Art with Mrs. Elliott : Tweet tweet!- RES

Cardinal in early Spring

Tweet tweet!

Apologies. I could not resist.
I just joined Twitter @MrsElliottArt, and third graders are finishing birds.

Blue Jay in Winter

Grade 3 artists have been looking at native, year-round Vermont bird species, and have been illustrating them by collaging painted papers. We began the first day by looking at photographs of birds and considering their textures and colors, and how to best recreate those in painted papers.

Goldfinch in Autumn

In the first class students also drew trees on white paper, and then dragged painted cardboard over them to create the birches you see in their work.

Red winged blackbird in Autumn

The following week, they began the collage by cutting out and rearranging their trees into single birches or clusters. Artists had the choice to either draw their own bird or begin with a template of the body, to which they designed and added wings, beaks, feet, tufts, tails, and eyes.

Downy woodpecker in Winter

Noticing and recreating all of the details out of paper was the primary challenge- keep it realistic, no pencil showing.

Goldfinch in Spring

Students chose a season to show, and considered how the tree or the sky could help show the season. Few, tiny, bright green leaves for Spring, larger and darker green leaves for Summer, and so forth.

Cardinal in Summer

According to the Birds of Vermont Museum, there are many species that live here with us even in Winter, which makes them tougher than many people, because it is cold up here already.

Brown-headed cowbird in Autumn

This artist used Sharpie to add veins to the leaves- she asked if it was okay (because of trying to use just cut paper), and I said I thought it was a great idea. Other materials do well to enhance this project at the end, and this artist knows how to not let that marker dominate her picture.