Art Portfolio
How's Your Heart Today?
This is a great activity for students to express their emotions using colour mixing, creating tints and shades. Students are able to chose a variety of colours that appeal to them in that moment. This is usually done with paint or pastels yet other art materials can be used. Examples are plasticine, crayons, markers or even natural materials such as grass or dirt. In a class, I would chose to do this at the beginning or end of school year or even both to see how their hearts felt at those emotional times. This can be done with students of all elementary grades are easily able to be geared up or down.
Inspirational Art Quote
Art Explanation: I choose the quote “Today is a great day, I can and I will” because an actress that I admire said this once and it really resonated with me. I think it also provides a growth mindset because it encourages students that they can accomplish anything. This is also something that I say to myself when I am having a bad day or feeling down. To me, it is a good way to start the day with some positivity to know that the day will be great ahead and nothing is impossible and they you can do anything if you put your mind to it. I wrote it in the font I did with bolded words for today, can and will. These are words that I think needed to be emphasize that bring out the quote. I painted with purple, blue, pink and white colours because these are my favourite colours. I find that I gravitate towards art and décor that are these colours.
Approaches to Drawing: Booklet
Having students create a drawing booklet allows them to experiment with different approaches and techniques to drawing. Using these books, students can select one thing to focus on and draw different angles, shades and interpretations of the selected object. This is something that I would have found useful during my time as a student in elementary school.
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Another great way of having more art time in the class is allowing students to contribute to these drawing books during downtime in the class. If they have finished their work, want to draw on lunch or even in the morning before class starts, it encourages students to be creative at any point in the day.
Labelling Norval Morrisseau Images
This art activity had students examine different art forms within Norval Morrisseau's Eastern Woodland style art. Students were tasked with identifying lines, shapes, animals and more within two images of their choice from Morrisseau. A way to implement this in the class if to have the students examine Morrisseau's art, then create their own using the same style and techniques as Morrisseau.
Winter White Snowflake
This activity is great to do in the winter months but can be adapted for any seasonal change. What is needed for this winter snowflake is numerous white and clear objects that are easy to find around the house or students can purchase things (not necessary). Students can also use things out in nature that relate to the season that they are creating the art for. For fall, they could create a big leaf and use different types of leaves, sticks and such that are found outside in the fall.
What I have done in a Junior Classroom...
Christmas Ornament Template
Pointillism Template
Finished Product
For this activity, students were instructed to make three sections on their ornament in any way they want, as long as all three sections were there. One section had to have straight line patterns, the second with curling line patterns, and the third students were encouraged to create their own pattern. They coloured them, cut it out and then they were hung around the class.
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This can be adapted for seasons with using a leaf, pumpkin, snowflake, easter egg templates.
Pointillism
For this activity, students were creating pointillism art. It is an art technique form, usually done with paint where small distinct dots of colour are applied to paper to create an image.
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What I have done in a Primary Classroom...
Students painted Spring images with three paint colours. White, black and a colour of their choice. They mixed the colour of their choice with white and black to create tints and shades.