More Armadillo Ray prints

Armadillo Ray Printmaking

3rd Grade students read the book "Armadillo Ray" by John Beifuss and illustrated by Peggy Turley. Students noticed the bright, untraditional colors used to show the desert and it's animals. Students chose an animal to print and then drew their animal on a piece of styrofoam. Students used a brayer (roller) to roll ink on to their printing block (their styrofoam with their animal) and then printed their animal twice on different colored papers. Students then created the background habitat for their animal using oil pastels. They concentrated on using bright, unnatural colors for their background. Then they cut out one of their animal prints and glued it to their background.

th Grade Pop-Art Self-Portraits

5th Grade students looked at artwork by Andy Warhol. Warhol is famous for creating pop-art images. Pop art is short for popular art which means using everyday pictures or images such as photos of celebrities or mundane things like soup cans, and turning them into fancy museum art. Much of this type of artwork was and is used in advertising. Students used photos of themselves to pain pop art portraits. They could only use two colors to paint their portrait in this graphic style.

More cup prints

Cup Printing

Fourth Grade students created abstract prints by dipping cups into black paint and printing them on white paper. Emphasis was placed on making sure the cup prints were balanced across the page. Then they used tempera paint to create more visual interest. Again, students were encouraged to keep their artwork balanced by making sure the colors were used evenly across the page and to use repeating colors to get the eye to move around the page.

Finally, students had a critique where they were able to give constructive criticism to their classmates. Students answered these questions: Does the artwork appear balanced? Why or why not? Is there anything you would add to the artwork? Is there anything you would've done differently?

One Point Perspective Drawings

Fifth grade students learned to draw realistic landscapes and cityscapes using one-point perspective. Students used a ruler to draw a horizon line and vanishing point. They learned that objects appear smaller and less detailed the further they are away.

Giant Squids

Kindergarten students read the book, "I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean" by Kevin Sherry. They discussed the sizes of different ocean animals and found out that giant squids can grow to be as long as two school busses with eyes as big as soccer balls! They learned that squids are invertebrates, which means they don't have a backbone. While giant squids are very large, they are not the biggest thing in the ocean. Whales are the biggest thing in the ocean. Students painted their own giant squid with tempera paint.