Creative Collaborative Collages

This was a great exercise for my students. We had been looking at positive and negative shape as well as rhythm for several weeks. Students had created stencils of a figure in action, based off of gesture drawings we did from some amazing student models (these kids can hold a pose for ever, aka 1 minute). We had used our stencils to make repeated shapes for some rhythm drawings. But before getting rid off the people that we had cut out to make our stencils, we had this little 50 minute collaborative lesson. 

Students worked together in collaborative teams of 4 or 5 students. They had to pick a setting, and show overlapping. Each team was given an 18x24 piece of construction paper in black or light blue, their choice. Students were allowed to use paper from my scrap boxes, scissors, glue, and construction paper crayons. The people in their collages had to be in action, and they had to present their collage to the class at the end, telling us what was happening in their artwork.

I was slightly surprised how much the students were engaged in this assignment. The one above is of jumping on the trampoline, all the way to the sun.

This one was from my special education kids. They told a long story of one of them fixing the roof of the teacher's house, while tow of them went for a car ride.

The project above is awesome. These students asked if they could make it a sculpture. I said sure. It is a camping trip. They even folded the sleeping bag around the character looking up at the stars.

A little game of street basketball.

This has been the most engaged I have seen my 3rd graders get this year in a collaborative project. At my school it seems rare that I see my 3rd graders in imaginative play. This assignment was a real joy.

Wooden Block Architects

I have had a lot of great lessons in the past few weeks, and no time to post about them. This was from two weeks ago, and may be one of the best days in the art room my 2nd graders have ever had. This lesson has a ton packed into one day; collaboration, play, reflection, and much more.

Students started off using wooden blocks to collaboratively build a house. They had 5 minutes and everyone in their table group had to be part of the build. 5 minutes is a lot of time. Some groups built, tore down, and rebuilt multiple houses until the time was up.

Next, students photographed their houses. I only have one camera, so a few selected students were chosen to help. This went quickly, and with a bit of direction.

After photographing, students created observational drawings of their houses in their art journals. This was the most successful observational drawing exercise we have had this year. I think it was because these were built from shapes that we had already practiced drawing, and they had the hands on experience of manipulating those shapes to create what they were now drawing. 2nd grade students actually drew their buildings in 3d from their own view points, not something that they created in their heads. I was blown away.

After drawing from observation, students had to label the parts of their house; door, window, garage, porch, etc. Lastly, right before clean up, table groups had a contest to see who could build the tallest tower. Unfortunately, this went by so fast I did not get pictures of the towers. Students had one chance, and kept building until they fell over. 

All of these activities happened in one 50 minute class. It was a great day.

Materials use: wood blocks, pencils, erasers, digital camera, student-made art journals.

Students working together for an exciting message to their school

Our first completed project with my After School Art Class. This is my first year working with the After School Program. The goal for this group is to spend the year working on collaborative art projects to fill the halls and walls of our school with Art, large art. 

For our first project, we started with the students working together with a phrase that they wanted to hang in the hallways of the school, a message for our school. The students brainstormed as a group and decided upon "School Rocks Go Roadrunners." I helped them space out and size up their lettering with about two letters per page. Some pages had a connected line that connected to the words. They learned how to leave a letter sized space between words. 

After that, students  traced over their letters with their choice of two or more washable markers. 

We then divided our papers using about four lines, creating around 12 spaces to fill with Zentangle patterns. Students then filled their spaces with patterns using pencil to plot out their design and sharpie to finish it. 

Students had the decision to work on a page individually or with a small group. Almost all students chose to work on their pages individually at first, then after a few times of working on this realized that they could get a page finished faster with a friend, started teaming up. 

It did take some time to complete, but the students had a lot of fun. Some students stuck to the Zentagle patterns from the books I have, but others started creating their own patterns.

The group I have after school is made up of a mix of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. It was very interesting to see how they interact and work together with students of other grade levels. At this point they are starting to not really care about grade levels while working or choosing partners to work with. This really started to make for some fun conversations to listen to as the younger students try to impress the older ones, and the older ones try to help the younger ones. I hope to continue to see a healthy growth of social skills and team work.

 

 Letting the students take pictures of us hanging this long artwork on the hallway made for a few blurry shots, but hey, I am o.k. with it.

A few students who started with us latter made one for my classroom. Unfortunately it is so long, I can not find the space to hang it yet.

Hope you enjoy. Leave any comments you have with constructive criticism on the project, or my blog writing. Always searching for improvement.