Grade six unity/collaborative candy

 This is the third collaborative art project that I have done with a class. The first time, I did collaborative crayons with my grade 5/6class. Next, I tried collaborative snakes with grades 4/5. I was so excited to try another one with my grade 6 art class. This time, however, instead I decided that we would study...candy! I made templates for lollipops and candy corn (templates are ESSENTIAL for collaborative art – the drawings must be the same size to maintain the look of unity.)

We used the same process as in the projects before. It took my students roughly two 50 minute periods to finish these. They look incredible running down the hallway!

In case you were curious about the display board - for my first project of the year, my class did the optical illusion collages I posted a couple of weeks back. They were the perfect project to start the year!

Unity/collaborative art - snakes! Grades 4/5

One of my favorite projects so far this year was the collaborative crayon art that I did with my grade 5/6 class. They were a huge success, and I really wanted to do something similar with my grade 4/5 group. I thought about what shape would work for a long, collaborative piece and finally came up with... snakes!w

I followed the exact same procedure as I did last time, except for this project, I gave students a tracer for the head only. With the crayons, it was more important that the shapes all be consistent, but since Snakes come in many different shapes and sizes, I figured the students would be fine to create the body shapes on their own.

These projects are unfortunately impossible to photograph, but rest assured, it looks absolutely beautiful in the classroom!

I have many, many updates I am going to try and get underway this weekend.. I'm so behind, and have so much I'd like to share!

Collaborative crayon art - grade 5/6

 

My first ever collaborative/unity piece! If this blog is anything like real life, this entry will get the most comments of any entry. I say this because since I put these in the hallway, I have had nonstop comments on this project! Teachers, students, admin staff - everyone had stopped to compliment the kids on their work.

This HAS to be one of my favorite projects of all time.Not only is it visually quite striking, it has the added component of being a collaborative piece that students must work on together. I first saw it at Mini Matisse.

Before we even started drawing, we made a chain on the board of everyone's names, so that we would know who attached to whom. Following that, each student got a big piece of black paper, and a crayon tracer. The tracers are essential - it's the only way to make sure that the crayons remain uniform throughout the entire piece. They had to trace at least one crayon going from their paper to the paper next to them. Together, they had to chose what color they would use (and each student needed to do this on both sides of the paper!) Some students also opted to do crayons that fell off the page, using scraps of black paper to create the effect. 

They colored them in using oil pastels. Each student had a crayon or two at their desk to use as inspiration. Overall, this project took about 3 hours for the students to finish completely. Such a great idea!

You can see some of the tracers here, as well as some o the crayons that students used as inspiration.