Britto + Balloons = Bright and Brilliant!

Welcome back to another episode of Sarah’s Amazing Art Students. I have two colorful projects to share today: hot air balloon drawings and paintings, and art inspired by the Brazilian artist Britto.  

  

My students started the school year back in September by making colorful hot air balloons. Every grade did them. The youngest ones used crayon because…well, have you ever painted with twenty-four five-year-olds? It’s messy. We do it occasionally, I pull my hair out, we wait a few months until I forget how messy it is, and then we do it again. The older students used watercolor paint for their balloons, and the effects were beautiful. I love all these balloons for how colorful and individual they are. 

Earlier this spring my younger students started a project inspired by the famous artist Romero Britto. Even if you are not familiar with that name, you probably have seen his work. His paintings and sculpture have been exhibited in more than one hundred countries around the world. Britto’s use of bright color and playful motifs and pattern illustrate what is at the core of his art: a desire to share hope and happiness. My students only had one art class to start this project because we did not know that schools would be shut down just a few days later. Most students did not finish that day, so the pieces I have to share here are not necessarily finished. But a few are, and I wanted to show how delightful these young artists’ creations are. The youngest kids colored in coloring pages but slightly older students drew their own animals or faces (frequent subject matter of Britto’s). This would have been so cool to display at our art show. Still, even seeing them online is fun, and I hope you enjoy their spirited creations. 

Thanks for checking out my latest chapter of Adventures in the Art Room. Stay tuned, because more is on the way…

Textures and Illusions

The Craft-o-saurus Rex has been at it again. (Yes, that’s me.) Dreaming up art projects for kids big and small. These days I’m posting lessons online and I’m trying to create projects that do not require unusual supplies. After all, we are homebound and most students don’t have clay at home. But if you have paper and a pencil, you’re an artist. Yes, you heard it here.

The younger students learned how to do texture rubbings with crayons. My older students blew me away with their Op Art projects.

In case you have not done crayon rubbings before, it’s fun for artists of all ages (2 to 102, and beyond!). Texture rubbing is done by placing paper over a surface that has a raised pattern. To transfer the texture, you take a pencil or crayon and color back and forth over the paper until you see the texture emerge onto your paper. I encouraged my students to become detectives, hunting indoors and outside for raised texture. You can make texture rubbings over sidewalks, chicken wire, Legos, sneaker tread, kitchen utensils, raised metal or plastic or wooden details, to name only a few ideas. There are endless options and part of the fun is looking around for textures. After making several rubbings, I asked the students to cut their samples into pieces and make a collage using the different patterns. I absolutely love how imaginative they were.

Now for the older kids. They learned about Op Art, a movement that began in the 1960s. It’s short for Optical Art, and the idea is that on a two-dimensional surface, the artist uses line, shape, colors and shading to produce optical illusions. Some Op art appears three-dimensional, and some even appears to move.

Full disclosure: I adapted this Op Art lesson from one I found online by a teacher named Mrs. Filmore (artwithmrsfilmore.com). There are some great art lessons online and I chose hers. I added to it by including my own tips on how to shade and highlight.

I want to put the spotlight on my hard-working students because no matter how good a lesson plan is, if the students don’t care or don’t try, you’re not going to get great results. Furthermore, this would have been a hard lesson to do even if we were in the classroom, where I could help them in person. Having them follow my recipe in printed form online is harder. It requires their attention and patience. I’m so proud that some of my least attentive, most talkative kids buckled down and produced beautiful art. You can tell that the students took a lot of time to finish their work. My estimate is that some took several hours.

This project was intended for students in grades 5-8, although one ambitious fourth grader did it, too.

The student were given a choice. They could freestyle their own Op art or do the lesson I posted on Converging Lines, which features at least six triangular sections that appear to be curved like cones, and meet in the distance.  Many of the art pieces you will see below are similar, but I chose to include lots of them because this project was such a challenge and the kids really knocked it out of the park.

There are a few more projects I want to share in coming weeks. So don’t go anywhere (as if you have a choice!), because I will be back soon with more Adventures in Art…