Pumpkins and Onion (Domes)

I'm back with another chapter of Sarah’s Amazing Art Students.

School’s in again and my students have been busy bees with their art work.

My youngest students are Kindergarteners, and they are certainly a bouncy group. Although it takes a lot of energy to teach them, I absolutely love how pure their hearts are. The other day one told me he loved me! Their first project involved learning about warm and cool colors. I had them trace their hand, and then turn their handprint into a campfire. The campfire includes red, orange and yellow (warm colors) and they colored the grass and sky in green, blue and purple tones (cool colors).

The Kinders also made Halloween-themed art. I love how the kids brought so much personality to their art. They all had the same shape for their pumpkins, but the faces they drew gave the jack-o-lanterns lots of variety. We added dots and lines to our pumpkins (texture) and the kids bent pipe cleaners to glue to the stems to add a 3-d element and some whimsy. How fun is this?

Grades one through eight began the school year with a drawing of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, Russia. I chose this because the building is so unusual, with its colorful, patterned onion domes and towers. The kids could use their imaginations to dream up exciting patterns. Luckily, this was a project I could tailor for students aged six to thirteen, so I got a lot of bang for my buck with this assignment.

Drawing this building presented good challenges for the kiddos. Their work did not have to look exactly like St. Basil’s, rather the drawings were inspired by the cathedral. The main requirements were to use bright colors and lots of patterns, just like St. Basil’s has. One of the hardest parts was drawing the onion domes on each tower. I like how the students created such different patterns all over their cathedrals.

1st grader

1st grader

2nd grader

 2nd grader

2nd grader

3rd grader

3rd grader. These domes remind me of candle flames,
which is what the domes were designed to reference.

Fun fact: did you know that St. Basil’s is 213 feet tall? I didn’t.

4th grader--amazing!

4th grader

4th grader

4th grader

5th grader

5th grader

I broke the building down into a series of rectangles and domes, and showed the students how to create their cathedral, step by step. The kids really blew me away with their creations, and I’m so proud of them.

6th grade. Love this one.

7th grade. Color and pattern for days.

7th grader

7th grader

8th grader

8th grader

8th grader

Yessiree, it’s been a busy few months in my art class, and the year is just getting started. Stick around because I’ll be back soon to show you what they made next.

See you in the art room…