Lessons for visual art education – where it's about the process, not the product
Tag: elementary school
Description of the Unit – Inspired by the delightful children’s book Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae and illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees, students learned about ways in which movement can be expressed in art, later recreating their own dancing giraffe.
Continue reading “Kindergarten – Understanding movement with “Giraffes can’t Dance” by Giles Andreae & Guy Parker-Rees”
Description of the Unit – Students will observe Henri Rousseau’s paintings of tigers in the jungle with the objective of understanding foreground and background.
Continue reading “3rd Grade – Tigers in the Jungle, inspired by Henri Rousseau”
Description of the Unit – Observing the work of several Surrealist collage artists, like Julien Pacaud, students will learn about the meaning of the term Surrealism, and how it is used in collage art. They will then go on to create their own weird, wild and wonderful collages, using varied sources such as books, magazines, and hand-made paper, while also including an image of themselves within the composition.
Description of the Unit – To support their research of California’s first Americans, students worked in groups to create dioramas representing the lives of a particular tribe (assigned to their group).
Continue reading “4th Grade – Dioramas of Native Californians”
Description of the Unit – Students will explore creating a three-dimensional paper sculpture of a bug on a leaf. The bug and leaf will be embellished with all sorts of patterns and colors to reinforce these artistic elements.
Description of the Unit – It’s a fun experiment to introduce students this young to the concept of multiple perspectives. To approach this concept in a playful way, students created a Picasso-inspired oil pastel illustration of his beloved dog Lump.
Continue reading “Kindergarten – Picasso’s Dog Lump”
Description of the Unit – Second grade students explored Vincent van Gogh’s unique style of painting by observing and then recreating his famous Sunflowers still life.
Continue reading “2nd Grade – Recreating Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers”
This is an exciting, multistep exploration of shape and color inspired by one of my favorite artists, Paul Klee. This unit is an extension of a previous one, which you can see here: https://anitasagastegui.com/2020/06/08/3rd-grade-paul-klees-magic-square-series/. The difference being that this time students are creating mosaic collages rather than drawings, so we emphasize the terms background, middle ground and foreground, as well an understanding of overlapping elements.
Continue reading “3rd Grade – Cityscape Mosaics inspired by Paul Klee”
Description of the Unit – Students will be “introduced” to Monet and will learn all about the ways he approached painting the world around him. Students will try to recreate his painting of water lilies, paying attention to their brushstrokes and the colors they choose.
Activity statement – Students will learn and practice essential colored pencil techniques (some of which can also be applied to painting, as well as chiaroscuro drawing) to create a realistic still life.
In the K-8 Art Studio with Anita Sagastegui 