Kinders learn Secondary colors

Kinders have been singing another color song in art class: "The Secondary Colors are Orange Purple Green..." They read the book "Mouse Paint". We then prepared for the project by drawing a happy, friendly lady bug. Insects are cool! We discussed that they have 6 legs! The next class period I rushed around the room spooning 2 primary colors onto each section of the ladybug. Like magic, new colors formed before their eyes as they mixed the 2 paints together each time! This is one of my favorite lessons with the little ones!  I so enjoy discovery through art. The final week students used a thin brush and back tempera paint to outline, add spots, and recreate the face, antennae, and arm-legs.
These smiling ladybugs are almost as adorable as my little kinders!

                                (I know I saw this project online somewhere for the inspiration.)

Matisse Still Life, 3rd Grade

I read a book about Henri Matisse a famous impressionist Painter from France. We viewed his still life of a goldfish bowl artwork. I employed a guided drawing technique to initially draw the scene with students. After demonstrating how to paint the glass in the fish bowl, so it slightly reflected the background, students received tempera paint. They were free to paint the still life the colors of their choosing. Check back to see the final version. Once again thanks to P. Palmer for the idea.

Second Grade Salvador Dali Self Portraits

Second Grade has learned about the famous Surealist artist, Salvador Dali. He lived a strange life, made strange artworks from ideas that came from his dreams, and had a strange appearance. I printed out photos of his unique mustache as it evolved over the years. We read a biography of Dali. We then learned about placement of facial features to make a self portrait. Watercolors were painted on, blending yellow, orange and brown to create a personal skin tone. Then the children got to pick a chenille stem and form a unique mustache which I hot glued on for them. Thanks to the inspiration I found on line for this fun project. It has given us many chuckles!

First Grade Job Self Portraits

First Grade artists added a background to their portraits. They tried to show what might be around them if they were doing the particular occupation that they chose for themselves. We still have a few more steps, so keep checking back!

5th Grade Pacific Northwest Masks

This was a fun and rather quick drawing project for 5th grade. Most of our assignments last many weeks. These masks were completed in 2. After drawing the half mask with a black oil pastel, and rubbing to create symmetry, students colored using traditional PNW mask colors. They cut these out, and added Raffia grass somewhere for texture and interest. The masks were glued to 2 background pieces. The final frame was made "presentation ready" by stamping around the boarder with multicultural stamps. The students did a nice job. ( inspiration tom Deep Space Sparkle)

4th Grade Grand Canyon Paintings

Fourth graders have gotten to the final stage of adding a painted black outline and inner designs to their canyons. They are quite proud of their landscapes. This project ( inspired by P. Palmer) was a good lesson to demonstrate the 3 areas of depth/space in a landscape: foreground, middle ground, back ground. These paintings really turned out great!

Veteran's Day Flag

I wanted to post a photo of the flag as it appeared on Veteran's Day. It was a learning process for me as I assembled hundreds of painted sticks. The sticks warped as they were glued and had to be coated with epoxy to hold them together.. The result is shiny and very personalized. I enjoyed watching the kids search for their stick. It has had many admiring views from students, parents, and faculty. We may have to leave it up for a while!

First Grade begins Painting Job Self Portraits

Here are a few early paintings. Today we only painted ourselves. Next week we will paint the background. It looks pretty blobby at this point. We will go over our drawing lines later.

Veteran's Day

This year I will again help decorate for our special Veteran's Day concert. Our new music teacher, David Parker, has been working hard with 4th and 5th grade choirs. This year I have had every student decorate with paint, a red, white or blue,wide stick. I am going to glue them together to make a flag of the United States of America. This flag will be hung right outside the gym door to welcome our Veterans, parents, and students. I will post the finished flag soon!

Van Gogh for kinders

Kinders heard a wonderful story called "Camille and the Sunflowers", that was about  about Vincent Van Gogh. They looked at many of his lovely paintings.  They observed a huge vase of sunflowers in the art room and drew them. This week we made clay sunflower pinch pots. It will be a few weeks before they are fired and glazed, but they are so cute!