Planning the Actual Art Auction Function

This is a reproduction of a Georgia O'Keefe piece.
I created it with oil pastels. My second graders will be
doing this collaborative piece. The final size is 22"x17".

Our art auction will be a silent one. It closes the night of the event, a dinner gala. To entice the families to attend, I'm exhibiting the artwork one month in advance from the actual function to get everyone excited about the event.

For the past two weeks I've been cutting mat board for all of the art work. I'm using glue stick to mount them. I tried the spray mount and it just didn't work as well. I've designed a poster, invitation and postcard, I'm just worried that I'm not getting it out early enough. I know how busy parents are and how fast their calendars fill up.

Matisse inspired Collaborative piece
I created in oil pastel. The kids will be
recreating a rectangle and I'll put them
together into one piece.

I'm creating labels that identify (especially on collaborative pieces) who did what part. I like the kids taking ownership and pride in their art. I'll create a separate page that displays all of the final work somehow. That could be another way to market it to parents. If I make a slide show or a page on Shutterfly that allowed parents to at least purchase a photo of a piece that seems like a good idea. Sometimes, a good writing brainstorm is what's needed.

Bottom line, doing this art auction is for a good cause, but it's a lot of work. I've spent many evening hours watching my favorite Gilmore Girls while I'm mounting artwork.  

Collaboration - Elementary School Art Auction Pieces

This is the Kindergarten Classes Collaborative Piece 22"x17"

On top of the individual and collage art auction pieces I've created a collaboration piece for each individual class. My collaboration pieces are a mosaic puzzle of an image. Here are my steps:

1) I created the piece on an 8.5x11 piece of paper with just the outlines (like a coloring book page.) 
2) I then blew it up on a copier so that it became a 22" by 17" piece.
3) Using oil pastels, I matched the colors to the original inspirational painting.
4) I cut it into squares depending on the number of students in my class. (16 or 24)
5) I laminated the squares individually.
6) In a plastic bag I put the the individual laminated square, and the identical uncolored square, plus the oil pastels used to color in that specific part.
7) I know my students abilities so I made sure to match the artist skill to the complexity of the square.
8) I'll spray a fixitive on top and mount them together to create a single piece. 

This is the first grade collaborative piece 17"x22"

Kindergarten Art Auction Piece

This is a collage piece.
Each student has a flower in this
bouquet. One student is the vase. 

Since my kindergarten class has 22 students I'm going to have four bouquets of flowers to assure each student has a flower in the auction. I chose four student's vases that best fit the flower colors.

I created four different flowers for the kids to watercolor paint. I wanted consistency with the design and have the kids really focus on the painting part and not the drawing part. The first week of painting I had them add some crayon resistance to outline or add design to the flowers. The second week of painting I had them just use watercolor and no crayon. I think they were more successful when they had the crayons.

I gave them outlines for three different vases. This time I brought in acrylic (not tempura) paint for them. They used cotton swabs to mix the paint and apply it. I like using cotton swabs to paint with kindergartners better than paint brushes, they fit their small hands better and don't rely as much on fine motor skills.

I will be assembling the four collages for the art auction and watch the 7-8 families enjoy a healthy battle to win the piece. I'll post all of the final art pieces for the auction after I've mounted them.

Kindergarten Art Auction Project

Stacked tea cups

I created a template for the tea cups and the kindergarten students do their cup design with crayon and complete the piece with water color. The number one challenge  on this project was to remind the students not to color the entire cup in with crayon. 

These were my instructions:
1) Create a pattern or design on your cup with crayon. We spent a few moments reviewing line ( zig zag, circles, stars, swirls, etc.)

2) I gave my students four tea cups on one page to work on. I figured I needed to increase my chances on success.

3) After they colored patterns with crayons, I passed out the palettes of water color paint. I needed to remind them that they could work with multiple colors on their cup, but not to mix their watercolors in the palettes.

I'm not a hundred percent happy with the end results. I'm going to repeat the project this week and eliminate the crayon step and see what the students do with more freedom. This time, I'll ask them to simply explore watercolor and play with the color.

Luckily, I have a couple of months to mount and cut out their cups for the final art auction pieces. Five students will be mounted on each piece. They have three other cups that they completed and can keep those to give to their parents. I recognize the children have a hard giving up their artwork, understandably.

First Grade Art Auction Piece - Mondrian

Inspired by the work of artist Piet Mondrian

Teaching young children that more isn't always best is hard. When they are learning about what they can do in art they want to do it all. Piet Mondrian and his minimalism approach to his art is truly inspiring. Introducing this to my first grade class has been interesting. I used a worksheet I found on Pinterest from a blog called Once Upon an Art Room. It helped the kids think about the shapes in a Mondrian painting.

Last week I had the kids do a practice run using markers and crayons. They drew their lines with rulers and went over them with black and then filled in some of the shapes with primary colored crayons. The biggest thing for a good number of kids to overcome was drawing so many lines on the page that it became similar to a checkerboard. Limiting them to 10 lines would have helped.

This week we will put pre-cut painters tape down on 6"x 6" pieces of tagboard paper. They only have 6 pieces of tape to work with, so that will eliminate their desire to add too many lines. If we have time we will start painting some of the pieces in with acrylic primary colors. I will require them to at least leave two white squares to balance their use of color.

Next week to finish up. We will remove all of the painters tape, color in the white lines left behind with marker and then touching that up with black acrylic paint. 

I will mount three student pieces on one black mounting board, ready for the art auction!  

Second Graders Art Auction Project

Here is my example for the second graders art auction project. As I have mentioned in the past, I always create the project first to make it easier to teach the process. 

These pieces are done on a 6" x 6" watercolor paper. I used painter tape to mask off the birch trees. I think this will be the hardest part of the process for the second grade students. I'm cutting the tape pieces, but they will still have to peal it off and press it down smoothly so that the paint doesn't flow underneath.

The next part is painting the background colors with watercolor, letting that dry and then pulling off the tape. I used a watery blue paint to create the shadows on the tree and the birch lines. In the night version of the painting I put dots of acrylic white paint to make stars.

I'm planning on mounting the two finished pieces side by side from each student on a black board. I don't plan to frame each piece, I'll leave that up to the winner. 

Choosing Projects for the Art Auction

Choosing projects for my upcoming April Art Auction has been challenging. I want the projects to be more than just fingerprints or a poster of multiple student pieces. I want kids to create pieces that I'd put on my wall in my home.

3rd-5th Grade Project

I have a huge skills gap between kindergartners and fifth graders, so I've kept that in mind during my search. My Third-Fifth grade students will be doing an acrylic painting of Koi Fish, individually. It is a painting that teaches them how to layer paint, and will span across three class periods. It is also a great lesson on composition and arranging a painting. Here is an example of the piece they will recreate with their own personal flare.

The Second grade piece, which I will post a sample of after I've completed it, will be a watercolor of birch trees. I've seen this done on multiple sites and can't wait to see how it goes. The students will do two paintings. One painting with be with the lighting at night, and one at sunrise. Each student will have both of their pieces mounted side by side and auctioned off that way.

The First graders will be creating Mondrian-inspired pieces, using primary colors. Again they will be small pieces so that I can mount three students per mat board (won't that create some bidding wars, tee hee.)

One of my Kindergarten classes will be painting a 2-D tea cup. Using crayon and watercolors, they will have the freedom to design their tea cup with shapes and colors. I will be stacking five tea cups on each other and mounting them on one mat board.

My other Kindergarten class will be doing flowers and vases (2-D) using watercolors and acrylics. I'll be taking the flower bloom of five students and creating a 2-D bouquet and choosing five of the best vases to hold them.

I'll be creating samples of each of these pieces and post them as I go. Now that I've decided what will go into the auction, I will be creating a supply list and calendar for myself. It will be one thing to have the students create all the beautiful pieces, it will be another for me to pull it all together and mount them professionally.

We are already planning a week of preview in our school's entrance before the auction to get the parents and children excited. One concern I have is deciding whether every child gets to be a part of the auction or only the best artists. It is difficult to be that kind of judge, even if that is part of life, but I won't need to make that decision until much later.