Sky McClain's Art Room

Art Teacher at Kressen Elementary, Voorhees Township, New Jersey

This year Ms. McClain and her students studied the art of Japan. All grade levels learned about the culture and many of the fine artists. First they all saw an excellent movie on Japan called "A Kids View of Japan." Kristi Yamaguchi (Olympics skater) is narrator. Her first graders painted fish kites, second made a family of origami swans on a paper pond, third graders - fake food, fourth grade - scrolls of favorite natural places they've visited, and fifth grade did lino-cut fish prints. shown above a welcome poster and Daruma dolls.

 

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Picasso Lesson

Pablo Picasso - After hearing about Picasso's life, fifth graders looked at some of the many clowns painted by Picasso. They were told to paint a Blue Period or a Rose Period clown. They painted with tempera paints (blue or red, black and white only). They had to mix tints and shades to do their paintings on canvas boards. Then we looked Picasso's more abstract paintings - especially The Three Musicians. They made a collage based on this. They had to create three musicians (one could be a singer with a microphone). Each musician had to have an instrument. They were told to use mostly geometric shapes. They had a pick a color scheme such as monochromatic, primary, secondary, analogous, neutral, complimentary, etc. They were allowed to add music notes with a marker as a finishing touch.

 

      

      

Claude Monet: Paint yourself and one or more people that are important to you on Monet's bridge. Bridge, clouds, water lilies, and people are done in oil pastel. Water and sky are done in water colors using wet-on-wet technique. 2nd Grade . This would be a wonderful lesson for "Bridging the world together for Peace". Maybe show different cultures coming together on Monet's Bridge.

      

Henri Rousseau: Students looked at Rousseau's "The Merry Jesters". They made a collage using many different tints and shades of green paper, 3D dots, glue, cellophane, yarn, animal print paper and hole punchers.

      

Weaving Pictured here are weavings of paper and yarn. Students painted strips with water colors to weave into their black paper warp. The students wove a photo frame - an original idea of Mrs. McClain's. Many framed their own photograph. Shown in the middle of the yarn weaving - a favorite pet. On the bulletin board (above) are pillows, photo frames, wall hangings and purses.

 

      

 

 

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