Cubist Portraits

Here are examples of our abstract portraits. During my lesson, I talked about how european artists first got the idea to start painting in ways that were not realistic. At first some of them (Fauve and German Expressionist if anyone wants to look it up) did this by painting realistically but with crazy wacky colors. We looked at pictures of people with green skin and orange hair. Afterwards, other artists (like Picasso) started moving different body parts around. For my example, I asked students to try using experimental colors and then cutting them up. This one was another big hit with students. After focusing so hard on drawing realistically, I think it was really liberating for them. 

Portraits

I wanted to to a project on differentiating abstract and realistic artwork. I decided to start by having students do realistic portraits. Here are some of the highlights. These are from 2nd Grade.

Landscapes

Here are some landscapes my second graders did. They turned out fantastic. They did a really excellent job observing the reference photographs that I gave them. We did this in conjunctions with a social studies unit where students learned about different types of landscapes, e.g., mountains, plains, coast.

Dioramas

I did this project with an after school class. All the student's and I loved loved working on this project. Students used small cardboard boxes to create miniature buildings, forts, castles, burrows, and underwater caves. All the students helped bring in boxes and I was able to supply some miscellaneous mixed media materials. Once the students got going and understood everything that could be done with simple boxes, they wouldn't stop bringing them in and kept salvaging bits from the school recycling bins. So many of them saw infinite possibilities in the everyday materials.

This student added animals to populate her forest/animal village.

I love the onion top dome on this one!

Popsicle Stick Puppets

This was a fun little project. Young students love puppets; they love making anything that feels like a toy. It amazes me that by limiting them to unsung popsicle sticks--a very inhuman like form--it somehow frees them up and forces their imaginations to get going.

 Belly dancers.

 The Cast from Frozen.

 A mermaid and friends.