Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Second Grade Clay Peacocks

Today was an Early Release Wednesday. Kids are dismissed at 2:00. Teachers have professional development for 2 hours. The shorter day makes it a bit of a rush in Art. Afternoon classes are a mere 30 minutes. I have to break down project steps into little chunks. I told today's second graders to not stress about painting their peacocks. We could finish next week.But they challenged themselves and worked very hard. The prize of course being that they could take their little sculptures home. As I was hot gluing coffee filter tails on painted pieces, I hurriedly snapped a few photos with my phone. These are little blurry...Yet  you can see the care and fun they had using "cool" colors to complete their clay project.





Kinders and Neutral Colors

A class of kinders assembled their dogs today. This class mostly drew "Boot" based on the all black, oil pastel, legs of their dogs. They could tell me all of the Neutral colors that they used to make this project: black, white, brown, tan and gray! Each doggie has a unique personality just like my little kindergarten artists! So cute! Here are a few examples.




Fifth Graders are Zentangling

Fifth grade is nearing completion on their Hand/Analogous/Zentangle artwork. A Zentangle is recent fad to hit the artworld. It is basically a doodle-that becomes an pattern-that fills a page-and is an artwork in itself. Everyone had fun today zentangling. Yessssss-Art is fun while we learn!






Fourth Grade humming Bird artwork completed

Fourth graders are completing the  art work by Anthony Grant. Their hummers have a little sparkle and 3-D effect.








Painted Giraffes in First Grade

Here are a few completed Giraffes. Students  loved seeing their crayon patterns sparkle through the watercolor wash painted over. They learned that the technique is called crayon/watercolor resist.




Monday, November 10, 2014

First Grade Giraffes

After reading "Giraffes can't Dance," we drew Gerald giraffe. We added lines to the  background with rulers to break it up into shapes. I just love this book. It lends itself to lots of discussion about the power of our words to hurt or to build each other up.  Our next step is to  fill each shape with crayon patterns of different colors. I made a pattern page with a few idea starters.  Next week we will paint each area with a watercolor wash. These are cute and will be saved for the spring Art to Remember program.








KInders learn about Neutral Colors

Kindergarteners are learning about yet another color family: the Neutrals. These include black, white, brown, tan, and gray. They may even sing you the song if you ask them to. We began with a cute book that I purchased at a school book fair last year. Literature is often the source of my inspiration. We read the book," Boot and Shoe," and drew him together. The feet determines if it is the Boot dog or Shoe doggie. Check back in to see the Neutral colors applied to our project.




Friday, November 7, 2014

All School Veterans Day Artwork

The first week of school I photographed students in either white or red, against a matching background.
I assembled these into a large flag to hang outside the gym for our Veteran's Day Program. It has nearly all students, except half day kinder and recently added children who are new to the school, and those not allowed to participate..  Everyone is enjoying all the sweet faces of our diverse student body.  We want to leave it up for a while, it is so much fun to look at. I am proud of our Veterans. I am proud of our children,

Thursday, November 6, 2014

4th Grade Hundertwasser coil clay

Today a class painted their coil clay project inspired by Fred Hundertwasser. Here are a few finished pieces. They are really cool! I will save this class' clay pieces for the spring Art Show!




Wednesday, November 5, 2014

3rd Grade Cowboy Boots

Cowboy boots are galloping along in 3rd grade. Here are a few finished examples. Students chose a design element from their boots to enlarge and repeat in the background. These shapes were then filled in with simple line patterns using markers in the same color family. Some students also chose to add spurs.