Ms. Schmidt's Art Explorers

Lucha Libre Mask Portraits

Fifth graders created paintings of Mexican lucha libre wrestlers. This was a lesson I developed several years ago and had published in the magazine Arts and Activities last year!

Second graders learned about directional lines and the use of space in art. They created a crop field with the three different directional lines painted on paper, then created a sense of distance or space with the placement and size of the objects in the picture.

Photo Backdrop

This is my contribution to the Fall Festival. It's a photo backdrop of a scary path to a haunted house.

Mexican Art

Illustrations on Display

In October, I had my two recent book illustrations on display in the Fall Art Show of the Northeast Florida Art Educators Association. The pictures are from the "If Picasso..." book series.

Scary Pumpkins

First graders enjoyed creating painted paper scary pumpkin collages for the fall season.

Mexican Sombreros

First graders LOVED creating their sombreros!

More from Mexico

We are traveling the world in art class this year. Here are more works from 3rd and 4th graders. It is their version of Amate Bark Painting, using crumpled up brown bags instead of bark. The student learned how the craftsmen made the bark paper to paint on and the characteristic images they painted. The students used handouts of sample images to inspire them. They first drew on the paper with white chalk a simple outline of their chosed image. Then, they they filled in the image with white tempera paint. This way, the colors would be more vibrant over the brown bag. I think they turned out magnifico!

First Stop-Mexico!

In kindergarten, they learned about warm colors and created a wet collage with bleeding tissue paper. Once the tissue paper dried, it peeled right off, revealing the colors reminiscent of watercolors.

Students then traced a large circle and with black tempera paint, created an Aztec sun face.

Best of Elementary Art Show 2015

I am elated again this year that 4 out of 6 entries were accepted into the DCPS Best of Elementary art exhibition!

Please join me in congratulating the following students:
    Cecilia Cing
    Marie Falcon
    Noemi Rodriguez
    Leyvi Salmeron
    Mohamed Abdelrahman
    Daisha Phath
    Malachi South
    Lilliona Williams
    Manuel Luna

    Fabian Cisneros-Trenado - Honorable Mention

The students will be honored at a reception at Florida State College at Jacksonville Kent Campus on Thursday, April 30th from 6-8:00 pm. Please join us!

Op Art in Fourth Grade

Fourth graders were intrigued to learn how to make art that "moves." They were taught about complementary colors and how to use colored pencils to create value in order to accomplish their goals of movement in their pictures.

Second Grade Plate Weaving

Students in the second grade are learning about radial symmetry in their painted paper plate loom creations. This has been my most successful lesson yet this year, although the second graders are, overall, VERY enthusiastic artists!

Not sure this student got the hang of it but she did create something with radial symmetry!

Your Art Teacher is Going to be Famous

My art was just included in a new children's book called "If Picasso Had a Christmas Tree." It's a delightful book that helps introduce children to the rich world of art history accompanied by rhyming verse. You can see links to the paperback book at www.FirehousePublications.com.

I and 30 other art teachers worked together on this project from about Christmas 2013 through the summer. Firehouse Publications has posted a 20% off code you can use while it's available, though it only works from their site, not Amazon's. Have a sneak peek here of an abridged low resolution online version: http://tinyurl.com/k27lvwp

Shape Monsters

Second graders used their knowledge of geometric and organic shapes to create monsters.

Art Fair 2013

Even though it was a torrential downpour that night, we had a HUGE crowd turn out for our Art Night! Everyone enjoyed being photographed as "The Scream" and making Silly Bird sculptures.