February Art Update!

Hello again! The end of February crept up on us and suddenly March is here! Lots of exciting things in store for this next month (hello art show season!), but first let's take a look back at what our young artists did during the month of February...

Kindergarten artists are wrapping up their Catching Snowflakes artwork! Not only are the art pieces super cute and colorful, but the young artists also learned a lot in the art making process! They created the snowy night background by using big brushstrokes of black and blue paint, leaving behind some streaks of white to represent snow. Then the students got into the mitten, hat, and jacket designs to create a matching set! We talked all about types of lines and attempted to make our designs symmetrical on each mitten and sleeve. We also talked about the relationship between oil pastels and paint and wanting the oil pastels to win the battle. The oil pastels say "don't go here paint, I was here first!" 

Following the designing, was lots of cutting, including the face and tongue. In order to encourage quality cutting, it helped to use the analogy of a gymnast walking on a balance beam or person walking on a tightrope. The students imagined they were the scissors and the outline was a tight rope. They cut "slow like a snail." After we arranged and glued all of our pieces down, we are now in the process of printing snowflakes with found objects! The students thoroughly enjoyed when I walked around the room sprinkling glitter on their snowflakes as the "glitter fairy!" :)

First grade artists enjoyed making their Clay Snowmen during the month of February and even had some time to do a sketch of a snowman in their sketchbook as a colored ground drawing with oil pastels on black paper! In the last art update, the students had just formed and attached their 3 pinch pots together using the 4 S's (score, slip, stick, and smooth)... essential steps to getting clay to join together. They had SO much fun adding unique features to their snow people including a head piece, a neck piece, a face, and any other additional features they desired. It certainly helped having practiced first with the playdough so that clay making techniques like rolling a coil, or making a sphere was a familiar process. I absolutely love to see the students using their creativity and taking risks in their art making since it encourages lots of fun and problem solving in the learning :)

The projects have now been fired in the kiln and the students are loving the final step of painting the snow people! They started by adding a mod podge and a pearl paint mixture to the "snow" areas, and then tempera paint to parts of the snowman that needed color. The finishing touch will be adding little twigs for the arms! :)

Second grade artists completed their FANTASTIC (or should I say "splash-tastic") Mixed Media Ocean Creature Mosaics! I just LOVE how each creature is unique and how the students not only learned the process of creating a mosaic, but also explored a variety of art materials and techniques for the background! After completing the ocean creature, the students were encouraged to use at least two NEW materials or techniques for making the background. Some options included: colored sand, glitter, bubble wrap and bubble printing, saran wrap, tin foil, splatter painting, sponge printing, fork scraping in paint, and MORE! Based on each ocean scene, the students chose techniques that made sense for their background. The colored sand and the splatter painting with a toothbrush were the most popular. Enjoy taking a look at the artworks... each one is a masterpiece!

We are now going to be starting CLAY for our next art unit, YAY! :)

Third grade artists completed their Holiday Lights Paintings and then switched to a new project inspired by African American female artist, Alma Thomas! The Alma Thomas Inspired Heart Mosaics were both connected to Black History Month and Valentines Day! The students first drew and cut out a symmetrical heart and then turned it into a Monochromatic (many versions of one color) paper mosaic. After gluing the heart down to a new paper, the artists began using Thomas's painting style (abstract art) to create a painted mosaic around the heart. We talked about how mosaics can be made from many different materials, even brush strokes! The key in making a mosaic is consistency (consistent size and  shapes, and consistent spaces in between the shapes). 

To add in even more of a fun challenge, the students were directed to take a trip around the color wheel (color being the big theme in 3rd grade)! They could choose whether to go clockwise or counterclockwise around the color wheel, and they were also given the option to hand mix the tertiary colors OR stick with just primary and secondary. They each did a terrific job and were SO PROUD with the end product :)

Fourth grade artists are nearly done with a three-part artwork, Low Relief Landscapes: Sculpture, Rubbing, and Print! When I returned from my maternity leave they had just started the project and it was, well bit of a hot mess coming back to that (haha). It can be a challenging concept to understand layering pieces to a puzzle with background, middle ground, and foreground, BUT... with some more practice, some lessons in what does and doesn't work, and some added tools and materials, the students made a GREAT deal of progress! Each one of them did some problem solving along the way and also learned some terrific art concepts and skills that will hopefully stick with them as they grow as artists.

After the construction of the Low Relief Landscape Sculptures were complete and the students had at least 3 layers that showed a variety of textures, we created texture rubbings using crayon and oil pastel. This one day lesson was easy and fun! The next class, the students painted the entire landscape with ONE color and created monoprints ("one print") by pressing moist white paper on the painted relief sculpture. The last part of the project was to demonstrate their understanding of value by creating a value scale with added white (tints) and added black (shades). The 4th grade artists then used those same values on their final landscape to show "atmospheric perspective." The result... AMAZING! :)

Fifth grade artists are in the midst of their Artist Inspired Self Portraits! The students chose from a list of 30+ artists representing a variety of art movements, time periods, places in the world, and ethnicities. The students spent time researching the artist and also responding to their art by practicing the steps of "describing, analyzing, interpreting, and judging the artwork. The reverse side of their planning sheets required the students make a list of materials and tools they wished to use for their art creation as well as a list of steps that they planned to follow. As you can imagine, the very open ended project that gave students lots of freedom and choice in their artwork was AWESOME for some and a big challenge for others. It also made a difference what art making process the students chose since some require more knowledge and experience.

This artwork is a perfect example of the art making process being just as important as the final product. The students are learning SO MUCH... about the artist and their style, about the nature of the art media and different techniques, AND about their work ethic, time management, and ability to find an answer to a problem. If you haven't yet asked YOUR 5th grade artist about their Artist Inspired Self Portrait, please do! They should be able to tell you about that artist and all that they are learning, including their approach to making their self portrait.