Art Club T-Shirts

This is my second year of teaching and my first time attempting to make Art Club t-shirts. I'm also embarrassed to say, this was the first time I tried tye-dye. Ever. I bought a kit from Michael's that had 4 different colors. I definitely kept adding water to the mixture to make the colors last for all the shirts I had to do...almost 30. Eeeks! Because it was such a messy ordeal and I didn't want to waste any of the precious colors, I pulled the kids aside in groups and had them choose 2-3 colors and let them watch the process. They were rinsed and hung to dry in my uncle's garage. The next week I made an EMY Art Club stencil from thick poster board. It was placed on each shirt and the kids took turns filling in the letters with black fabric paint. I was super proud of the results but boy was it time-consuming and a lot of work...haha. Seeing them rock these all year around school will do my heart good. I have two separate groups of students meeting on Tuesday and Thursday every week. Below is my Tuesday's group. Aren't they cute?

Alma Woodsey Thomas Paper Designs

We started out Art Club this year by talking about the art of African-American artist Alma Woodsey Thomas. She recently became a favorite of mine because of her long career as an art educator and love for children. Her works are both intricate and colorful and so much fun to look at. The students made their own unique designs out of pieces of paper. "The Eclipse" was our inspiration. We started by choosing any color background. They then traced the inside of a masking tape roll in the corner of their paper. This was used as a guide for them to start making rings. I gave them free reign with the color choices and patterns. Cutting their pieces the same size for each ring was encouraged as to keep the circle from becoming misshapen. This project can be time-consuming but totally worth it!

"The Eclipse" by Alma Woodsey Thomas

Wayne Thiebaud Gum Ball Machines

Students learned about the artist Wayne Theibaud and his famous dessert paintings. For this project, we were inspired by his gum ball machines. The first day was spent printing different colored gum balls onto a white circle. To create ours, we used some cute circle sponge printers I found at Michael's that worked PERFECTLY. I passed out a small dish of paint on each table with 2-3 sponges each. Each table had a different color to start with and then they were rotated around so that eventually all colors were used by each student. For each color they did 4 balls. I had to really emphasize sharing and waiting their turn. Surprisingly, they handled it super well. The next day was spent constructing our gum ball machines with pieces of paper. I demonstrated which piece went where. The last step was giving them a Sharpie and having them write 25 cents on the front. 

Rainbow Lines

I saw this project on Pinterest and thought it was such a great idea! The little one's learned about ROY G. BIV and then we painted rainbow stripes together. I made sure to have them go over their colors twice to make them super bright. These were set out to dry. The next day we read the book Lines That Wiggle and practiced cutting the different types of lines that we saw on scrap paper. When I began to see improvement, we drew out the different types of lines on the back of our rainbows and then cut them out slowly and carefully. Those pieces were glued onto a black sheet of paper like a puzzle with spaces in between each section. I reminded them to match up the colors. 

Gustav Klimpt Trees

For this project we studied the artist Gustav Klimpt and talked about similarities between his works. We focused on the painting, "The Tree of Life." I told the students they would be designing their own version of this tree. I demonstrated drawing the tree in his swirly style step by step as they followed along. Bigger limbs were drawn first and then smaller branches were added to them. They were encouraged to come up with their own interesting patterns and shapes for decoration. Gold and black Sharpies were used to color in their patterns and brown crayon for the rest of the tree. A yellowish-gold paint color was chosen for the background, in true Klimpt fashion.

Wayne Thiebaud Ice Cream Cones

For this lesson the students studied the artist Wayne Thiebaud, who is famous for his paintings of delicious desserts. They also learned how to make different values of their paint color by adding tints and shades. Each child started with a white piece of paper with a cross drawn across it, making 4 sections. I gave each table group a different ice-cream color and then walked around to add white or black at different times and they filled in each section of their paper with a different value that they mixed. After these were dry, each section was cut into an ice-cream scoop shape. Students got to choose a background color and then created a waffle cone from paper. The last step was glueing them on top of their cone with the lightest scoop on top and the darkest on the bottom. A cherry was added for fun :)

Radial Symmetry Designs

Students learned about radial symmetry. We looked at examples of radial symmetry in nature such as snowflakes and flowers and then looked at human-made radial symmetry such as crop circles and mandalas. Students were told they were going to create their own mandala design using what they just learned, as well as their knowledge of fractions. We practiced cutting different sized colored circles into 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8 fractions. They used these pieces to come up with their own unique design. Each of their designs had to have a central point and similar patterns rotating around. Some students got the concept right away and others struggled. I just kept reminding them that for each colored shape they glued down, it needed to have a "twin" right across from it on the other side of the central point. I showed them how they could layer the colors and have fun with color combinations. The results are quite fun!