November Art Update

Hello and welcome to December! I hope you all had a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving!

November was a fun and busy month in the art room. Please take a look at the pictures and descriptions below to find out what each grade level has been up to in the art room.

Kindergarten artists created Patriotic Pinwheels for our Veteran's Day celebration! The students created a pattern of red and white stripes by coloring in the white stripes with oil pastel and then painting red watercolor on the alternating stripes. They also colored in the stars with silver crayon and painted around the with blue watercolor. The opposite side of their pinwheels was the most fun to create for the kids since it involved paint and shaving cream! After adding some red and blue paint to the white shaving cream, the students used toothpicks to add designs (stars and swirls). We then pressed their paper on the shaving cream and paint mixture (which stained the paper and made a print) and then scraped off the excess shaving cream. The unique printing process left behind awesome marbled prints! Thanks to Mrs. Haas as well as a couple of my high school helpers, we had the pinwheels assembled, strung, and hung up in no time to welcome our valued and honored guests!

The Kinders are now working on their simple self portrait line drawings which will be added to their colorful tissue paper collage backgrounds! For this project, we talked about self portraits and walked through the steps to creating a successful portrait drawing. The students have grown so much, even since their very first self portrait drawing on the cover of their sketchbooks! They are now working hard to finish their tissue paper collages, which is teaching many of the students patience and perseverance!

1st grade artists are nearly finished with their Matisse Inspired Mobiles! The multimedia project has taken a while but the students seem to be enjoying the process, especially the assemblage of the mobile which we are currently working on. The students had a choice between a spiral or a ring for their mobile structure and are now getting creative in attaching their Matisse inspired shapes. They are using hole punchers and colored wires to attach the pieces. We talked about how there are many things to consider when creating a mobile... balance (both physical and visual), space and placement (so each of the shapes can move freely), strength (so the shapes don't fall off), and visual appeal from all sides! It is a lot of fun seeing our first graders get creative in their designs and work together to tackle any problem they encounter. Very soon our mobiles will be complete and we will be starting our Clay Snowmen!

2nd grade artists are loving their Kente Cloth Inspired Weaving projects! We are now at the point with our projects that the students have finished weaving paper to make a weft. They are now needing to secure the strips with a little glue so they don't move around. Next, the students will be learning to draw designs inspired by Kente cloth and African culture so that they can add lots of eye catching designs and patterns to their paper weavings. Once the designs are added with colored sharpie, the students will weave in a few accent strips with yarn and then trim the edges of their finished pieces. They are already so beautiful... I can't wait to see them complete!

3rd grade artists in the midst of creating their Holiday Lights Watercolor Paintings! Up until this point, the students have spent time tracing and adding details to their 18 light bulbs. We practiced overlapping and discussed how transparent glass would show through to the object underneath, whereas opaque material, like the metal portion on the bottom, would not be see through. After drawing and tracing with pencil, the students traced their lines with sharpie and are now ready to paint! While the painting will also be challenging, it should be the most fun for the students since they will see the colors mix where the light bulbs overlap. They will just need to understand the nature of watercolor and be careful to not let their paint get too wet so the colors to don't move and bleed where they shouldn't.

4th grade artists are getting very close to completing their O'Keefe Inspired Autumn Landscapes! The students have completely blown me away with their painting techniques and dedication to their artwork. We have had lots of fun experimenting with a variety of painting techniques, including: color mixing (such as tints and shades), painting with brushes AND sponges, creating textures and movement, and more. After adding in the pops of fall colors, the students will finish their artwork by painting and drawing in very thin branches for the trees. Although autumn is past, the students have done a fantastic job of capturing the beauty of the season into their paintings. If I could, I would mat and frame every single one of their paintings!

5th grade artists have been busy creating a variety of artworks in the art room! Now that the handmade paper is complete, the students are printing backgrounds for a self portrait project. The students thoroughly enjoyed designing and carving their linoleum blocks and especially enjoyed printing them! It never fails... every year I get "oohs and aahs" when demonstrating the printing process. These prints are especially neat because they connect to make a complete pattern of 12 printed squares. While some students print, others trace their self portraits using the AWESOME light boards that were gifted by the 5th grade class at the end of last year! Once all the portraits have been traced with pencil, the students will be learning how to add value and shading using ultra fine sharpies (an intimidating thing to do since you can't erase)! I look forward to showing off the final projects when they are complete!

Thanks for stopping by! See you again at the beginning of 2020 for our December art update!