Friday Art Feature - I Am ...

We had our first official art class of the year this week.  I decided to start off with an easy one so everyone could feel successful with their project.  And the final results couldn't be more beautiful in our classroom!

I think I may be a tad OCD - that empty space in the bottom is driving me crazy!!!  I have 23 students this year, so with room for 24 spots on our blackboard, I also plan on making an art project each time we do one.  Unfortunately, I am STILL waiting on one student to finish his ...

I plan on turning all our art and poetry projects into books for the students to take home at the end of the year.  You can read about the books we made last year HERE.  For this reason, most of our art projects will be completed on 8.5 x 11 size paper.  I also plan on having the students write a poem to match each of our art projects this year (I didn't do this last year).  For this piece, I decided to combine the art and poetry into one.  

We started out by discussing the art principles of line and color.  We talked about how curved smooth lines draw your eye across the page and give the illusion of movement.  We also discussed choice of colors - which I ultimately left up to them.  I really like the variation of color on all our art.  Using a pencil, students drew 8 - 12 curved lines across their page.  Then, they painted each section, often mixing the paints to achieve different color effects.  We use paper plates (from the dollar store) for our paint palettes.  We let the paint dry out after each use, and then we can reuse them many times.

When the paint had dried, students use sharpie markers to outline each section - being careful to still keep that smooth curved line.  I bought sharpie brush markers this summer, and they were perfect for this project! (I included the link below so you can take a peek at these).

I asked the students to fill the spaces with adjectives that describe them.  All students started with "I am ...".  We started this project on our fifth day of school, so an "all about me" project was perfect timing.  Plus, this will be a great first page for our art/poetry books.  I am so happy with how they turned out - BEAUTIFUL!!!

You can take a peek at my full lesson for this I Am art here.  The lesson includes a full PDF as well as PowerPoint lesson with pictures and detailed step-by-step instructions for students, as well as a rubric for assessment and student reflection sheet.

Hope you had a fabulous Friday, and are getting ready for a wonderful weekend!  Happy Friday!!!