Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Elephants

Art Club is finishing up for the 2nd Quarter and we wrapped up with an Elephant theme. Inspired by Salvador Dali and his long legged elephant painting. We talked about Surrealism and how these artists would try to paint what they dreamed about, so sometimes things would be normal and other times a bit strange. The kids really liked this idea, in their elephant pictures some adding things from their own dreams, dancing fruit and a snowflake as the sun. The results were AMAZING!! 






Along with our long legged elephants we also constructed clay elephants. Again this talented group of artists continue to astound and amaze me!!

 
 Strawberry and Watermelon Elephants. LOVE!


 Oh so COLORFUL!!
 And the more modern and sleek, black.


Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Mincraft Portraits

Kids everywhere love Minecraft!! So if you can't beat 'em...join 'em, right?  If you are unaware of what Minecraft is, it is video game where players build worlds with blocks. Now there is A LOT more to it (or so I learned from my students) but that is what I will narrow it down to for now.

I totally see the artistic merit to the Minecraft game. Video game designers are artists, they go to art school and learn graphic design. But the players of Minecraft are really building or designing worlds with landscapes and buildings, just like architects (again you need drawing skills for that too).  

So I connected this self portrait lesson to Minecraft. But we also learned and talked about geometric shapes and patterns when creating these amazing portraits. I was so happy with how they turned out and nearly everyone was successful with this lesson!!









These are some amazing examples that are hanging outside the art room. And not a day goes by where students from ALL grade levels walk into the art room and ask "Are we doing that today?"