First Grade Jasper Johns

After viewing a slide show on artist Jasper Johns, and discussing his style and subject matter, first grade made these expressionistic oil pastel drawings. They first folded the paper in half vertically and horizontally to make the division lines. I had a large stack of stencils for them to trace and make the letters. They were allowed to use any color combination they wanted. 

First grade line activity

First grade made these colorful marks using marker on paper. We discussed a variety of types on lines, looked at artworks that had heavy use of lines and abstraction and briefly discussed color usage/mood. The girls drew their own grid to create the spaces and were told to use a different line design in every space. 

Patterned Turtles

  This project allowed the students to be creative while practicing their drawing skills. We used turtles the subject for these artworks. Each child drew a turtle and was able to decorate their shells however they wanted. They were told to be creative, think about patterns or textures and try to make it unique. After they drew their turtles with pencils, they outlined them in sharpie and colored them with metallic pencils.  to be creative, think about patterns or textures and try to make it unique. After they drew their turtles with pencils, they outlined them in sharpie and colored them with metallic pencils. 

Textured Ice Cream

First grade loved making these texture collages inspired by Brown Bear author Eric Carle. We first looked at several Eric Carle books and how his illustrations were made. I set up different painting stations with tempera paint, scraping tools and other texturing tools. The girls were give paper to paint and scrape and create textures on. They then used a template shaped like a scoop of ice cream to make "scoop" shapes on the dried textures. After cutting out 3-4 ice cream scoops. they made one of their texture papers into a cone shape. The girls then glued the ice cream cones together and created a patterned border around the edge.

Winter Wonderland

In an effort to help my little ones understand how important details are to artworks, we looked at artworks that had wintry scenes in them such as Peter Brugel's "The Hunters in the Snow". We had a discussion about all the picture clues-- that tell us as the viewer--what the subject of the painting is. The girls pointed out the bare trees, the heavy coats, the ice skating, snow on rooftops, the fire, etc.

I gave the students light grey construction paper and construction paper crayons. They were told to draw a wintry scene that had many clues about the subject.

                                                      The Hunters in the Snow, Peter Brugel