Art with Mrs. Kushnir

I must say, first grade this year has been my most favorite first grade yet. It bums me out that I only get to see them once a week! But we have been doing some great work and having a blast in art so far.  
This northern lights project introduced the class to the wonderful world o’ watercolors. The secret is to tickle the paint until you hear it giggle. Then it is ready. True story. We also connected our art to the wonderful world of science. Students finished their paintings by adding white dots for snow/stars and cut either trees or mountains from black paper.

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And of course, we could not pass up the opportunity to show some LOVE for Valentine’s. We looked at the art of Jim Dine and Robert Inidana for inspiration. In each section, students used a different medium. The supplies rotated from table to table. We used watercolor, marker, color sticks, and do-a-dot markers. Stamps were used to print LOVE.

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The above 4/5 project combined two lessons! For the background portion, we first looked at optical illusions. We used color sticks (a woodless colored pencil) to create value, making it look like our paper had dimension.  The second part of our project was emoji design. Students invented completely new emoji or combined parts of existing emoji to make something new. The varying sizes help to show depth.

Our next project dealt with parody. We watched a short clip that parodied, or poked fun at, Grant Wood’s painting, American Gothic. Students were to create a new version that had to include two characters, one character had to be holding something, and there needed to be some sort of structure in the background.

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Yes, that is my foot at the bottom:)

Center students were introduced to Vincent Van Gogh and his famous painting, Starry Night. They used paint texturizers to mimic the brushstrokes of Van Gogh’s swirling sky. For a modern twist, we added paper buildings with foil tape windows.  Below are the paintings from Ms. Anita’s class! 

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Centers students recently finished two projects just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Paper heart cutouts were used as a stencil to create a negative space design using the paint dabbers. Hearts were finished with an “xoxo” stamp. The stencil will be used later for collage work.

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Our second Valentine’s project took two classes to finish! On day one, we created the background. We used red, white, and magenta paint with various texture brushes. We also discovered how to make pink! Day two, we added a full moon, hearts, and gold stars. It was finished with a nice lovey dovey message:)  Each painting had its own feel.

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Students worked with watercolors, using washes and salt to achieve various effects. They used a tape resist for the tree trunks.

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