Wayne Theibaud Cakes

February, 2016

 

Students study the works of artist Wayne Thiebaud (always a favorite due to his themes revolving sweets!).  We all draw a delicious cake with a piece sliced out of it.  These masterpieces are on canvas boards and painted with tempera and embellished with wiki sticks, colored pencils, jewels, and more.

 

Still Life

December, 2015

 

The challenge of this unit is drawing what you see.  Students set up a still life with their design teams using 3 objects and a piece of fabric.  They sketch the still life, draw a final image with oil pastels, and create a collage of the same still life using painted paper just like Eric Carle.

 

Visual Movement Inspired by Sonia Delaunay

October 13, 2015

 

Delaunay was a French artist who used "a lot of colors, circles, and movement."  (quoted from my students after viewing many of her pieces and comparing/contrasting them.)  My second graders create masterpieces using her ideas: concentric circles and colors to show movement.  http://www.artcritical.com

 

Music and Movement

September 29, 2015

 

Normally we think of movement as moving our bodies. There is visual movement as well.  Artists use visual movement to help our eyes dance across the page.  To encourage this idea, my young artists listen to classical music to draw lines and shapes on paper then paint inside their newly created shapes.  We look at artwork such as Van Gogh's Starry Night and others for inspiration.