Saturday, March 15, 2014
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Project Wrap Up, Project Wrap Up!
For the next couple of weeks, many students will be participating in, what I call, a "Finishing Day". On "Finishing Day" students have the task of putting the finishing touches on their artwork, as well as completing a self-critique. I find "Finishing Day" to be one of the more exciting days in the Art room. Students are not only able to see the results of weeks of hard work, but they are beginning ot look forward to a new project right around the corner!
There were only a couple of classes that participated in a "Finishing Day" this week. The majority of my classes will be starting to wrap things up next week. Anyway, here's what everyone was up to the past couple of days...
K4: Similar to what we did last week, a second group of students printed their gumballs using corks and tempera paint. Now that everyone has had a chance to create their gumballs, we are now ready to put our machines together.
K5: This week began the start of our new project...well kinda. This year, I have decided that before we start our final artwork that we will have a whole day dedicated to practice a new skill or idea. Since the beginning of the year, students have been learning about the Element of Art color. Starting this week, we are on to line! To practice for our upcoming project, I read the book "Extra Yarn" by Mac Barnett. The illustrations (by Jon Klassen) often depicted long lines of yarn. When I finished reading the story, I handed each student their own piece of rainbow yarn to practice creating lines on their table. Once they had created a line that they thought was cool or interesting, I asked them to draw it. Students had a ton of fun with this activity...so much in fact that I gave them the yarn to take home to make more awesome lines.
1st: I have said it before and I will say it every week...I am so proud of the work ethic that the 1st graders have been showing. Their project has been no small task. They have been working for 3 weeks now on coloring their American Realism inspired drawings and are still going along with no complaints! I am so proud that they are beginning to see the pay off of all their hard work. I still have 6 students that are working, but I am hoping that soon I can share their creations with everyone :)
2nd: After our fire drill day last week, students were ready and eager to paint. A couple of weeks ago, students had painted their first layer, making them ready this week to start adding details. They will be participating in their finishing day next week.
3rd: Almost every student except for around 4ish finished their Impressionistic landscapes. Much like the 2nd grade, they will be participating in their "Finishing Day" next week.
4th: 4th grade students participated in their "Finishing Day" this week. After putting the finishing touches on their artworks, students filled out their self-critique. Next week, students will be starting to learn about photography!
5th: Students have now completed their collagraphs! Next week we will be creating our relief from Styrofoam and then we will be ready to print!!!
6th: The 6th grade weather vanes are really beginning to take shape! Many students this week were able to apply copper acrylic paint to their designs. It is amazing what a little paint will do to really transform something!
Art Club: Over three quarters of the younger group finished their Palissy Ware this week. I will be taking pics of all their projects and hopefully will be posting them next weekend. On the other hand, the older group just began applying paint to their sculptures. Because the older group will still need several more sessions to finish their projects, the younger group will be moving on to a new project soon. The older students will eventually move to the same project after all of their Palissy Ware is completed.
In other news: First a couple of weeks ago, Kim of Art on my Hands suggested that the next time I have awesome sink art created by the paint that is washed out of my palettes to use paper to try to create a print. So, after once again washing out my palettes and dumping the muddy looking water in my sink, I was left with awesome sink art. I grabbed a piece of paper, placed it in the sink on top of the paint and here's what I got...
In some other Art room realted news that I wanted to share, you might have noticed that I use aluminum foil frequently. I use it not only for our projects, but also to protect the tables from paint or clay. When I arrived at my current school 4 years ago, I found a gigantic, industrial, cafeteria size roll of aluminum foil. Not wanting it to just sit around in my closet, I have used it regularly since then. On Friday, I was experimenting with a new discovery that I will discuss in detail next week. I grabbed the aluminum foil and pulled...turns out it was the last little piece. I thought that I surely could do without it. Nope. Not gonna happen. In fact, I found myself repeatedly heading for the closet to grab it during Art Club only to realize "Oh, yeah...its gone." Guess I know what I will be getting this weekend :)
There were only a couple of classes that participated in a "Finishing Day" this week. The majority of my classes will be starting to wrap things up next week. Anyway, here's what everyone was up to the past couple of days...
K4: Similar to what we did last week, a second group of students printed their gumballs using corks and tempera paint. Now that everyone has had a chance to create their gumballs, we are now ready to put our machines together.
K5: This week began the start of our new project...well kinda. This year, I have decided that before we start our final artwork that we will have a whole day dedicated to practice a new skill or idea. Since the beginning of the year, students have been learning about the Element of Art color. Starting this week, we are on to line! To practice for our upcoming project, I read the book "Extra Yarn" by Mac Barnett. The illustrations (by Jon Klassen) often depicted long lines of yarn. When I finished reading the story, I handed each student their own piece of rainbow yarn to practice creating lines on their table. Once they had created a line that they thought was cool or interesting, I asked them to draw it. Students had a ton of fun with this activity...so much in fact that I gave them the yarn to take home to make more awesome lines.
1st: I have said it before and I will say it every week...I am so proud of the work ethic that the 1st graders have been showing. Their project has been no small task. They have been working for 3 weeks now on coloring their American Realism inspired drawings and are still going along with no complaints! I am so proud that they are beginning to see the pay off of all their hard work. I still have 6 students that are working, but I am hoping that soon I can share their creations with everyone :)
2nd: After our fire drill day last week, students were ready and eager to paint. A couple of weeks ago, students had painted their first layer, making them ready this week to start adding details. They will be participating in their finishing day next week.
3rd: Almost every student except for around 4ish finished their Impressionistic landscapes. Much like the 2nd grade, they will be participating in their "Finishing Day" next week.
4th: 4th grade students participated in their "Finishing Day" this week. After putting the finishing touches on their artworks, students filled out their self-critique. Next week, students will be starting to learn about photography!
5th: Students have now completed their collagraphs! Next week we will be creating our relief from Styrofoam and then we will be ready to print!!!
6th: The 6th grade weather vanes are really beginning to take shape! Many students this week were able to apply copper acrylic paint to their designs. It is amazing what a little paint will do to really transform something!
Art Club: Over three quarters of the younger group finished their Palissy Ware this week. I will be taking pics of all their projects and hopefully will be posting them next weekend. On the other hand, the older group just began applying paint to their sculptures. Because the older group will still need several more sessions to finish their projects, the younger group will be moving on to a new project soon. The older students will eventually move to the same project after all of their Palissy Ware is completed.
In other news: First a couple of weeks ago, Kim of Art on my Hands suggested that the next time I have awesome sink art created by the paint that is washed out of my palettes to use paper to try to create a print. So, after once again washing out my palettes and dumping the muddy looking water in my sink, I was left with awesome sink art. I grabbed a piece of paper, placed it in the sink on top of the paint and here's what I got...
In some other Art room realted news that I wanted to share, you might have noticed that I use aluminum foil frequently. I use it not only for our projects, but also to protect the tables from paint or clay. When I arrived at my current school 4 years ago, I found a gigantic, industrial, cafeteria size roll of aluminum foil. Not wanting it to just sit around in my closet, I have used it regularly since then. On Friday, I was experimenting with a new discovery that I will discuss in detail next week. I grabbed the aluminum foil and pulled...turns out it was the last little piece. I thought that I surely could do without it. Nope. Not gonna happen. In fact, I found myself repeatedly heading for the closet to grab it during Art Club only to realize "Oh, yeah...its gone." Guess I know what I will be getting this weekend :)
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Post #100 HOORAY
Wow! 100 posts already! I can't believe all of the things that we have done over the last couple of years. I really enjoy blogging and am super glad that I started mine. Not only has it been a way for me to remember all of the wonderful artworks that students have created and accomplishments we have achieved, but it has allowed me to share everything that goes on with parents, members of our community and everyone out there in the world. I have appreciated all of the wonderful comments over the years and look forward to hundreds of more posts in the future!
This week was a relatively normal week and students were able to accomplish a lot. With that said, on to this week's update...
K4: With the completion of our glue resist paintings last week (see post below for pictures!), we started a new project this week. I introduced students to the work of artist Wayne Thiebaud. I love his art...how creamy his pastries actually look, the bright colors of the candies, and the overlapping delicious compositions! After showing students a number of his paintings, I shared with students two of his paintings of gumball machines and told students that we would be creating our own gumball machines. To begin this process, students used a cork and tempera paint to stamp neat, round circles to make "gumballs".
K5: Students in K5 have also recently finished a project (look at the posts below for their still life artworks). Since our self-critique session went so well a couple of months ago, I decided for students to work on another one. I am so proud of how honest students are with their critiques! Great job everyone!
1st: We are still working hard on coloring our American Realism drawings. As I have been telling students "slow and steady wins the race!"
2nd: This week was a little crazy for the second grade students. Due to two fire drills, we were only left with about 10 minutes to work...not enough time for painting. So instead of just wasting time or playing a game, I asked students to critique each others work in pairs. Students were very helpful to one another and offered a lot of good suggestions. With their new game plans, students are ready to begin painting again next week.
3rd: Last week, students began their Impressionistic landscapes by laying down their base layer of paint using their fingers. YAY for finger painting! This week, many students were able to finish their base layer and began layering different colors on their landscapes giving it the impression of a certain time of day. I am very excited about these! The colors are so bright and I am proud of how fearless students have been about layering and adding colors to their artworks that they would normally not consider.
4th: Students are almost finished with their Ming Vase artworks. They look so good! I can't wait to share the finished works next week!!!
5th: We finally started our collagraphs!!! We had to do some changes to this project because of the number of days that we missed, so the collagraph portion of this project has now been updated to the background. Students were able to choose any design they liked. We will be using Styrofoam next week, to add the cat design we created earlier before all of the snow and ice.
6th: Students are continuing work on their weather vanes. Beginning next week, most students will be moving on to the next step...painting!
Art Club: Members of Art Club are still working on their Palissy Ware. Not much has changed from last week to this week. Most of the younger students have began painting their sculptures, while many of the older students are still sculpting.
Mosaic News: I cannot believe how much we have gotten done. It amazes me every time I look at it! It seems like we just started it and now we may only need two more days until it is finished!
This week was a relatively normal week and students were able to accomplish a lot. With that said, on to this week's update...
K4: With the completion of our glue resist paintings last week (see post below for pictures!), we started a new project this week. I introduced students to the work of artist Wayne Thiebaud. I love his art...how creamy his pastries actually look, the bright colors of the candies, and the overlapping delicious compositions! After showing students a number of his paintings, I shared with students two of his paintings of gumball machines and told students that we would be creating our own gumball machines. To begin this process, students used a cork and tempera paint to stamp neat, round circles to make "gumballs".
K5: Students in K5 have also recently finished a project (look at the posts below for their still life artworks). Since our self-critique session went so well a couple of months ago, I decided for students to work on another one. I am so proud of how honest students are with their critiques! Great job everyone!
1st: We are still working hard on coloring our American Realism drawings. As I have been telling students "slow and steady wins the race!"
2nd: This week was a little crazy for the second grade students. Due to two fire drills, we were only left with about 10 minutes to work...not enough time for painting. So instead of just wasting time or playing a game, I asked students to critique each others work in pairs. Students were very helpful to one another and offered a lot of good suggestions. With their new game plans, students are ready to begin painting again next week.
3rd: Last week, students began their Impressionistic landscapes by laying down their base layer of paint using their fingers. YAY for finger painting! This week, many students were able to finish their base layer and began layering different colors on their landscapes giving it the impression of a certain time of day. I am very excited about these! The colors are so bright and I am proud of how fearless students have been about layering and adding colors to their artworks that they would normally not consider.
4th: Students are almost finished with their Ming Vase artworks. They look so good! I can't wait to share the finished works next week!!!
5th: We finally started our collagraphs!!! We had to do some changes to this project because of the number of days that we missed, so the collagraph portion of this project has now been updated to the background. Students were able to choose any design they liked. We will be using Styrofoam next week, to add the cat design we created earlier before all of the snow and ice.
6th: Students are continuing work on their weather vanes. Beginning next week, most students will be moving on to the next step...painting!
Art Club: Members of Art Club are still working on their Palissy Ware. Not much has changed from last week to this week. Most of the younger students have began painting their sculptures, while many of the older students are still sculpting.
Mosaic News: I cannot believe how much we have gotten done. It amazes me every time I look at it! It seems like we just started it and now we may only need two more days until it is finished!
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