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Fish

Grade 5 students drew and colored Manitoba and Canadian fish using wax crayon, pencil crayon, oil pastel, or chalk pastel. Fish have interesting lines and colors. We tried to capture these with these pictures.

Abstract Art

Wassily Kandinsky is the first true abstract painter. He painted geometric pieces like Squares with Concentric Circles as well as partial and complete abstract. Students were to paint either geometric, partial, or complete abstract paintings. They were to name their piece and describe why they gave it that name. They were encouraged to look deeply and think of things they see in their painting or emotions they feel when they look at their painting before naming it.

Dubuffet Cows

In this art assignment, students used Jean Dubuffet's "Cow with a Subtile Nose" as inspiration to draw cows. Students used two techniques. The first was a wax resist where they tried to get a rustic look of their cow. The second was the students first experimentation with chalk pastels.

Impressionism Hearts

It is Feb. which means heart month. The grade 5 students have been studying Impressionism and we decided to paint hearts in an Impressionism style. We wanted to use bold colors, blend paint on the canvas, not on the palatte, and leave visible brush strokes. Students were encouraged to experiment with warm and cool hearts and backgrounds. Here are some of the results.

Value Drawings in Crayon

Students were to compose a still life with simple shapes and shade the objects to make them look three dimensional. This is tricky for Grade 5 students as the objects must be placed on the table correctly so it does not look like some are floating. To make the composition interesting, the students were to use a variety of shapes and sizes and be sure the tops and bottoms of objects do not line up. They were also expected to overlap a number of objects.

Superheros

Students were to draw a face in proportion then turn that face into a superhero.

Creative Names

For this assignments, students were to find creative ways to show their name. They were then to color them using analogous, complimentary, or monochrome color schemes. Our lesson was on color themes.

Shades of Joy

For this assignment, we got our inspiration from Manitoba artist, Helen Stein. We looked at 4 pictures in here Shades of Joy series. We liked the simplicity of design and interesting color. We wanted students to separate warm from cool colors, mix wet on wet colors next to each other, and to paint with minimal water so that the paint is opaque.

Cartoon Watercolors

In this assignment we worked on two criteria. First, the students were to try to "draw what they see". They were to copy an enlarged cartoon as accurately as possible. Secondly, they were to paint with watercolors for a transparent paint effect. We talked about warm and cool colors and students were encouraged to experiment with color placement.

Beauty of the Beasts

Students were to paint in the style of Ted Harrison or Leroy Neiman. They were to paint a wild Manitoba animal.

Ted Harrison Water Colors

Students view quite a few Ted Harrison pictures, then tried to copy his style. They were to use opaque colors and line their pencil marks with black marker. This made for a very colorful wall display.