December Already

Where has the year gone? I can't believe it's already December and we ONLY have 10 school days left until the winter break! Well... we have been pretty busy creating lots of great artwork! Here is a highlight reel of all the good stuff! 

1st Grade made their Mondrian Animals. A favorite of mine that is must every year. 

2nd Grade made Warm and Cool Landscapes. We talk balance and about the warm and cool colors then divided our paper with each color family. 

3rd Grade made Pirate Ship Seascapes. First we painted and tried to show a little texture. Then did a collage pirate ship on the high seas. 

4th Grade made MineCraft Pirates. I did MineCraft Self Portraits last year. This year gave them a pirate twist to go along with our school theme. 

Great Wave Zentangle

4th and 5th grade are starting out with the same project this year. (I don't usually do that) 

Both are learning about line, rhythm and value. 

First, we read a book called "The Great Wave" by Veronique Massenot (Author), Bruno Pilorget (Illustrator). 

It is a story and illustrations inspired by the artwork of Hokusai and his print "The Great Wave", from his series "The Thirty-Six views of Mount Fuji". 

After the story we talked about rhythm and how to show movement on a flat page. Next, I gave students step by step direction on how to draw a wave. Then they started to get creative by adding zentangle patterns and rhythms inside the ocean. 

Don't you just love the sea theme?

After filling the ocean with zentangles. We started to talk value. And I gave students tips and techniques on how to use watercolor paint to create values to keep a monochromatic color scheme for the wave.

 I encouraged students to chose a color other than blue.

 I think the purple waves are my favorite.

After the ocean was painted, we talked contrast. What color choice would really look good for their sky and Mt. Fuji?

 Some used Complementary Colors... and boy do they POP!

  Again my smART Artists never cease to amaze me!!!

(These are finished 4th grade examples )

(I was inspired by a Pinterest post. Thank you, Alum Creek Elementary and your wonderful Artsonia page: Check it out here! )

Here are some finished 5th grade creations! 

SUPERB!!

Art Club is ALL about Drawing

This year in Art Club it is all about experimenting and trying new techniques. I've always loved art club because it's a smaller group of kids who all REALLY enjoy art! So this year we ALL (Yes even me) are going to try some new ways to make art. Each quarter will focus on a different medium. This quarter is all about drawing. I'm showing the older kids how to hone their skills and the younger ones get to use some new supplies. 

First lesson for the littles (K-2nd)...CAVE ART. Cave men are the first artists you know. First we went on a virtual tour of the Lascaux Cave. Then we made our own cave wall and animals using chalk. (The closest I wanted to give them to charcoal.) Well we got a bit messy, but made some wonderful art. 

 We worked outside for a little extra texture.

The older group (3rd-5th) started by drawing a Still Life.
We talked about contour with this fun video on Vimeo: Contour Video and how to draw from observation. 

And boy was I impressed!!

Ocean Zentangle

3rd Grade started the year with a Zentangle. If you aren't sure a Zentangle is, it is the art of doodling. The idea that doodling can be relaxing or zen like. And then adding that idea to create it's own picture or into another. In our case we started with an ocean landscape, like you were looking at all the layers of the ocean. Then at each layer we put patterns and rhythms to create the Zentangle.

Most Zentangles are black and white. But we added a some color to ours.

We talked about Value and what a Monochromatic Color Scheme is. I gave the kids some tip and techniques on how to create values with watercolor.

 I encouraged them to use different colors then blue. But the ocean is blue, so most results were too.

Pretty AWESOME!!

(Stay tuned for 4th and 5th Grade Zentangles were we did a similar project but took influence from Hokusai's "Great Wave")

Crazy Concentric Lines

2nd Grade learned about Concentric Line to begin the school year. I thought this might be a bit of a challenge, but turns out they were up for it! I love my smART Artists!! 

We started by drawing three shapes in the middle of our paper. Close to each other perhaps even overlapping a bit. Then I taught them what a concentric line was and how to make it so it goes around all their shapes. Echoing the side and curve of each of their shapes, they were to grow these concentric lines until it was over flowing from their paper. Next we choose three colors to create a pattern.

 (I was pretty impressed on how their coloring skills have improved. :)

Last we added line and shape patterns to fill in the shapes. 

All and all a good lesson to start the year!

AHOY ARRRRTISTS!!

I can't wait to get busy making beautiful art with all of  my wonderful little artists. I will be seeing every class once a week, so we are going to get a lot of good stuff done and work on building our art skills. This year school's theme is "Where Learning and Students Arrgh Treasured!", which is all pirate related so be on the look out for wonderful pirate self portraits and pirate ship seascapes!

If you would like to help us make some amazing new art this year, there are a few things we will need:

• Craft Materials---> Burlap and other Fabric, Beads, Buttons, Wire in a variety of color, Yarn, Sand Paper
• Toys--->Plastic Cars, Plastic Dinosaurs, Legos, Play Sand (Or Beach Sand)
• All types of magazines, but sports magazines would be the best!
• Art Supplies---> Containers with lids (my favorite are the cream cheese and baby food), Flat boxes (like used for soda flats or the lid from a ream of paper), egg cartons, foam trays (Fruit and Veggies only, NO meat)
• Anything that would be interesting to draw--> Shells, Vases, Teapots, Keys, Fake Flowers etc.  
• Pringle Cans-->This year 5th grade with be making pottery and the Pringle's cans are perfect for that cylinder shape. 

And then there are the basics that I have listed on the top right side of my blog that we are always in need of each year. Just remember if you sending in a container that once held food, please WASH it thoroughly before sending it to school. Thank you!

I can't wait to see all my students and hopefully some beautiful artwork that was done over the summer!

OPtical Illusion

4th grade ended the year by learning about Op Art. Op Art is artwork that creates the illusion of depth or movement on a flat 2-Dimensional surface. We learned from the blog Create Art With Me which has a great lesson plan and directions. Instead of using marker we painted to create our lines before cutting and arranging our movement. The results were mixed, but really they varied on how well students were following directions.

 After we painted our papers we measured 1/2" stripes on the back of the paper, 24 in total, numbering them. Then during the first class I had them cut them ALL out at once. This was a mistake, they should cut as the go.

 Starting with stripe #12 and working backwards towards #1, stripes overlap slightly on the left side of the paper, and they will start to curve.

 Then you begin the second half with stripe #13 and going to #24, overlapping on the right side and curving the opposite direction.

I love the color choices!