April Art Blog Update!

Greetings and welcome back to the art blog! We are in the final stretch of the school year and continuing to produce some of our best work of the school year! Enjoy taking a look through all of the art adventures we've been having! Just ONE more blog update coming your way very soon, ahh! See you then :)

Kindergarten artists completed their Clay Cupcakes with paint, sprinkles, and a coat of mod podge, and are now nearing the end of their Kandinsky Inspired Mixed Media Circles! The Kandinsky project is one of my favorites as it teaches the students SO much and they all turn out so colorful and eye catching!

The students start the project by taking a trip around the art room on the color wheel train by making a stop at each of the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors and printing each one! Some old foam building blocks work great to print a square with an empty circle in the middle... a great start for MANY more circles! The next lesson, the students draw and paint circles while having fun exploring lots of color mixing. The students finish off the circles by giving the artwork some tactile texture by gluing on lots of different objects! Some of the objects start as circles (buttons, sequins, pasta, etc.) but others they need to make into circles (yarn, colored paper, pipe cleaners, etc.). When they are done, they have nearly 100 circles added to their artwork!

We are now learning and practicing SEWING for the border of our artwork! The students will soon be adding a whip stitch and running stitch around a frame that will be added for a border of their artwork.

First grade artists completed their BEAUTIFUL Japanese Inspired Kimono Self Portraits! I hope the Mom's enjoyed opening the unique Mother's Day gifts that were crafted with so much time, thought, and care! The students enjoyed using a wide variety of art making methods for this project and the many pieces really came together to make their final masterpiece! Even the frames were inspired by Japanese style art and were created to look ornate and expensive! The students used glue to make the raised areas, then painted black and then gold using the dry brush painting technique.

The first grade artists are now studying artist, Vincent VanGogh for their final artwork of the school year! We read the book "VanGogh and the Sunflowers" and practiced drawing sunflowers with close observation of VanGogh's painting "Three Sunflowers." We will be turning the drawings into a paper batik and can't wait for you to see!

Second grade artists were able to finish their amazing Kente Cloth Inspired Paper Weavings (yes they're made out of paper!) as well as their beautiful hand crafted Clay Picture Frames! I sure hope the recipients of the Clay Picture Frames enjoyed opening the artist's creation and were able to see the creativity and thoughtful design that went into making their frame.

For the Clay Picture Frames, students sketched out a design in their sketchbooks and then practiced making coils with play-dough! Playing with the play-dough was not only fun but allowed the students to get a feel for making coils and a variety of designs. We then experienced the difference when working with the clay, which was more challenging. The clay dries out if water is not added back to it, but can also get sloppy and wet with too much water. The clay is also messy, which some students love and others dislike. It's so great to see the students problem solve and enjoy working with an art medium they don't often use.

Once the clay projects were complete the students glazed with Wonderglaze (a special kind of gloss glaze that can go on clay before it has been fired in the kiln). Thank you so much to the two parent volunteers that helped add the twine to hang up the frames! I couldn't do it all without some amazing parent help!

We are now starting our final artwork... Aboriginal X-Ray Animals!

Third grade artists have enjoyed felting for their latest project. They were able to experience wet AND dry felting! You will see in the pictures below that the students created two sketches and had a choice of a design that was representational, abstract, or non-representational. They then walked through the process of pulling apart wool roving into thin wispy pieces that were layered in different directions. Once the entire area was well covered the students saturated the fibers with soapy water, rolled it up in bubble wrap with a cover liner over top, and rolled MANY times! The friction that was created when rolling allowed the fibers to attach together... SO COOL! 

After wet felting, the students had a chance to experience dry felting using special needles and sponges. We of course stayed safe by using thimbles and cookie cutters to keep our fingers away from the needle. The process of pushing the barbed hooks on the needle through the loose fibers to the background felt caused the fibers to attach together. This creates a fuzzy and hairy texture on the back of the base felt!

We are now have lots of fun decorating sticks that the felted tapestries will be sewn on to! Thank you for helping your child fins a stick to bring in and an extra WAY TO GO to the students that were kind of enough to bring extras for students that forgot. 

Fourth grade artists are absolutely blowing me away with this first time Clay Coil Bowl project! It was certainly an ambitions clay project I wanted to try but they are turning out ah-mazing!! The bowls are constructed entirely of coils over a "mold" (plastic bowls from the dollar store). Once the entire outside is covered with coils the students blend the clay to create a smooth surface that we will use for Sgrafitto! Sgrafitto is an Italian words that means "to scratch." The smooth area of the bowl will be glazed and then with the clay still in the leather hard stage, students can scratch away designs to expose the clay underneath. Once the outside is complete, we will glaze a second color on the inside!

Check out the students enjoying the art making process from start to (almost) finish! We can't wait to show you the completed projects soon, once they have been fired in the kiln! The glazes are food safe, so they can be eaten out of, but should be washed by hand.

Fifth grade artists have completed a favorite project, their Clay Cakes :) Two out of the three schools have experienced their Fine Arts Night, and what a special event that was, and will be for our Parkview students, coming up soon! What a JOY it is to celebrate our students as artists and musicians and all the growing they have down over the years. It has been a busy and exciting time of year for sure! Below you will see two albums from the Westlawn and Thorson Gallery Walk at the Fine Arts Night. Enjoy :)

The fifth grade artists are now in the midst of their final artwork, which is one of my personal favorites... Artist Inspired Self Portrait. This project is one that allows the students a lot of creative freedom to make choices, about their artist/time period/style, art medium and art making process, the size of artwork, 2D vs 3D, so on and so forth. The main goal is to blend the artist's style with their own unique personality, while also learning about and appreciating all that they learn surrounding their selected artist. The students had a list of over 30 artists to choose form and some even selected their own. We even have a student who's great uncle is a processional artist and knew Pablo Picasso! How neat is that?!

We are quickly running out of time, so hopefully we can wrap up this memorable and rewarding project before they walk out of their elementary art room for the last time (although they are always welcome to come back and visit)!! More pictures to come soon of the Artist Inspired Self Portraits! Not many pictures have been taken as I am SO busy teaching and assisting with dozens of different art styles and art making processes, ahh!

Westlawn Fifth Grade Fine Arts Night 2024

Thorson Fifth Grade Fine Arts Night 2024

February & March Art Blog Update!

Welcome back to Mrs. Miller's Maker's! 

I sincerely hope all of my artists and their families enjoyed their spring break! It has been a busy couple of months in the art room, and it's about to get even busier as we head into the home stretch of the school year!

A highlight of February and March were student art shows! You can view albums of the two art shows below :)

Student Art Matters at the Cedarburg Art Museum

Student Art Matters Art Show at the Cedarburg Art Museum. On display February 24 - March 24

Gallery of Student Art: Ozaukee County Student Art Show 2024

Gallery of Student Art: Ozaukee County Art Show at the Cedarburg Cultural Center. On display March 9 - April 21.

Enjoy taking a look at all of the art studio happenings during the months of February and March!

Kindergarten artists completed their 2D Color Wheel Mix & Match Cupcakes AND their 3D Clay Cupcakes! In order to make a special frame for the painted cupcakes, the students took part in super fun printing stations! Each table had the three primary paint colors (red, yellow, and blue) along with different found objects in each table that could be used to make a print. Students used materials such as toothbrushes, marbles, toy cars, sponges, and forks to experiment with color mixing and making textures and designs. To say they loved it would be an understatement! It will definitely be a lesson I will teach again :) Thank you to my parent volunteer who used an x-acto knife to cut the artworks into two usable pieces: one for a frame and one for an abstract work of art! I would have hated for their amazing printed to be covered up in the middle by their cupcakes. Now they have TWO amazing creations to go home :)

Following the 2D cupcakes project, the students created their 3D Clay Cupcakes! The introductory clay project taught the students how to: form and shape two pinch pots, roll a coil for "frosting," design toppings using a variety of clay making methods, and attach clay together using the "4 S's" (score, slip, stick, and smooth). The students will soon be painting their cupcakes after they have been fired in the kiln!

As they wait to paint their Clay Cupcakes, the kindergarten artists began a new project Kandinsky Inspired Circles! We enjoyed reading the book "The Noisy Paintbox" as an introduction to the project. The book showed a glimpse into the life of Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, which included his journey to making abstract art and embracing his unique condition called "synesthesia." The students listened to music and created their own abstract art by focusing on using elements of art without trying to make something they know. They did such a great job with this unfamiliar style of art and seemed to really enjoy it!

Primary color printing stations!

Such fun with found object printing!

Mrs. Rocky's class enjoying printing with found objects!

They turned out SO COOL! The challenge was to not over do it and over mix the colors.

Clay cupcakes!

Every year they get bigger and more elaborate!

Kandinsky inspired, one day abstract paintings :)

Kandinsky inspired, one day abstract paintings :)

Spring break themed how to draw baby chicks!

First grade artists completed their Clay Snowmen and also are nearing the end of their Kimono Self Portraits! After the Clay Snowmen were bisque fired, the students enjoyed painting them and adding twigs for arms. Each one has a unique personality and was hand crafted with much thought and creativity :)

The Kimono inspired self portraits are quite a complex art piece that involved many art making processes. A favorite for most students was blow painting the branches for the cherry blossom tree, or dyeing the coffee filters with marker and water to make the "Kimono." We enjoyed looking at examples of Kimonos and learning about the history and significance of the wearable art pieces. The students are able to show lots of self expression in their work by making color choices for the Kimono, obi, fan, skin and hair, in addition to choosing Japanese symbols that had connections to them. We can't wait to show you the finished artwork when they are soon completed!

Blow painting branches for the cherry blossom tree!

Students stamped 5 petals in a circle using the bristles of their brush to make cherry blossoms.

Some painted Clay Snowmen :)

Designing Kimonos with coffee filters, markers, and water!

Coming together and almost complete. Just a few more details to add!

Second grade artists completed their Alma Thomas Inspired Painted Mosaics during the month of February. The students enjoyed learning about the artists abstract style of painting made up of hundreds of brush strokes. Inspired by one of her artworks titled "The Eclipse," students chose their own silhouette they would make out of paper for the focal point of their artwork. After gluing down their silhouette they were given the challenge of filling up the rest of the paper with evenly spaced brush strokes, each route in a different color.

The artists are now creating a new artwork, Kente Cloth Inspired Paper Weavings! We enjoyed reading the book, The Spider Weaver, as an introduction to the project. In the book, students learned the origins of Kente Cloth in Ghana, Africa and how it came to be. They also learned the significance of the colors used and then had a chance to choose their own color scheme for their artwork. Thank you to one of our parent volunteers for cutting up strips of paper for the kids to use!

Soon, the students will be drawing designs onto the paper weavings using sharpie to give the illusion of real cloth. The "roll a dice Kente Cloth Game" is a super fun way to come up with designs inspired by the Ashanti people.

Valentine's Emoji Folding Surprise :)

Closed and open! :)

Some Alma Thomas Inspired Painted Mosaics. Aren't they beautiful?!

Paper Weavings!

Game sheet, designs, and weaving.

A couple fantastic sketchbook entries from early finishers.

Third grade artists exceeded my expectations (and their own) with their amazing Clay Canopic Jars! The challenging clay project not only gave students a chance to express themselves in their choice of a topper and hieroglyphics, but it also helped the students to grow tremendously in their clay making skills! Since it would be unrealistic to show every students the exact steps for making their topper, they really had to push themselves to take risks and play around with their ideas. For elementary sculpted projects, the did a phenomenal job and should be really proud! We cannot wait to paint them soon! :)

While the students wait for the Clay Canopic Jars to be fired in the kiln, they began their next artwork, Wet Felted Tapestries! The artists were asked to create two designs, one portrait mode and one landscape mode. We looked at a variety of wet felted artworks to give the students inspiration. Some examples were representations, some abstract, and others non representational. The students were invited to choose their subject matter but were asked to add color while creating an eye appealing composition. We're excited to see how they turn out when we start the wet felting!

Aren't these SO fun and creative?!

A side project for a couple early finishers. It's been a work in progress all school year!

Designs for wet felted tapestries!

Many of the students looked up images of inspiration like Elliot's drawing of the Grand Canyon.

Fourth grade artists dove into a portrait drawing unit! The journey has involved making multiple versions of their self portrait so they could see their progress along the way. The first portrait their drew in their sketchbooks was a "pre-test" of sorts so we could see where the students were at in their portrait drawing abilities. From there, we broke it down to the basics of how to draw facial features with the use of help sheets, mirrors, and printed pictures of the students. After that lesson, students learned proper proportions and placements of all of the facial features. Plastic binder sleeves and dry erase markers came in handy as we practiced all of the tips and tricks!

After all of the portrait drawing practice, the artists created "rough draft self portraits" on 9x12 papers using all of the lines of symmetry they learned. They were free to make lots of markings and mistakes since our final drafts will be traced from the rough drafts. Stay tuned to see the final chalk pastel portraits!

We took a short break from our portrait drawings to design records in connection with the 4th grade "Rock & Roll" musical! I discovered a bunch of donated records I had in my storage room and thought this would be a great time to dig them out! The students had a chance to choose a word, or their name, as the design that would create radial symmetry around the record. We are using a combination of carbon paper and light boards to make the designs!

Portrait drawing practice :)

The plastic sleeves and dry erase markers were fun to use!

Students following along with portrait drawing demonstration videos on Mrs. Miller's Makers blog.

Some word and name designs for our records!

Fifth grade artists were all about CLAY CAKES the last couple of months and are finally nearing the end of the fun and challenging project! The students will take a brief pause as they select and research an artist for their next artwork, Artist Inspired Self Portrait, but will soon paint their cakes once they are bisque fired!

It's funny and awesome to see how the project has evolved from the first year I taught it. It began with one style of a triangular cake box. A few years ago I had a student that thought outside of the box and wanted to do a pie. Last year I had students that were interested in doing round cakes. This year I had requests to do whole round cakes, round with slice missing, square cakes, sheet cakes, heart cakes... oh my! This is why being an art teacher never gets old and forces me to grow as an artist myself! Somehow I managed to make 5 different templates for students to work from and the results were fantastic! Just as important as the final products though, was the process the students took to get to the end. They grew so much in their clay making skills and problem solving, and had tons of fun while doing it :)

Students sketched out their cakes, made notes, and added pictures to a document that was printed out.

Enjoying some Free Choice Art as a class reward! I LOVE how excited they get to make their own creations!

Slabs, slabs, and more slabs!

Students designed the pieces and then assembled them.

Almost done!

Cakes designed and assembled!