Collaborative Painting

6th graders just finished their giant collaborative paintings!  This was the first time I have created large scale collaborative art with students and it was really fun to see these paintings unfold.

Day one began as a challenge: we quickly reviewed the elements of art and each person was given 2 elements of art to focus on.  They could use any materials they wanted to and move around the room to the various paintings.

Here are some examples from day 1:




On the second day, students were divided into small groups and had to think of a plan to unify and complete the paintings.   What would make these paintings look more cohesive?  What do we want to repeat?

Planning

Discussion underway.

Lastly, students worked together to execute their plans and create final paintings.  We were challenged to work together in such large groups, to contribute our part, to be comfortable with ambiguity, and to be flexible in our expectations.



See some of the final results below and stay tuned for a collaborative painting station at the spring art show!

Mr. Ross' Class

Ms. Riedmiller's Class 

Ms. Riedmiller's Class

Miró Inspired Paintings

2nd Graders began this project by looking at work by Spanish painter, Joan Miró.

  

Students really enjoyed looking closely at his work, making interpretations, and creating stories.

We learned that Joan Miró would sometimes get ideas for his work by drawing automatically.  He would let his pencil flow, and then see what images he could find in his work.

We used a similar process!   The classes that were lucky enough to have art on a sunny day, went outside and traced shadows.  Others drew automatically, or drawing without thinking.



We all then turned our lines and shapes into new things!


Students completed their works using a combination of crayons, oil pastels, color pencils and watercolor paint.  They created titles and wrote about their work, too!

Abstract Partner Portraits

4th Grade

Before beginning this project, 4th graders explored organic and geometric shapes and experimented with tempera painting.

Partners sorting shapes into categories.  

Experimenting with color mixing, brush strokes and shapes. 

Sutton created a tie-dye technique that she shared with the class.

Many tints and shades!

On to the partner portraits!

Students were randomly assigned a partner and had a lot of fun interviewing each other!


They then had the challenge of designing an abstract composition about their partner.   Students engaged in fluent thinking, creating multiple thumbnail sketches to plan out their ideas and select their favorite.



Finally, students had their choice of materials and processes to create a square artwork representing their partner.  Every one is very unique, just like the students they represent!

Experimenting with oil pastel resist before trying on final.
 

My Story: Home

First Grade Homes

First graders recently created cave art, looking at and imagining stories from the past.  For this project, we thought about our own stories, and what is important to us.  First graders had many ideas, including their homes and the people, things, and animals inside them!

We began this project by talking about how artists get ideas for drawing.  Sometimes, they imagine ideas, sometimes they draw from memory, and sometimes from observation.  We used observation for these drawings, looking closely at photos of our homes.   

After students had a start on their drawing, we watched a great video about the benefit of revising: Austin's butterfly.  

Students talked about their drawings with a partner, and how they could make them even more detailed.

Students then made the pencil drawings stand out by using sharpie, oil pastels and tempera cakes.  We remembered that oil pastels resist paint and you can see Charlotte using this technique below.  

Finally, after discussing work by artist Aminah Robinson, Ms. Koontz cut flaps in our art and we drew what was inside!   We hope you enjoy our interactive art!