File Folder Books: American Artists

 

I was so inspired by the following post from the blog, That Artist Woman, I could not wait to try this project. Please refer here: http://www.thatartistwoman.org/2012/02/how-to-make-file-folder-books.html for the original post/lesson plan! I adapted it slightly to fit our project.Gail is a wonderful art teacher and I just adore her blog-so inspirational!!

We created these books out of file folders. Here are the steps we followed to create them!

Day One: Painted file folders (I pre-folded and stapled them) with tempera paints

Day Two: Assembled books by attaching yarn to the binding, adding beads and letters to clothespins, adding metallic paint or modge podge, and titled our books

Day Three: Keith Haring Exploration

Day Four: James Rizzi Exploration

Day Five: Roy Lichtenstein Exploration

Day Six: George Rodrigue Exploration

Day Seven: Wayne Thiebaud Exploration

Day Eight: Andy Warhol Exploration

Day Nine: Jackson Pollock Exploration

Day Ten: Aminah Robinson Exploration

Basically, I taught a mini lesson about the artist and his/her work. We often used the artist's official website (for example, Aminah Robinson and Keith Haring have great websites for kids!) The students then created a mini work of art to go inside their books. 

On our last day they completed a little Jeopardy game where they had read a statement about an artist and identify which artist was being discussed. I also made a brochure for their books discussing the art of each artist. The kids surprisingly remembered so many facts-even weeks later. They loved this project and were so proud to take them home!

Circle Paintings

Circle Paintings by Grade 4

Inspired by Hiep Nguyen and created collaboratively!

African Sculptures

Fourth graders have been learning about Africa in Art class. We practiced making African masks and African textile designs and combined those ideas to make our African sculptures!

Day of the Dead

Here is a very simple Day of the Dead project. Fourth graders designed calaveras inspired by the folk art traditions surrounding the Mexican celebration.

Banyan Trees

This project was taken from the book Dynamic Art Projects for Children by Denise M. Logan. Like many of the projects in the book, the children really enjoyed it and the results were impressive!

Students began by learning about the Banyan tree, which originates in India. This tree has many trunks because the branches are constantly sending roots to anchor in the soil. For this project, we talked about positive and negative space. We blended colors that were next to one another on the color wheel to fill the negative space around our trees! Fourth graders did a great job on this project.

The Starry Night

Fourth graders just studied Vincent Van Gogh! They looked very closely at The Starry Night and created their own versions using oil pastels to blend colors!

Egyptian Portraits

Fourth graders have been learning all about Ancient Egypt in Art class. After reading The Egyptian Cinderella and looking at examples of Ancient Egyptian art, fourth graders drew their Egyptian portraits with oil pastel and created a fancy border with metallic paints.

Folk Art Cities

This project was inspired by Deep Space Sparkle, and, as always, I loved the results! If you haven't checked out www.deepspacesparkle.com, check it out! My students looked at Art by Charles Wysocki, an folk artist who grew up not far from us in Detroit. Students used the handout from Deep Space Sparkle, as well as images of Wysocki's work, for inspiration. They used paint and marker to complete their beautiful projects.

Chinese Dragons

Fourth graders just learned about the Chinese New Year celebration and created beautiful dragon scrolls in Art class. They were also able to practice Chinese writing. The dragon is a symbol of good luck in China. Students drew their dragons with marker and used chalk to make colorful backgrounds. They added rolled pieces of construction paper to finish their designs.

Jim Dine Hearts



I love teaching about Cincinnati Pop Artist, Jim Dine. His colorful and expressive hearts are the perfect subjects for January and February! Collaborating with other wonderful art teachers, here are a few ideas we've tried.

Second and third graders used crayon resist, model magic, and wire to create these colorful heart collages.

Students used a combination of marker and paint (oil pastel is another great possibility) to create these hearts. They layered warm and cool colors and used glitter to finish.

Kindergartners made their hearts by smearing plasticine clay!

These hearts were made by cutting and gluing pieces of painted paper and using oil pastel to add additonal designs!

Watercolor Works!

We just completed two very successful lessons from the inspiring blog, Deep Space Sparkle (www.deepspacesparkle.com).

Fourth graders were given a variety tropical fish images. They drew serveral fish and then began on layered backgrounds with seaweed, coral, rocks, etc. They painted with Crayola watercolor paints and outlined with black marker to finish.

 Fifth graders looked at pictures of chameleons and spent time drawing, painting, and outlining. The background for the chameleons were made with smeared chalk, a technique I re-discovered during an inspiring workshop with other art teachers!

I was impressed with how much the children could do with these projects and my students were equally excited about how many compliments their works earned!!