Asian Art Study: Russia

I realize that I have posted some of these projects before, but in looking at my schools' Artsonia galleries, I am so proud and happy with the way this year went that I thought I would break up the year into the units of countries that we studied. If you don't already know, I decided to focus my teaching on one continent each year starting this year. I chose Asia to start with and honestly, I think I could have spent all year just in Japan! The curiosity and genuine interests the students have shown in each country has been remarkable. Here is the first country we "flew" to; Russia. 

This was my kinder's second project of the year, and their first time painting with me. They learned about Kandinsky, concentric circles, and watercolor painting techniques along with my painting expectations, and how to clean up in the art room.

After completing their Kandinsky paintings, my kinders used strips and squares of paper to create these Russian tiger collages inspired by an image I found on Pinterest. The full lesson is found here. 

First graders did two projects in Russia. This is their study of landscape and the focus of the lesson was foreground, middle ground, and background. For full instructions to teach this lesson, visit my inspiration here. 

First grade's second project was Babushka (aka Matryoshka) Doll Drawings. We looked at a set of dolls my parents brought me from Russia and noticed how they get smaller, that most of them are holding something and there is a lot of patterns on them. I got out a variety of sizes of bottle caps for them to use to trace the heads and gave them pointers for drawing the details. Students were asked to use at least three different drawing media to color their dolls. The full lesson can be found here.   

Second graders looked at Russian architecture and compared their traditional buildings to what they see in Wisconsin. They noticed the elaborate designs, dome tops, and bright colors. They then drew their own version of a Russian building and were asked to color it with crayons, colored pencils, markers and oil pastels using their "artist brains" to choose the best medium for each portion of their building. They then watercolored the sky.

Third grade looked at the art and life of Russian artist, Marc Chagall. They learned that his paintings are dream like interpretations of stories of his life in Vitbesk. They wrote a story with four parts and then illustrated it using four different perspectives and at least three different drawing supplies. 

Like first grade, fourth grade looked at Babushka Dolls. They created clay versions using two pinch pots and connecting them to make the hollow "peanut" form and then painting them. While the clay versions were drying and being fired the also created a drawing using colored pencils. They were allowed to use the drawing as practice for the sculpture, or to design the two project differently. 

The fifth graders learned about Kazimir Malevich. They looked at the progression of his art from realistic to Cubist to the creation of Suprematism. Next I tried my hand at a modified choice project. I allowed students to either create a Cubist image using oil pastels or a Suprematist collage. Regardless of the media, students were asked to show movement, balance, unity, shape, line, and color in their composition. 

First Grade Matryoshka Dolls

Last cycle my first graders had just a quick step to finish their first project and then they filled out an assessment and started this project. Based on Russian Matryoshka Dolls-also called Babushka Dolls or, in English, Nesting Dolls. They started by folding their paper in half twice to make four sections. Next, they folded one side to the center of the paper twice to increase to six sections, four are smaller than the first two. They sketched a circle at the top of the first section and then added a little neck and a body that went all the way to the bottom of the paper. Repeat those steps in the next section, a little shorter. Continue until there are six Matryoshka Dolls, all a little shorter than the last and all touching the bottom of the page.

This week, they will use assorted circles to trace a face on the head of each doll.

We'll talk about the Russian style of drawing the faces and add a pattern to the dress.

They'll look something like this prior to coloring.

Students will be cutting the excess paper off the top and fan folding on their fold lines so they stand up on their own.

They will be given markers, colored pencils, and crayons and asked to use at least two of these materials on each doll.

Russian Tigers

My students are still "in" Russia and I already found myself stumped as to what to do with my kinders. I have so many go-to plans that develop art concepts and fine motor skills but not necessarily Russian or Asian concepts.  I flipped through a children's book about Russian and discovered that tigers were nearly extinct there until the last 20 years or so when they began working to rebuild the species that was declining. While scoping out Pinterest I came across this image of a tiger and I found myself inspired. 

Click photo for credit link

I happen to have an adorable book called "It's a Tiger!" by David LaRochelle that I got at the school book fair last year, and it was a perfect link to Russia, literacy, and an art project that teaches fine motor skills (drawing, cutting, gluing)! The kids adored this book. Every kid had a smile on their face as they chimed in "It's a tiger!" on every other page. It's super fun to read aloud too.

 The project started by having the kids glue orange and white strips of paper in a pattern on a half (9X12") piece of black construction paper. I talked about A, B patterns and then asked them to leave a black space between each strip to make it a more complicated pattern. A, B, C, B, A, B, C, B. Sounds complicated, but they totally got it!

The first class they were also able to get an orange square and red trapezoid glued down for the beginning of a face. 

Student work.

Student work

Next class the students will take two orange and two white strips of paper and fold them in half and cut them. They'll take one half and repeat the process to get four small and two medium pieces of both colors. 

They'll glue only the center of their tiger face to the center of a 12X18" piece of black construction paper.

Next, they'll add the medium sized strips in a pattern above the tiger's head to create a body.

Glue down the top of the head.

Add two rows of strips in a pattern to create the legs.

Glue down the bottom of the head.

And here's my kindergarten (sample) version of the first picture. I should start having student projects to post on Wednesday (I think!). I'm so excited to see them done!

 I do have one special needs student in kindergarten, so I created a storyboard of the second day's steps. I was concerned that it might be a bit much for him and, really, all the kids benefit from a storyboard. I was already taking pictures to put in my sub plans for Thursday, so it fit to put them together for the kids while I was at it. 

Click here for the storyboard in my Google Docs

Kindergarten Kandinsky Paintings

To begin our tour of Asia, my Kindergartners looked at art by Wassily Kandinsky. They learned what a concentric shape is, and that it can be any shape inside of each other. They then learned what my expectations are for painting in the art room, and we got started. 

Every year, I am completely amazed by the differences in my Kindergartners. Some have never held a pair of scissors. One year I even had one that had never held a pencil! So it's not surprising that these all turned out so different from each other. I love the variety, and it was very informative to watch them paint.

 I prefolded the paper for them so that each paper had eight squares. I demonstrated how to "tickle" the paper with the tip of the paint brush to get a nice line and asked the children to fill each square with as many circles as they could fit.

 They are so fun displayed in our atrium!

Clay Babushka Dolls

I started working through the process of creating clay Babushka (Nesting) dolls today. I'm thinking maybe 4th or 5th grade would like them. To make them elementary-friendly, I used pinch pots and attached them together to make the form.

Holes in the bottom for air flow, then they are scored and slipped together. 

Smoothing them together.

To begin, I added a hole on top and a third pinch pot for the head. 

She looked like this and I was unhappy with it. While the kids watched the flying to Russia video, I was looking at it and decided that it would look more authentic without the third pot as a head. I hated the ridge that the two pots created and decided to use it to my advantage...

I took off the top pot and pressed the ridge farther in. I'm still not thrilled with it, but am hoping that with the painting added to it I'll be more excited about it.