Mrs. Miller's Makers!: October-November Art Update!

Hello and Happy (almost) Thanksgiving to all my artists and their families!

This is a combined update from October and most of November. Next month I will do a combined update for the rest of November and December :) My apologies for it being posted late... The "Where's Bubbles" collaborative artwork was quite a time consuming project, and I am so pleased it is finished! Thank you so very much to the few Westlawn parents that kindly (and creatively) arranged and glued down the hundreds of pieces! The background itself was a very tedious process, so their assistance was an enormous help! If you are a Westlawn family and have a conference scheduled, please make sure to stop outside of the art room to see it. The triptych will also be headed to the Cedarburg Public Library on Wednesday November 22nd (through December 3rd), so feel free to go and see it on display there as well! :)

"Forget Waldo... Where's Bubbles?" Collaborative Triptych, 2023

I almost forgot to disguise Bubbles in some Waldo like attire! Thought the goggles, swim cap, and towel would be a fun twist ;)

The background (that took so long... about 12 hours in all)! It was so lonely without all the characters!

Starting to add the background features and characters! :)

During the month of October another HIGHLIGHT was the 5th grade field trip to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Milwaukee Art Museum! It was such a special and enjoyable time for our aspiring artists and musicians! Check out the slideshow HERE to see more from the day!

Westlawn 5th graders with their teachers and chaperones at the Milwaukee Art Museum!

Here is what's going on in each grade level...

Kindergarten artists completed their fantastic Picasso Inspired Pumpkins! They had actually started a self portrait project in which they learned to draw themselves with just LINE, but then we paused the project to complete the pumpkins before fall passed us by! We will return to the self portraits soon, and will also be decorating the covers of our sketchbooks as well :)

The kinders had so much fun adding faces to their pumpkins after having painted them with a variety of hand mixed greens and oranges. The faces were created by using a "Roll-A-Picasso" dice game. The students completed the project with adding hand cut grass and creatively drawn backgrounds using oil pastels. We then signed and dated our artwork like actual artists!

Line Self Portraits

LOVE the details!

Lots of fun color mixing action!

Some completed pumpkins AND students enjoyed a PUMPKIN WALK! :)

The faces really completed the look ;)

Love them so much!

First grade artists finished the front AND back of their sketchbook covers! They studied artist Henri Matisse and used two of his well known art styles for the covers. The front was made up of cut and collaged paper shapes since Matisse was known for his cut paper designs later in his art career. Some considered this type of art making like "painting with scissors." The opposite cover was Matisse's style of portrait drawing using only line and elongated features. The first graders did SO great with this! The BEST part came when the first grade artists learned how to MONOPRINT over their portraits using markers, tin foil, spray bottles, and their drawings on white paper. SO FUN and the results were terrific!

We are now well on our way with creating our next artwork... Scarecrows with David Hockney Inspired Landscape! The students enjoyed learning about Hockney and his Pop Art style that influenced his artwork, including landscapes he painted. The students are creating their own landscapes in a similar style using oil pastel and vibrant liquid watercolors!

A Mono Lisa artwork created during Free Choice Art :)

Matisse style self portraits!

Monoprinting with markers and tin foil!

Finished sketchbook designs :)

Mrs. Robert's class portraits

Practicing line designs in our sketchbooks for our David Hockney Inspired Landscapes! We discovered that the bottom of our shoes can give us great inspiration for line designs and patterns!!

Second grade artists finished their Op Art Hand Designs for the cover or their sketchbooks! The project not only helped students to understand a bit more about the Op Art Movement in art history, but also tied in some math (using rulers), as well as many art techniques like pattern, value changes, and methods to make a 2D artwork appear 3D!

The 2nd grade artists are now switching from Op art to Pop Art for their next artwork... Pop Art Paints. The students studied artwork from American artist Andy Warhol and Brazilian artist Romero Britto. They used what they saw as inspiration for their backgrounds of a palette and brush. The drawings were turned into a foam relief plate for printing and now the students get to print 4 different colored palettes for their background! Next to come is the paper mache paint tunes to go on top! (we will be using empty t.p. rolls so please send some in if you've got them - thank you)!

Op Art hand practice in our sketchbooks!

Enjoying some Free Choice Art after having filled up our palette!

More Free Choice Art!

Some finished sketchbook covers!

Halloween themed folding surprise!

Sketches for our Pop Art inspired paint palette prints!

Op Art Hands on display in the showcase!

Third grade artists completed their sketchbook cover design which highlighted their unique letter designs (from their "Design Your Own Alphabet Sheet") as well as a zentangle frame and contour line self portrait. The students enjoyed watching a video demonstration about different types of contour line drawing. They practiced along with the video in their sketchbooks to become more familiar with the sometimes uncomfortable style of drawing. It is challenging for the students to not pick up their drawing utensils and let their lines flow freely, even if it means seeing lines in between facial features. The blind contour is always fun to watch students react to! For that, the students look only at the subject and aren't allowed to look down at the paper until they're done! The often misplaced features can end up looking like a cool abstract and expressive piece of art!

With our sketchbooks complete, we are now starting a NEW art unit all about COLOR! The students completed a color theory art sheet learning SO much about color. We will be taking what we learned and using it when we start our Holiday Lights Paintings, in which the artists will need to overlap light bulbs and mix colors accurately.

Sketchbook covers featuring letter designs and zentangles!

Enjoying some fun how to draw videos one day for Free Choice Art! :)

A variety of art creations from Free Choice Art :)

Contour line drawing practice in our sketchbooks!

Contour line self portraits :)

Looking good 3rd grade artists!

Fourth grade artists studied figure drawing using manikins as a way to practice for their sketchbook cover designs. Each of the students had their picture taken doing an action that represented their personality. They then turned their figure into a Pop Art style silhouette like you would see in artist Keith Haring's artwork. The students were so creative and playful with their designs by adding brightly colored cut paper, lines of action, and fun patterns in the background. Some of the students chose to add their name in graffiti letter to the back (fitting the street art & pop art style) while others did an alternate activity.

At Westlawn, the alternate activity was to create additional features to our "Where's Bubbles" collaborative display. Those students that did had so much fun with it and many enjoyed working with classmates. At Parkview, 4th graders had a chance to spend two classes joining forces with the 4th grade class next door in Ms. O'Reilly's art room. Ms O'Reilly and her student teacher were the brilliant minds behind creating a massive ongoing glow scene in the gym for the Glow Party! They even tied in parts of the art curriculum with each grade level making the experiences fun and educational! The students had so much fun with this and really enjoyed working with some 4th graders next door :)

Figure drawing with manikins!

Awesome Keith Haring inspired sketchbook covers!

Graffiti name designs :)

More graffiti letter designs!

Glow Party artwork plans at Parkview! Amazing ideas, planning, and results. SO COOL!

Parkview 4th graders working together to create glaciers and beach items for beach scenes!

Some Westlawn 4th graders adding their background features to our collaborative "Where's Bubbles" triptych.

Fifth grade artists finally completed their journey of papermaking! It was quite the process of having 4 classes of 5th graders design and make paper. I LOVE making paper with the kids but am also so relieved when it's done! We learned so much in the process of attempting to make impressions into the paper pulp with our 3-D letter designs. The students were able to use a variety of materials to make a raised letter, but in the end the materials that worked the best were: craft foam, wire, and anything added with hot glue. Materials that proved to not work as well were things like cardboard, puzzle pieces, regular glue, etc. The materials needed to be able to withstand all of the moisture from the pulp. We also had so much fun using a range of materials to go into the blender to make the paper... multiple kinds of paper (newspaper, crepe paper, tissue paper, etc.), lint, crayon shavings, glitter, water color, and grated chalk.

Now that the paper is done, the students are enhancing and embellishing their paper by adding value and emphasis. We spent a few classes learning the Elements of Art and Principles of Design by watching videos, completing vocab sheets, and playing games. With the knowledge we gained, the students were able to see that all of the elements of art (there are 7) were present in their handmade paper, except for value. So we are adding it to the edges of the imprinted letter to make it stand out more. The students were also asked to bring in one principle of art to their design - emphasis! They needed to decide which part of their letter they wanted to stand out and then figure out how to do it. We talked about multiple ways an artist can achieve making one or more areas of emphasis in their artwork.