Not Much Art This Week

This week, the art room did not see much action. Thursday, students participated in an all day practice for their spring music concert. Congrats everyone! It sounded great!!! Yesterday was field day. Students were outside until around 1:45 competing in various events. I was a judge for the balloon toss and the golf tee search. The weather was great and everyone had a fantastic time...well, except for the 6th grade teacher who got hit with water balloons before our awards ceremony :)

The K4 students had their own field day last month. Since field day activities did not start until 9:30, the K4 students got to have art class this week. For their last project of the year, I was trying to think of something fun, humorous, and just an overall happy project. I wanted it to reflect the kids' attitudes right now. They are so excited for summer!

After taking a trip to the zoo this week and seeing all the bright pink flamingos, I decided they would be the perfect subject matter for our last project. To make these flamingos even happier than they already are, I decided to have them dancing. Students drew their flamingos along with music notes and radios. We also read the book "Sylvie", by Jennifer Sattler. This book is all about a little pink flamingo who decided it might be interesting to be something other than pink. This is a really cute book. It reminded me a lot of Leo Lionni's "A Color of His Own".

Anyway, enough rambling from me :) Here are some pictures of their drawings. We will be coloring them next week!

1st Grade Face Jugs

Students recently finished their mixed media face jugs. We used a variety of materials including tempera paint, crayons, colored pencils, and markers. I love all of the expressions on these jugs! Good Job 1st!

A Few Weeks to Go

Summer is a double-edged sword. Summer brings students freedom from school and long days of fun. However, summer also brings about the end of art classes for a couple of months. You can see it in students' faces that they are excited about the upcoming break, but when I mentioned that we only have 1 or 2 more art classes left this year, their expressions automatically changed.

As some of you know, I am currently planning a Summer Art Camp during the break. It is currently planned for June 17-21. I will be sending info home this week with a few more details. I am really excited about it! With this camp, students will not have to wait so long to have art again! 

This week, I have really packed a lot of fun things in for students. I want students to have as much fun and do as much as possible in the art room all the way up until the last week of school.

The K4 students completed their 3rd and final printmaking technique this week. Students created apple prints. Students dipped apple halves into acrylic paint and printed them onto card stock. I allowed students to print their apples how they saw fit. It was really interesting to see how students created their prints and to compare all of the differences in the artworks.

The K5 students finished up their Pattern Dragon artworks. I have a few to share with you today, but I will be posting all of them next week.

The 2nd students have been working with colored pencils during the last couple of weeks. Recently while looking around on Pinterest, I saw this little doodle of big eyed fuzzy creatures. I am not sure who the original source was, but I loved these little critters and thought they would be perfect for the 2nd grade to create, especially since it involves layering colors with colored pencils. Here are some of their artworks.

The 3rd grade also did a short project this week. After talking about portraits, as well as discussing folk art, students created clothes pin dolls. Students created two dolls, a self-portrait and one of a friend or family member. It was amazing to see students create this project. They were so enthusiastic and after they finished them, students were creating games with their doll, or were even acting out the remainder of the school day with friends.

The 4th grade students are creating gel glue batiks. Last week, students created sketches of what we are calling a family flag. Students had to design a symbol that would represent some aspect of their family. This week, students lightly drew their design onto a piece of cloth and carefully outlined their drawing with gel glue. Next week, we will be adding the color.

The 6th grade created gelatin prints this week. To create their print, students began by applying an even layer of tempera paint onto their gelatin plate. Students then used a variety of materials, including bubble wrap, combs, and paintbrushes, to create a texture on their plate. They then carefully laid a piece of card stock onto their plate, rubbed it gently, and lifted it up to reveal the first layer of their print. For the second layer, students again applied an even layer of paint to their plate. Students then placed cut out images onto the plate creating a resist. Students then placed the paper with the first layer on top of their plate, rubbed again gently and lifted it up to reveal their final print.

A few additional students in the Art Club Bigs finished up their 8-bit quilt. Here are their creations.

Lastly, the Art Club Littles students began a fun summery project. To celebrate the end of the school year, they are creating flip flop paintings. This week, students drew and painted their flip flop. Next week we will be adding the details, as well as the background.

Don't forget, if you like the things that you are seeing here, we have calendars for sale in the office of student artworks. The calendar includes an artwork from every student and also includes important dates for next school year!

Do you have a cold?

Yes...

I have been asked that question a lot this week. It started Thursday morning and got progressively worse. Yesterday, I woke up with a 100 degree fever and was so sore. Not fun. I couldn't even bring myself to post this week's update. Thankfully, I am feeling a lot better today :)

Despite my cold, I still had a great time in the Art room this week. Students are so disappointed in the fact that we only have three more weeks of art this school year. Because time is running out, they are working hard to finish their projects and even harder to have fun creating their works before summer arrives.

The K5 started the day on Thursday working on their Pattern Dragons. This week they began adding color using markers.

I love how these are turning out so far! Students are having a lot of fun imagining how their dragon will look. They have really been creative!

The 1st graders this week are continuing to work on their face jug artworks. This week, we added a very thin layer of tempera paint to our drawings to give it a dusty clay look.

On a side note, the 3rd grade finished their puppets this week (check out their creations in the post below). Since they have not had a free draw opportunity in a while, I decided to see what they could come up with. One student created the drawing below. I loved how much character this little guy had. He called him "Drew" because he "drew him on his paper".

The 5th grade is continuing to work hard on their watercolor landscapes. A lot of students were surprised to see how different watercolors are than the typical tempera or acrylic paints that they use commonly. Many students had to do a little bit of practicing before they created their final artworks, but I think for their first time using watercolor, they are doing a fantastic job!

The K4, Friday afternoon, continued working on printmaking processes. This week, we created monoprints. A thin layer of black tempera paint was spread onto a piece of aluminum foil. Students drew their design in the tempera using a cotton swab. After students completed their design, we laid a piece of paper on the aluminum foil, the student rubbed the paper thoroughly and then gently pulled the paper up revealing their print.

Lastly, the Art Club Big students are finishing up their 8-bit quilts. They look amazing!!! Here is a sneak peek at how they are looking...

I will be posting pics of those finished quilts next week!

Now that I have been thinking about it while writing this post, it is hard for me to believe that we only have 3 weeks left! There is still so much that I wish that I could teach and sooo many projects I wish that my kiddos could work on! August will come back around before I know it though. In a few weeks, I will reveal the theme for the next school year. I can't wait to start!

Finished Artworks!

As promised last week, I have a ton of finished art to share with you! This week's finished projects are brought to you by the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and Art Club. Here are some awesome artworks :)

Art Show and Updates!

Thank you to everyone who came out to the 2nd annual Art Night! It was incredibly successful! The artwork looked great on display and I was so happy to see students so excited about their art. I even had one student run up to me and say, "Mrs. Chance! I am a real artist!" :) I am so proud of all the work students accomplished this year. Congrats students!!!!

Even though the art show has come and gone, we will still be working hard until the end of the year. Many students will be starting new projects in the coming weeks (look for pics of their finished projects next week!) The K5 students just started a new project. We read the book Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin. I am in love with this book...very clever and funny and the illustrations by Daniel Salmieri are fantastic! After reading the book, students drew their own long dragons. We will be filling the dragons bodies with pattern, a Principle of Design. Along with their dragon, students drew a food that their dragon loves. My example loved cheeseburgers :)

The 5th grade students are working on their South Carolina landscapes. Students practiced using watercolor paints last week and applied their practice to one of their final artworks this week. Students will make three landscapes total. Here are some of the examples from Friday.

The K4 students are beginning a printmaking unit. They will be creating three different prints using three different techniques. This week we created prints with bubble wrap. Students painted the bubble wrap bubble side up using tempera paint. I helped the students hold the bubble wrap as they painted and I also helped them flip it onto the paper. The students pressed the bubble wrap onto the paper and gently lifted it up revealing their print. They were so excited! It was almost like magic to them :) Not to mention, the prints turned out really well! I will have pics of them next week.

As I said, make sure to check back next week. I am going to be posting a lot of finished projects and progress pics!