M-ART-ch Madness!

It's the final day of March, so I am making my March post deadline with only hours to spare. March means Mardi Gras, shamrocks…and I think some kind of basketball tournament. Well, my version of March Madness involves putting the “art” in M-ART-ch—and my creative students rose to the task.

In other springtime news, have you noticed black and orange caterpillars scurrying around? At school one day, I saw a spiky black caterpillar, approximately ten feet outside the art room door. A short while later, I found the caterpillar inside the art room! This was either a brave or foolish critter, as there were more than thirty fast kids racing into the room. I’m glad I spotted it five feet into the room, as we have dark floors and it was nearly camouflaged. It was put it into a cup and relocated onto a tree. Apparently, there have been a lot of them around school, and we soon discovered that our caterpillar had a friend. A first grader told me we should name them Max and Jax (J-A-X, he spelled out, in case I was considering an alternate spelling). I’m not sure how we are going to tell Max apart from Jax but maybe we can make tiny hats in different colors for them, like people do with twins. Problem solved.

Back to art. My students have been working on lots of projects, including some for St. Patrick’s Day.

My youngest class is Kindergarten. I had them color in a coloring sheet I made (I drew the outlines and they colored in the scene). It has a St. Patrick’s Day theme, and as you see, the gold pieces in one pot of gold are happy. I love how the Kindergarteners think!

First grade did St. Patrick’s Day art, too. Their project involved taking a quarter of a paper plate and turning that into a rainbow. Paper plates are such a handy art supply. They are inexpensive and stronger than regular paper. Plus, if you are coloring rainbows, you have the right shape even before the caps come off the markers. One kiddo decided to make a full rainbow, ending in two pots of gold. I think he was hoping for a double dose of luck.  

My bouncy second grade class also decorated shamrocks with lots of pattern and color. 

In third grade art class, the kids colored shamrocks, and experimented with patterns like stripes, polka dots and geometric shapes. Pattern makes everything more exciting, I say. Then the kids rolled long strips of paper into coils to give a three-dimensional quality to their art. Yes, there were rivers of glue, but it was worth the extra fun.

The fourth grade made art that looks like giant postage stamps. I wore some stamp accessories from an outfit I made over a year ago, just to add to the spirit. 

I explained that postage stamps are like tiny pieces of art, and that we would design our own stamps, but much larger. I asked that they put the monetary value in the upper right corner, and that they cut out the scalloped line around the stamp, like real stamps have. Didn’t they do a super job? These are some imaginative kids.

My fifth grade students had a good time creating watercolor paintings of shamrocks and rainbows. This group of fifth graders is very creative. 

In sixth grade we did a project I haven’t taught before, so it was new to all of us. The kids used oil pastels to make a scene or an abstract design. I advised them to make the layers of pastel thick and colorful. We then washed a diluted layer of black paint over each drawing, waiting a few minutes to let it soak into the paper. Last, we rinsed off each piece and the effect is wonderful. There are irregular accents of black—it has the look of batik fabric—and it has an antique look. The colors pop a lot against the black, and it was a great project to try. The technique is not my invention—I found it online and adjusted it slightly for these kiddos. It’s called oil pastel resist art, because the oil pastels resist (do not absorb) the black paint.

My seventh grade class also did the postage stamp project. As you can see, they chose a variety of subject matters, and made some really impressive stamp art.

Finally, eighth grade. I gave them the privilege of using air dry clay, which is not something we do often as it is crazy messy and it is more expensive than other materials, so it is a rare treat. I told them they could choose their subject matter and that we would paint the clay next time, after it was dry. A word of caution: if you are teaching teenagers to sculpt clay, expect the unexpected. One boy raced to the sink to rinse his mouth during class, and he explained that he licked the clay and it tasted gross. I didn’t realize I had to tell teenagers not to eat clay, but okay—my bad—I reminded him it was not edible. Five minutes later the same kid raced to the sink again. He’d licked clay a second time (perhaps thinking it is an acquired taste?). He still didn’t like it. Well, third time is the charm, right? No. No more clay licking for him. Also, another word of caution: if half your students are painting their dried clay, and half are still sculpting wet clay, you will have a very, very messy classroom to deal with once they leave. Wet clay and paint and thirty three teenagers is…also an acquired taste. Mostly kidding. I love those wacky teens.

And this wraps up another month of amazing art from my wild and wiggly students. Thanks for checking out what they made, and I’ll see you back next month with more art. (Caterpillars optional.)