Hello February!

It is hard to believe that it is already February! This week has been fantastic for all of the students during art. We have gotten a lot of work accomplished. In fact, throughout this coming week and next weekend I will be posting some pictures of not only all of our progress, but also some of the finished artworks. As for today's post, I have two wonderful things to share...

First,  the Art Club just started their new project. While we are assembling last month's project, students are beginning the drawing portion of their new project. We are going to be using both drawings and photographs to create large-scale portraits. Here are the results from yesterday...

We also had a small vistor to the art room yesterday :)

Secondly, the K5 just finished up their Mondrian inspired artworks. Finding inspiration in the colors, lines, and shapes found in his artworks, the K5 students created banjos using these same elements. Also, sorry for the quality of the pictures. Some of them have a small view of my kitchen floor :)

A Short Week of Art

As many of you know, I only teach on Thursdays and Fridays this year. Since we were out of school this past Friday, the art room only saw activity on Thursday. Despite only having a few classes on Thursday, the art room was full of new projects...in fact I was having trouble finding a place to put everything (a good problem to have if you ask me).

Anyway, I have several things to share this week. The K4/K5 students have recently began a new project on Piet Mondrian. After learning about his life, as well as discussing and viewing several of his artworks, students began their projects. I love Mondrian's work, however, I didn't want to do the normal Mondrian project. The K4/K5 students are instead creating a Mondrian inspired instrument (I'm saying instrument here because some of my students are calling it a guitar, while others are calling it a banjo...one is even calling it a ukulele!) This week, we worked on the body, neck and head of the instrument and next week we will be adding the strings and tuning keys.

I shared a little last week about what was happening in the 1st grade. This week they started putting together their fall/winter self portraits. I had to share a few examples! They are looking great!

The 2nd grade students are working on dioramas of fictional animals that they created. A few weeks ago, we looked at the dioramas from the American Museum of Natural History. Students learned how scientists and artists work together to create these dioramas. After sketching their idea, students this week began to sculpt their animals out of paper clay.

And finally for this week, the 4th grade students have been learning about the work of Claes Oldenburg. In particular, we looked at some of his soft food sculptures. This week, students started creating their own soft food sculptures out of felt. In later weeks, students we be creating a second part of this project, which I will post as they are working on it. For now, here are the beginnings of their food sculptures!