmen? I absolutely love all the bright colors. They put down a layer of tissue paper and painted a white snowman on it. After it dried, they painted all the details onto their snowmen. I love how you can see a little bit of the tissue paper color through the white paint.

Here are some finished pieces of artwork...

3,2,1...Action!! Snowmen by Grade 6

One of my favorite winter children's books is Snowmen at Night. It's fun to imagine what snowmen would do when no one is watching. The sixth grade and I spent some time discussing this topic. We talked about how they would stick to outdoor winter activities so they would not melt. The students came up with a fabulous list of activities for their snowmen. As you look through the following examples of their artwork you will see snowmen skiing, snowboarding, sledding, playing hockey, having a snowball fight, and figure skating.
You may also notice that they use colored art sticks and make a good attempt at shading, just like the 5th grade did with their portrait snowmen. I think of this as a continuation of the portrait snowmen they do when they are in 5th grade. It is a chance to apply the same skills to a similar, but still fresh, project. They will do it again in 7th grade when they work on our Close, Closer, Closest Snowman project. There is a sample of that project at the end. A glimpse into their art world of next year! Enjoy...

sledding 

sledding

snowboarding

sledding

snowball fight!

figure skating

skiing

skiing

figure skating

snow shoeing

hockey

figure skating

A glimpse at next year's project!

Snowmen Portraits by Grade 5

Well, it's 50 degrees out today! The sun is shining, the snow is melting, but I still have some great winter art to showcase on my blog. Check out these snowmen portraits...aren't they cute! I love all the different shapes and designs of the hats and scarves. It's like they each have their own unique personalities. Hats off to the fifth graders for creating these wonderful pictures using art sticks to add in the color. Can you see how they tried their hand at creating areas of shading on their snowmen?

                                                   I'm looking forward to some spring art!

The Fabulous Third Grade

So this is why I love the internet! My students benefit so much from all the wonderful ideas other teachers post on their blogs. So the first project you will see on here is a lesson I found on the blog, The Clever Feather, who found the idea from another blog called, One Crayola Short. (Isn't that great!) We talked about the abstract expressionist artist, Wolf Kahn, and viewed some of his work on my laptop. I wish I had a way to show the kids examples of artists' work on a larger scale, but for now my laptop will have to do!
Next, the third graders created a forest of winter leafless trees on their papers using yellow oil pastels. They were asked to draw their trees as if they were growing off the top of their paper. Then we discussed how the oil pastel would resist watercolor paints when they painted in the background. I asked them to try and use different colors to differentiate between the ground and the sky. They really came out great. They are stunning hanging in the hallway outside the third grade room. Here is a peek at a few of them...

They also created some cool snowmen using an idea I adapted from a lesson I found on the blog Deep Space Sparkle. They designed their snowmen using oil pastels on 12"x18" turquoise paper, cut them out, and glued them to black paper. They had used a textured rollers to paint white squares over their entire paper to represent snow before glueing the snowmen onto it. . This was a fun project. They had a lot of fun!