Looking for quick and easy ideas for incorporating Art Criticism into your everyday teaching?

Check out this blog, I put together

Art Criticism in a Pinch

Give your students the opportunity to think, discover, and play, while describing, interpreting, and evaluating art.

As of now there are 21 different ideas and some can be done in under 5 minutes.

The art Criticism Activities are sorted by how you may want to get your students involved. 

Do you want them to collaborate? use technology? act, sing, or dance? 

There's a fun idea just waiting for you to give it a try. 

Celebration Figures

It was my goal to design a fun project where my students would be able to learn the basics of how to handle and care for a paintbrush as well as different painting techniques. I was looking thought this book (Below) and came across the work of Nikki de Saint Phalle, specifically here Nanas.

Book: 13 Women Artists Children Should Know by Bettina Shueman

Photo: Nana au Serpent, 1984 found at http://www.frauennet.ch/index.php/.../98-galerie-nicky-de-saintI

I became very interested in her story and how she came to create them. I thought for a long time about abandoning my original desire to develop a painting lesson and creating a 3D sculpture but I kept going and in the end loved the 2 lessons I came up with. That’s right 2! I couldn’t choose and due to my schedule I had a little more time with one of the second grade classes than the others so I tried out both.

With both groups I started with a presentation where showed Nikki de Saint Phalle’s Nanas as well as Impressionist works that show movement and action. Next we focused in on the idea of celebration. We looked at artworks that show celebration and then got right to work creating our own.

With all the holidays that were to come I wanted my students to think about the little things in life that are worth celebrating. So we created Celebration figures to help us remember that every day is worth celebrating.

One class practiced moving around the room and creating poses that show action and celebration. Next students chose partners and traced each other in celebration poses.

In the next class we broke the figures into shapes and spaces using hard lines. Students learned how to correctly hold a large paintbrush and how to paint a solid spaces keeping clean edges.

I always say “THE ONLY WAY TO LEARN HOW TO PAINT IS TO PAINT!!!”

Next we looked at the Impressionist works and how they used brush strokes to show action.  I taught my students about directional painting and they used this technique to fill the remaining spaces.

In the next few classes we looked at ways to add interest to the paintings by creating layers. Students used, lines, shapes, and symbols, to create designs that broke up the space on their figure.  We finished them with gold painted accents and black hard lines. After they dried we cut them out.

The other project started the same but ended completely different. Instead of life-size human like figures, I guess you could call these “creatures”.

I put out a box of wood scraps on each table and had the students play with combining the pieces to create a small figure to remind them to celebrate life. While we worked we took turns sharing some of the little things we were celebrating.

After developing an idea students painted the pieces in solid colors.

I though the figures would hold up best if I hot glued them. So I had my students draw their figure piece by piece, creating a map to help me put it together. Some students even colored their drawings. 

I made this fun video using the iMotion App to show the class how one of the figures would have been assembled.

In the next few classes we used brushes and the eraser end of pencils to add designs and pattern to the figures. After they were dry I gave them Sharpies to add to the designs by adding an additional layer.

Here are some pictures from our class critique.  

I hope you like these as much as I do.

Christmas In Millerstown

We were asked by the Millerstown Fire Company to decorate 12 small trees that would line the streets for an annual holiday festival called A Christmas Day in Millerstown.  We came up with the idea to make it a mini fundraiser and opportunity for students to give back to their community.  We were gifted with an anonymous donation to help purchase supplies like glitter, wood glue, white spray paint, and spray polyurethane.  I chose Let it Snow! As the theme and OH MY DID IT EVER SNOW, but we’ll get to that later…

Kindergarten though Sixth grade students spent 2 class periods making ornaments in an assembly line fashion. They were very excited about this project and opportunity.

Here’s a closer look at our snowflakes…

Kindergarten & 6th Grade made ceramic snowflakes. First they rolled out slabs, cut out snowflake shapes with a cookie cutter, and then they pressed in random found objects. They were glazed in the next class.

This may seem strange that I had two very different age groups do the same flake but it worked perfectly and just as I had planned. In Kindergarten I work though the Elements of Design and this was a perfect introduction to creating texture. As a bonus I had a small group of 5th graders come to help them with the making process. As for 6th Grade… I only started at Greenwood last March and since then my students have been dying to work with clay. At the beginning of the year my 6th Grade students told me they haven’t used clay since 1st Grade! This was a great opportunity for them to feel the clay and practice some simple techniques before getting to a larger ceramic project.

1st & 2nd Grade made simple craft stick flakes by crisscrossing 3 sticks and gluing on objects like buttons, beads, and wagon wheel noodles. Later we painted them white and sprinkled them with glitter.

3rd & 4th Grade made more complicate snowflake designs with craft sticks and toothpicks. The timing of this was what made it. 3rd grade had just finished up a lesson where they had been thinking about symmetry and 4th grade was about to start one.

These ornaments may seem a bit big for an ordinary Christmas tree by they sure popped from the street!

5th Grade students worked on the toppers for the trees. This was a fun break from our intense observational drawing project.  In the end I liked these so much I thought I may have to do this every year. I put out my huge boxes of found objects and gave them a few ideas for creating points and centers and then let them go. Some groups chose to draw their plan and others just played with the materials until they came to an idea.

On the Friday before Christmas in Millerstown the classes walked into town to place the ornaments on the trees.

Our plan was to sell the ornaments off the trees and have a small stand outside at the festival to collect donations for the ornaments. However it snowed & snowed & SNOWED! The brutal cold forced our stand in side and covered the trees with inches of real snow and canceled many of the days events. We set up inside the fire company and invited guests to pluck ornaments from the trees and take along with them to decorate their homes for the holidays. Fortunately we had extras and were able to set u a tree inside as well.

In the end we made $160.00! (I didn’t think that was too bad considering the snowy weather)

We are donating half back to the Millerstown Fire Company & using the other half to purchase something for our art class room. After the break students will vote on what they would like to purchase for our classroom.

I already have ideas for next year and can’t wait to see how this community collaboration could grow.

Piet Mondrian with 2nd Grade

I always love to see all the was that art teachers are teaching their students about the life and work of Dutch Painter, Piet Mondrian. 

Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-43 

This is my 4th year teaching Mondrian to my 2nd Graders and Every year I have done it differently. 

Here is what I did this year...

We, of course, learned about HORIZONTAL, VERTICAL, AND DIAGONAL LINES.

Students used a ruler to create 3 mini artworks. 

Work 1 used only Horizontal and Vertical lines. 

Work 2 used only diagonal lines

Work 3 used ALL 3. 

After drawing their 3 mini works, students traced their designs in Sharpie.

Students practiced using their design eye to decide which spaces to fill in with 

Primary color marker and which spaces to leave blank.

Next students experimented with Painters, paint pen markers from Elmer's, 

to make their works uniquely their own. 

Each student was then given a thin black strip to decide how to mount their 3 finished designs. 

I love how they came out!