Mrs. Miller's Makers!: February Art Update!

It has been a busy month in the art room as students complete artwork and prepare for art show season! Our first art show will be coming up at the Cedarburg Cultural Center later this month in which 50 pieces of my students' artwork will be on display, along with many other artworks from the surrounding community. Stay tuned as more information on that will be coming soon!

Enjoy looking through pictures and descriptions from each grade level below...

Kindergarten artists completed their Catching Snowflakes projects, just in time for the snow we received! The young artists learned some neat facts about snowflakes, that they have 6 points, how they are made, and that each of them are unique like they are! They then enjoyed creating their own snowflakes by stamping a variety of found objects with white paint. I traveled around the room like Tinkerbell sprinkling glitter on the wet paint, to make the snowflakes sparkle :)

The kindergarten artists are now beginning a new projects, one of my favorites, Kandinsky Circles! The students enjoyed learning about artist Wassily Kandinsky and his style of abstract art. They also learned that he had a unique ability to hear colors and see music which very clearly effected his art making. As we began creating our artwork inspired by his piece "Squares with Concentric Circles," the students got to use foam building blocks to print 12 different colors that they would see on the color wheel! Soon they will enjoy a variety of art making methods to add more colors and textures to their Kandinsky inspired creations!

The kinders enjoyed reading the book "The Noisy Paint Box" and then created a sketchbook entry inspired by the book. The bottom picture is Annalie using a glue bottle as a "microphone" asking her classmates what they thought she drew. We turned some of their drawings into a guessing game and did show and tell under the document camera.

Printmaking with 12 different colors! We had fun riding on the print train... when the students completed a color I blew the whistle and they moved onto the next set of colors!

First grade artists are nearing the end of their VanGogh Inspired Sunflower Batiks! They have the opportunity to create a fabric batik and a paper batik which involve unique processes but share the same idea of protecting the art making surface with some sort of material. In the case of the fabric batik, the glue lines are protecting the fabric where the artist wishes the lines to remain white. The paper batik is protected with crayon and then will be crumpled up, smoothed out, and then painted with watered down black paint. The paint will then settle into the cracks giving it a "crackled look."

The fabric batiks are MUCH more time intensive in that they need to be ironed, washed out, ironed again, and then wrapped around cardboard. I would like to give a HUGE shout out to my dependable and ever so helpful room parent (Mrs. Trost) for the countless hours she has put in to help me with the prep!

The students also enjoyed creating "ornate" picture frames to complete their beautiful VanGogh Inspired Batiks. Using cardboard and glue the artists attempted to create symmetrical line designs that would mimic the style of a fancy frame. After the glue dried, they enjoyed painting over it with metallic paint! One student said, "I hope my mom doesn't flip over my artwork because she'll know it's real cardboard!" Our goal is to trick people into thinking they are real metal frames ;)

Using liquid watercolor to paint our fabric batiks!

Coloring hard until our hands hurt, in order to create successful paper batiks!

Creating our ornate frames, first with glue then with metallic paint!

Second grade artists recently completed their fabulous Mixed Media Ocean Creature Mosaics inspired by artist Mary Wells. One of my favorite parts of the project was letting the students "Stretch and Explore" (one of our studio habits of mind) as they considered which additional art materials they would want to use to enhance their artwork and bring out some of the other textures and colors. Students got to experiment with adding sand, glitter, yarn, gems... they got to learn new techniques like splatter painting, sponge painting, and even printing with saran wrap. I encouraged the students to think creatively and have fun with the last step of the project! Hopefully you had a chance to see their Seesaw posts where they got to a do a "show and tell" with their artwork!

We are now beginning a brand new artwork, Pop Art Paints which is another mixed media artwork in the style of Pop Art! The students are learning characteristics of the art style as well as studying famous pop artists such as Andy Warhol and Romero Britto. We are currently designing the palettes that will be printed behind our paper mache paint tubes, and the design process for the background involves drawing designs like Romero Britto and transferring their design to a foam plate that will be printed! We are excited to show you the progression of their work in the next art update!

Some beautiful and unique ocean mosaics! The students also completed reflection sheets (see bottom right) and Seesaw posts to show off their artwork!

After learning about Pop Art and artist Romero Britto, the students practiced drawing a paint brush and palette and added their own Britto inspired line designs!

On Valentine's day we had a chance to enjoy a fun how to draw video with tacos!

3rd grade artists completed their Warm, Cool, and Bonus Collagraph Prints this past month. Hopefully you had an opportunity to view their Seesaw posts showing off their artwork and what they learned. They learned and created a LOT with the art unit, and it's still not over! The students had their warm and cool prints cut up into strips which are now being glued to a template for a paper accordion. Once the strips are glued down in the correct order, they artists will accordion fold their paper and then mount that on a final piece of paper. When it is complete it will be a two sided optical illusion in which one angle will show warm printed designs, and the other angle will show cool printed designs! It will be SO fun to put them on display in the hall and see peoples' reactions as they walk past!

Thankfully since the students were able to create one additional bonus print using colors of their choice, they will have one print that will not be cut up, but will instead be mounted on white paper, titled, and signed! :)

Completing our collagraph prints!

Arranging and gluing down our warm and cool prints that were cut up into strips! Next class we will complete the accordion fold as it takes the shape of an Agamograph!

Fourth grade artists are nearly done with their realistic "Chalk Pastel Self Portraits!" It has been a long learning process filled with lots of growth! The journey started when the students were asked to draw a self portrait in their sketchbook with NO help (a pre-assessment of sorts). They then broke it down into facial features and practiced each one from observation. We then drew a second self portrait learning the proportions of the face and lines of symmetry. That led us into our larger rough draft self portrait, which I took home half way through to make suggestions and corrections on each one, helping the students to understand where the lines of symmetry are on their face and how their features should be shaped.

As we polished up our rough drafts the students learned how to use light boards to trace the rough draft to make the final draft (this time no extra lines, just lines they wished to keep)! Every student loved this process and enjoyed the ease of tracing! The students are now adding COLOR to their final drafts using chalk pastels and colored pencil! They are quickly discovering what the pastels are capable of and what they need to be careful of (particularly smudging and smearing)! We look forward to showing you the finished artworks next month, along with what we are starting for our next project!

A look back at some of the first portrait drawings in our sketchbooks and then they super exciting step of tracing our rough drafts to make our final drafts!

Some final self portraits in progress!

Fifth grade artists are SO close to completing their amazing and unique weaving projects, which includes their handmade paper and awesome relief print! We are in the process of taking the weavings off the loom and soon we will be sewing the handmade paper into the weaving. The complex project has not only required commitment and perseverance from the artists but it has been VERY prep heavy behind the scenes. I have had multiple parents come in to volunteer as we worked our way through the unit, so thank you to each one of you! Also, a HUGE thank you to Mrs. Trost for spending the MOST time as she worked hard to cut and hole punch handmade paper, glue on prints, tape handmade paper to the backs of weavings, etc. My parent volunteers have been keeping me afloat this year and are allowing the students to get so much more done :) I am beyond grateful!

Enjoy checking out pictures of the artmaking processes and final products. The students absolutely LOVED the printmaking portion of our project and quickly became addicted. I told them they should limit their prints to 4 prints per student (to save on ink and paper), but I had students "accidentally" printing between 8 and 10! It was hard for me to be mad because that just meant that are LOVING the process and the range of prints that come from it. Some students had the opportunity to mix colors and that's when the addiction really set in! I was seen such amazing prints that I would consider high school quality, and they are simply made from a piece of foam!