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Abstract Shape Collages and Artist Reggie Laurent

Reggie Laurent:  Contemporary Artist Reggie Laurent is a self-taught artist living in Georgia.  He creates very intricate abstract shape paintings.  I saw his paintings online and I was immediately drawn to all of the fun patterns and colors. My first graders learned about his abstract pictures. They are filled with lots of different shapes, fitted together like a puzzle.  His artworks are highly detailed and very colorful. Student Shape Collages The students learned about and used organic (freeform) and geometric shapes … Read more…

Chicks at School

We have some chicks at school.  Chicks, like baby chickens. One of the science teachers taught the kids about the life cycle of chickens and the kids watched as the eggs were incubated and hatched. They grow so quickly! With all the excitement of the hatching chicks, the students were thrilled to create some chick artwork.  Here is a mural/bulletin board that students in grades 2-3 worked together on. Next, we did a step-by-step project in kindergarten to make a … Read more…

Why I Love Collage

Collage became a part of Modern art in the early 20th century. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were credited with naming this type of art. The word collage comes from the French word coller, which means to glue. Collages can be made of many materials.  I have an assortment of student collages to show you. Collage art is unique because you take already existing materials and arrange them into a new art form. Collage is all about playing around with … Read more…

Paul Klee Castle Collage

Paul Klee was an important painter in the history of modern art.  I have always been drawn to his colorful, abstract pictures.  Children can relate to the simple geometric shapes and bold colors.  His art has been related to Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism. Swiss artist Paul Klee painted the Castle and Sun with simplified shapes, but viewers can easily see the way the shapes form a castle or city-like scene.  For this lesson, we are going to paint colorful swatches … Read more…

Art Project for Dot Day

Dot Day Art Projects

Another Dot Day has come and gone.  I’ve seen lots of dot projects all over the internet already.  Here is what my kindergartners made this year.  You can read all of the lesson details on this previous blog post.  I didn’t do Dot Day with all of my classes, because I did a big Dot Day thing last year.. which you can see all of our fabulous artwork on last year’s blog post.  If you don’t know, International Dot Day … Read more…

Hybrid Machine-Animal Drawings

After looking at the art of contemporary artist Nicolas Lampert, my students combined two or more different objects or creatures to create hybrid drawings.   Here are the steps to this lesson: 1.  Start by discussing the machine animal collages and the machine insect collages by Nicolas Lampert.  Ask questions such as” How do you think Nicolas made these pictures? How do they make you feel? Why do you think he combined animals or insects with machines? How would these … Read more…

Notan Cut Paper Designs: Third Grade

I have several art lessons that I did not post about yet from this past school year, so look forward to a few more art project ideas this summer.  This lesson is fairly simple to prepare for and teach.  “Notan” is the term used by the Japanese to mean “light/dark” space.  We can also learn about positive/negative space through Notan designs.  My third graders studied Asia this year in their Social Studies class, so this was a nice tie-in. To … Read more…