YAM 2016: Painted Deserts and Missions

Every year my school districts hosts an Art Show. We as teachers have the very hard task of choosing a dozen plus pieces to represent our whole campus, and this year, my 3rd graders earned that honor!

With one week left before the shows closes, I thought I would share a few pics, and give ya'll a closer look at the painted desert project that accompanied their clay missions.

I took 12 paintings, and six 3D pieces.

The day of set up was a bit crazy, since I had my two year old with me!

Before the pieces moved over to the show, they had been transforming our school's walkways into a mini Big Bend.

The 3rd graders worked on these while we waited for their clay missions to dry and be fired.

The final results were equally as impressive as their clay sculpture!

Pulled from Pinterest: Totem Spoons

So I do what every art teacher does when I'm tired of all my lesson plans and fresh out of ideas, hit up Pinterest.

Usually within second my brain has kicked back into over drive and I'm filled fresh energy, becoming inspired by all the innovative art teachers, and the work their students are producing.

Most of the time I take the inspiration and remold it to meet my students interests.

But other times, I borrow straight from above! Taking a lesson meant for middle school or high school and give it to my little ones and see what they can do! 

Here's my 4th graders take on Totem Spoons.

We built them with recycled clay, hence the dual color.

And painted them with tempera cakes, water colors work too.

And as an extra incentive I let the kids "spray paint" their finished product with a fixative!

Nice for a first try! 

A Merry and Bright Year

This year has been such a whirl wind, kinda like looking up and spinning under the local tree...

One of favorite things to do as an art teacher is create personal lessons for my kiddos. 

Luckily we live in a city that's full of inspiration, like the Zilker Tree.

This is always a fun, pattern oriented project to conclude the first half of the school year. I love how each student interprets the same colors and lines, some appear to be swaying, dancing, it's really cute.

Well with 2015 at its end I bid you all farewell, and look forward to seeing what the new year inspires. From my family to yours...

Hugs and love, from The Robbins.

On a Mission

So my 3rd graders have spent the past month, or two haha, working on a super exciting project.  It was inspired by this ceramic mission project that I did when I was in 6th grade,

but I decided to combine it with the idea of a luminary for the holidays.

The students worked from slabs of clay, to create the walls and floors of the missions.  This took about 2 classes, with the front and back walls on day one, and the floor and sides on day two.

My 3rd graders are advanced this year, so they had no problem diving in and assembling on their own, I double checked the seams and reseals any cracks as they turned them in, but you may want to give an additional third day to focus on pure assembly if you feel the clay will hold up for that long, cause it was a bit crazy!

After Thanksgiving it was time to give them their first bake in the kiln.

They held up well! 

Then the students used Mayco Element glazes to paint for a natural coloring.

I was so excited to see the final results, I mis-set the timer on my kiln and they only half -baked!

But after round two, the glazes matured,

and the end results are so beautiful!!!!!

Southwestern Succulents

November was a crazy month, and the art room has been so jam packed with projects I haven't had much time for posting. But now that they are concluding and making their way up on the walls, here's what the little birds have been working on...

So this Fall / Winter I decided to go with a Southwestern theme.

A few years ago on our anniversary, the hubby and I took a trip to Terlingua, and every year around this time I am reminded of the beautiful colors of the desert, so inspired this unit.

1st grade worked on a Succulent Garden.

They started with a line drawing on black paper.

Covered their drawings in a glue resist.

Colored their pictures with a variety of chalk.

And got a huge kick out of seeing their final pics get sprayed fix.

The end results were so prickly pretty!

Heads on Hollyhock

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For TBT today I'm taking a look back at one of my favorite lessons from last fall. I wanted something with a southwestern theme, and stumbled across a Pinterest Georgia O'Keeffe lesson. Liking the idea and being inspired by a book I had just read that was all about floriography (the symbolic language of flowers), I set out to teach something new. 

We spent the first day learning about O'Keeffe, her inspiration for the ram head series, and juxtaposition.

Then we drew the skull.

On the second day we talked about flowers and how each flower has a meaning. For example O"Keeffe uses a Hollyhock beside her skull, represent ambition. As part of their project,each student had to pick a flower to incorporate with there skull that sent a message about themselves.

The end results we beautiful.

Sugar Skulls

Dia de los Muertos came quickly this year as other projects took longer than projected, that I almost decided to let it go. But it's my favorite and instead decided to focus on Calaveras, or Sugar Skulls. Here is what my amazing kiddos accomplished in three classes.

3rd grade worked on paintings...

Day 1: consisted of the shapes it takes to make a skull and laying down the first layer of color.

Day 2: we painted a black outline, focusing on traditional symbols, such as flowers, hearts, crosses and spiderwebs.

Day 3: was the fun day, adding the colors. We discussed how these skulls needed to look like they were made out of candy, and to decorate them like a cake or cookie, with delicate touches.

4th grade followed the same schedule, only their first day consisted of paper mache' and ended with glitter! Perks of advancing in art skills each year, evolving in materials!

Aren't they sweet?!

Happy Monday!