1st Grade - Rainbow Fish!

This lesson is an original by Julie Werkman, who I student taught with 25 years ago. It is a great lesson for teaching the elements of art! Line, shape, color, texture, and value are all worked in! 

Any fishy book of your choice maybe the inspiration! 

First, we paint some light to dark blue waves on a large 18x24 blue construction paper for our fish bowl. 

I pre-trace the fish bowl on the back of the paper before the next class, then students cut out and add seaweed and rocks!

After painting a 9x12 paper with rainbow, or just in a colorful way, we trace a basic fish shape on the paper. Students design their top and bottom fins, plus scales and tale.

 Once we cut out the rainbow fish, we glue it on and add some metallic smaller fish! I precut small metallic fish for everyone, students decorate and design their fish and glue them on! I add a tiny piece of cardboard to the back of the metallic fish, gives them a little pop out look. 

Finished!

2nd Grade - Ton Schulten Color Mixing Tree-scapes!

These 3rd Grade Ton Schulten Tree-scapes are another favorite of mine.  This is a great lesson for teaching value mixing and complementary color mixing.  First week is value, for the sky. Second week we used orange or yellow-orange with blue-blue violet for the ground.  Then India ink trees and gold details... viola! Done!  They look awesome hanging in a group together in the hallway. 

4th Grade - Ton Schulten Abstract Landscapes!

Have you ever expected toooo much out of your students??? I might have this time... lol... but they ended up doing a great job on these Ton Schulten Abstract Landscapes! We discussed his use of vertical lines in his landscapes and tried to have both vertical and horizontal lines in ours.  These took a long time, it was not a quick painting! But everyone enjoyed each phase.  I encouraged keeping houses either warm or cool colors, then the opposite for the land.  Some followed my advise, others did not. Either way, they are true works of abstraction! 

3rd Grade - Ton Schulten Cityscapes

Ton Schulten is one of my all time favorite artists! I discovered him years ago when I found a calendar full of his paintings when visiting the Toledo Museum of Art.  I was hooked!  I love his amazing colors and abstract style.  I created a Prezi of his landscape and cityscapes to share with my classes, (Ton Schulten Prezi).  I find it very interesting how he adds lots of vertical lines to his landscapes, a composition usually created with more horizontal lines.

This lesson was a COLOR VALUE lesson.  Students used pre-mixed colors and various TINTS to paint in city buildings.  The students mixed their own tints of blue for the sky portion.

The last step, we used India Ink to outline and decorate our city buildings. This was a great lesson for every student.  It was hard to chose which ones to photography!  They will look great later in a group hanging in our hallways!