3rd Grade Negative and Positive Space Skylines

I found an image on Pinterest and thought it would make a great lesson about positive and negative space. Third graders started by creating skylines, and turning them into stencils. Next, we used oil pastel to trace out the stencil and smudge it with our fingers to create the shining light effect. The last step of our project was to add in the final details using white colored pencils. Here are some of our projects!

Winter Greeting Card Contest

Every year our school district has a Winter Greeting Card Contest. There were over 200 creative entries, and I can tell students really tried their best! From Madison school there were 3 winners and 3 runners up. I also chose a winner from my 4th grade class at Pleasant Lane. The winners get their cards printed, displayed, and sent out around the district, as well as their winning design displayed on the local tv station (videos to come)! Runners up won the chance to get their cards printed out to take home and give to family members. Congratulations to all of our winners, and thanks to all who participated!

Here are some of our winners!

3rd Grade Glue Pumpkins

In this project 3rd Graders learned all about value, and since it was October I thought that Pumpkins would be the perfect way to show it!

We started out by drawing out our pumpkins on black paper. We briefly discussed composition and placement of the pumpkins. Then came the fun part: drawing with glue! We used our glue to trace the lines we made in pencil.

We set out pumpkins to the side to complete this value worksheet:

In each row of squares students used oil pastels to color from light to dark by adding white, black, or a different colors. This gave students a chance to experiment with value and blending oil pastels. We looked at a real pumpkin to get a good idea of value and color to use in the future.

When our glue dried it was time to add some color! 3rd grade used oil pastel to fill in their paper. Value was demonstrated in the pumpkin, ground, and even the sky! Coloring around the glue allowed for a thick black outline that emphasized the pumpkins. With Halloween coming up some students decided to turn their pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns!

3rd Grade Paul Klee Paintings

During this project 3rd Graders took an in-depth look at the artist Paul Klee. He is one of my personal favorite artists to introduce because of his interest in color!

Our favorite Paul Klee painting in class turned out to be "Sinbad the Sailor".

Paul Klee "Sinbad the Sailor"

Some of the things 3rd graders noticed about Paul Klee and his paintings were that he used a lot of color, lines, and that some of his paintings told a story. After looking at a few more Paul Klee paintings it was time for the 3rd graders to create their own.

Here is how we made our paintings:

• We started by folding a blank sheet of paper to create a grid
• Next, we painted each individual square in our grid using a different color. I emphasized warm and cool colors, and color mixing.
• To finish of the picture we used lines to illustrate a story or scene just like Paul Klee. 

Here are some of our finished examples! Can you tell which paintings were influenced by "Sinbad the Sailor"?

I love this snowy scene!

Look at that creative use of line in the sky!

Kandinsky School Mural

My first project of the year was done with help from all of the students at Madison School! On the first day of class students were given a blank 4x4" square to decorate. My only guidelines for the project were that each student had to include: their name, hobbies or interests, and shapes. I mentioned that we were going to collaborate with other classes to create an "all-school painting". Every class was excited to see how the painting would be put together to create their own giant mural! We briefly discussed unity, and how we wanted the result to look good, while still allowing for individual creativity. In order to solve this problem students used shapes just like Wassily Kandinsky did in his painting"Concentric Circles".

Kandinsky "Concentric Circles"

 Students then incorporated their interests by either writing or drawing them in their shapes!

In my example I chose to stay with circles. I made sure to emphasize that their are no mistakes in art. Even Kandinsky didn't make perfect circles in his painting!

After drawing out their designs students learned about the "resist" painting technique and colored in their squares by using crayons and watercolor paint.

The best part of the project, other than getting to know all of my new students, was to see everyone's reaction after our mural was officially installed!

Here is a look at our finished project: