A Name Art Project- A Wonderful End to a Rainy Friday

I have become obsessed with teaching art over the last few months. During the summer I spent hours scouring through Pinterest looking for great art projects to use in my classroom this year. So when I arrived back at the school at the end of August and was told that I did not have art in my schedule I was quite upset....but then I got art back!!! So happy! In the Ontario curriculum for Grade 4 art we concentrate on the elements of design: line, colour, value, texture, shape and form, and space. I found a great resource for explaining the elements on this site. You should definitely check it out if you are teaching art this year.

For our first project I wanted to jump right into the elements but I also wanted to create a great project that could be used as a display for our Open House night (and even perhaps double as the cover of our art portfolios...I'm not asking too much am I? LOL) So off I went to check the inter webs...and what did I find?? THIS!!!!

What an amazing site...so many ideas, techniques, supply lists. Everything you could ever need to teach art!

Deep Space Sparkle had just the art activity I was looking for, Name Designs: Line Art...go take a look at this fantastic project to do with your class.

I started with a lesson on lines and patterns. My class and I looked at some art by Keith Haring, Van Gogh and others (multiple mediums) and discussed the moods, emotions and types of lines we saw. It was very interesting to talk to the kids about their impressions of the famous art works. Then we did a lesson on how to draw block letters and we practiced various size letters, shapes of letters and talked about the contours of the lines. Once we had spent a good deal of time on the block letters we moved on to different types of patterns we could create using lines... thick lines, wavy lines, round lines, thin lines...you name it. The students created a tic-tac-toe board on their practice paper and drew 9 or so different types of patterns. When we had finished that we did a gallery walk to get new ideas from what our classmates had tried. (This was my first art class gallery walk and I LOVED it!)

Now we were finally ready to start the project! I must say that the kids were focused, quiet and hard at work make their name projects.  As a side note: my teaching partner thought this project would be way too hard for grade 4 but I disagreed and felt that if we teach high they will learn high...and I was right!  here are some pictures of my students working away on a rainy Friday afternoon. Some are close to done, some are done and moved on to other line drawings but many are still in the process. I can't wait to see what they all look like when they are done and on display!

This student's name only has three different letters and they are all very angular, no curves. He has added a TONNE of patterns and I can't wait to see the finished product.

This is one of the finished ones! 

This student chose to use pencil crayons instead of markers for his letters. It's going to take more work to colour everything in so that it pops! but he is pretty determined.

This student used a ruler A LOT. It will be an interesting contrast to this students who worked free hand.

Their final project in due on Thursday (just in time for Meet the Teacher night!) and I'll take some pics of the final display!