Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Collaborative Kids Paintings for School Fundraiser

With both of my kids now in school full time, I'm really enjoying my volunteer time at their school. April 1st is our annual  "Spring Fling" event at  North Beach; it's a fun night out for parents as well as a fund raising auction of kids artwork. I'm helping to coordinate the art projects this year. My goal is to help the kids use nice artist grade materials so their finished projects look their very best. We are executing some of the projects on 2'x3' stretched canvas that I picked up at ArtistCraftsman.com for just $15.00 each! We also have some great frames donated by school fans, so I am keeping those sizes in mind when we are working on the paper projects.

Here's some shots of work in progress with the two kindergarten classes. Their project takes its inspiration from American pop artist Jim Dine.


Its getting close to Valentine's day so the kids really enjoyed the subject.


Hearts, hearts and more hearts.


In our two 1st grade classes, we're tackling a concentric circle mosaic inspired by Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky.

First, we divided the canvas up into equal sections, then we quickly sketched out some rough circles to get the kids started. The kids had a lot of fun with the colors.


Our 3rd grade students in room 13 used oil pastels to create self portraits in the style of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani.  Kids are well versed in self portraits, so this was a particularly fun and successful project.


We started with a brief introduction to Modigliani and his particular style. Afterward, I showed the students my self portrait I did the night before as an example.  Then, we got started.


Check out ArtProjectsForKids.org for their step by step instructions that I used for my guide if you're interested in pursuing a similar project at your school. I absolutely love this web site; they have many great kids art projects.


And finally, Room 13, the whole class.





We're shooting to have all the projects finished before mid-winter break. Its really exciting as the art projects are creating some buzz around school. And to all my local readers, come to our fundraiser and check out the work!

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