A Blue Dog Art Room

I love the art work of George Rodrigue. Especially his Blue Dog. I have taught this Blue Dog lesson every year. It is always a huge success with students. 

This year I decided to make Blue Dog my theme. 

Blue letters for my "I Can" standards

Purple dog looking over our art word wall.

Orange dog reminding students to clean their paint brushes.

Red dog showing students who the helpers are for the day. 

Yellow dog reminding students to write their name, table, and code. 

If you're wondering why I have so many different color "Blue Dogs" then you should read this:

Here are some other sites around the room.

I love our "closets" but was tired of seeing the "stuff". I like the effect of the sheer fabric. Curtains $5 at Big Lots held up with simple $5 tension rods. 

My buckets got pretty rusty. I love these baskets also from Big Lots. 2 for $1.20

3, 2, 1 whole class points rewards. 

Wag Your Tail for William Wegman

Every year my 5th graders create awesome collages based on the work of Romare Bearden. It is usually the hit project. This year because of our "Wild" theme I decide to do the same lesson with a different artist. 

Introducing: 

WILLIAM WEGMAN!!

Why do we love him? 

Because he takes pictures of DOGS!! What kids don't love dogs? Not many..

We discussed photography and how a photographer was also an artist. We also talked about Wegman's work where he creates scenes with his weimaraners in costume. 

Objective: To create a William Wegman collage by drawing, using magazine cutouts, and painting. The main focus was to find animal heads and paste them onto human bodies. The bodies could be drawn or cut from the magazines. 

My wonderful librarian saves magazines for me at the end of each year and I hold on to them for various projects. Especially this one. 

I placed the magazines on my demo table. Animal magazines were in one box, then I had a pile of "boyish" magazines and "girlish" magazines. Tables could get 6 animal magazines at a time and one other magazine for each person. When I announce "Trade Time" students could swap out magazines as they pleased.  

First, students could either draw a background in pencil or find their animal/human hybrids.

Students had some great finds!

 Pictures were then glued into place and drawings were traced with black permanent marker. (Don't forget to put a mat under your paper!)

Finally our collages were made complete with watercolors. 

 I love their imaginations!

More pictures to come.

What color is your Dog?

I look forward to this all year because it peeks students' interest in Modern Art as well as gives me a look into their interests. 


To begin the lesson I introduced students to the artist and creator of Blue Dog, George Rodrigue with this great video from CBS on YouTube. 

The students were hooked. In a 3rd grader's eyes, nothing is cooler than a dog project.  After a little Q & A session I read the book, Why is Blue Dog Blue? by George Rodrigue.  This book really jump started some ideas! So to prepare for the painting students had to complete this sentence: "When I think of ______, I paint blue dog _______."


To begin, students followed along while I demonstrated how to draw Blue Dog. I really enjoy drawing lessons. I always try to use key Element of Art words to help guide students through the process. After the drawing lesson some students were disappointed in their drawing. They thought that since their drawing didn't look just like mine that it was no good. "On the contrary," I explained. "If everyone's drawing looked the same then our drawings would look pretty boring. What's fun and interesting about seeing the same thing?" The students began to understand and loosened up. Their personalities began to shine through as they continued to draw the background. 

Next class time, we discussed how to make our Blue Dog "POP"! George Rodrigue uses a bold black outline around Blue Dog to emphasize  the importance of the image. Plus is makes our dogs "POP"! We traced our drawing with black tempera cake paint. The tempera cakes allow us to have a better sharper outline. Plus, it dried very quickly and allowed us to continue to paint right away.

We then continued to paint Blue Dog with the tempera cakes. This step took two days. 

 

Students loved this project because it was a way to express themselves which made the students take their time and do their best. Students always do their best when it is a project that peaks their interests. 

This lesson was taken from Arts and Activities Magazine, April 2009 issue

What Color is your Dog? by June "Sam" Compton

Piet Mondrian Animals

We are continuing our "Wild About Art" theme with artist Piet Mondrian!

Students critiqued Mondrian's work using our "Art Talk" questions based on 

Describing, Analyzing, Interpreting, and Making Judgments.

Most students thought Mondrian's work was boring. I told them we would make them a bit more exciting. 

Then I introduced our "Mondrian Animals" lesson which I found in Arts and Activities Magazine.

Materials: white 12"x18" drawing paper, pencils, rulers, tempera paint in yellow, red, and blue, black sharpies, Red, Yellow, and Blue 12"x18" construction paper, scissors, and glue

Drawing the animal

I made copies of one of my "How to Draw Animals" book and set them on each table. Because students could choose their own animal, I was not going to be able to instruct how to draw each one. I was leery at first, but the third graders' drawings were awesome!

Rulers were used to create Mondrian's straight vertical and horizontal lines

We used Red, Yellow, and Blue tempera paint and students were allowed to leave white spaces as Mondrian did.

When the painting was complete, students traced their drawing and lines with a black sharpie. I had the students put mats under their papers so the marker wouldn't bleed through to the table. 

The paintings were cut out and glued to the student's choice of paper. Either red, yellow, or blue.