What a Week!!!

Before I share what students did this week, I have to share with you what I have been working on for the art room. I have one small window in my art room and it doesn't have much of a view. In the spring and summer, the view is of a lot of leaves from the tree outside, and in fall and winter, we can see just the side of the library across the street. A couple of years ago, I decided to make the space a little more cheerful with some bright and colorful bugs that I created on transparencies. Well needless to say, I got a little tired of the bugs and felt like the window could use a makeover. So, since we are studying art history this year, I decided to create a stained glass window. The pattern is apparently based on one from the art deco period, although I decided to use a little more color...it is in an art room after all :)

The window was a big hit with students. They loved all the color and felt it was much better to look at instead of the dull view we usually see.

This week, the 1st-6th continued to review the Elements of Art. We finished our review this week with texture, value, and space. Since there were only three elements to discuss, students had plenty of time to work on the Chihuly collaborative project I shared with you a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully we will have that all finished and up for display in a couple of weeks.

Last week, the K4 and K5 started their first project by doing a little sketching. This week we began drawing elements for our actual artworks. As I said last week, the K4 is creating a project based on the book "Mouse Paint", so naturally the K4 drew and colored a mouse that will playing in some paint next week.

This week, the K5 created large scoops of ice cream that they will be painting next week using the primary and secondary colors.

Additionally, this week marked the beginning of Art Club!!! For our projects this year, we will be studying artists that are working presently and to kick off the year, we are beginning with Romero Britto. I love his art! It is so happy...full of pattern and color! The students are making individual paintings but they will be created in such a way that it will form one giant mural (hopefully). I started by showing students my example.

Students this week did what I called step 1 and 2...drawing three shapes (geometric or organic) and creating their wide lines using strips of painters tape.

Needless to say, it was an awesome week in the art room! On a side note, I got to do something wonderful last night....here's a little back story first. Sometime last spring, I watched a documentary on PBS called "Beauty is Embarrassing" about the artist Wayne White. I was instantly hooked on it because he was one of the main creators of the set and puppets on the show "Peewee's Playhouse" and the animator and set designer on "Beakman's World", both of which I watched quite often growing up. I found it extremely interesting and funny and I love how he wanted to bring that sense of fun and humor into the art world. Well a couple of weeks ago, I saw an ad in the paper saying that he was going to be speaking at our local museum! Let's just say I wasted absolutely no time ordering my ticket. So, last night I got to see the documentary again (as great as the first time) and Wayne White presented after the movie was over. Not only was it awesome seeing him in person, but he also shared with us some of his current projects, like his large horse puppets that are being shown in Houston, TX right now. He also showed us some of his great word paintings in which he paints a funny, humorous, and often thoughtful phrase onto an old painting that he purchases from a thrift store. My favorite was "The Most Expensive Painting in the World".

Now, for those parents that are thinking about sharing his works or documentary with your kids...he has a lot of examples that would be totally fine to show younger kids. However, he also has several examples out there that are not that appropriate for the younger ones. Make sure that you do your research first :) All in all, it was a fantastic experience and I was so happy that I had the opportunity!!!

The Old and the New

As promised now for the last couple of weeks, this post will be an explanation of the upcoming year.

Starting off with the 1st-6th grades. Students this week have been reviewing the Elements of Art. As most of you know, the Elements of Art are the building blocks of art. In other words, artists use the elements, mixing them together to compose a work of art. Knowing the elements of art helps us to not only compose a great work of art, but it also helps us to describe and analyze the work of others. Students will need to understand this information in order to fully participate in the projects we create this year because we will exploring Art History ABC's!!!

Each grade level will be creating a project, each based on four letters of the alphabet. Each of the four letters will represent a period or style from throughout time, including ancient art, art of the middle ages/renaissance, art of the 1500-1800’s and modern art. During our Art Show (typically held at the beginning of May), all work created by students will be displayed together to create the entire alphabet!

This week the 1st through 6th grades reviewed color, line, shape, and form. Next week, students will be reviewing texture, value, and space. In a couple of weeks, we will beginning our first projects. Each grade will start off by exploring ancient art!

The K4 and K5 will be exploring the Elements of Art all year. For our first project, we are exploring color, in particular primary and secondary colors.

The K4 read the book "Mouse Paint" by Ellen Stoll Walsh. After reading the book, we conducted a "color experiment" to see how the primary colors mixed to create the secondary colors. K4 students also practiced sketching mice.

The K5 students also read the book "Mouse Paint". After we read the book, which was a review for many of the students, we sketched ice cream cones. For their first project, students will be drawing and painting scoops of ice cream, using the primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) first, then mixing them to create the secondary color scoops (purple, green, and orange). After we paint all 6 scoops, students will stack their ice cream to create a giant ice cream cone. Here are some pictures of their sketches...

Next week marks the beginning of Art Club!!! This year, we will be studying contemporary artists...artist that are all working today. Art Club Littles will be on Thursdays this year and Art Club Bigs will be on Fridays. For our first project, we will be creating a large-scale painting based on the works of Romero Britto! Lots of pictures to come!