Mrs. Miller's Makers!: May-June Art Blog Update!

Welcome to the last art blog update of the 2023-2024 school year! We made it!

I hope that you enjoyed seeing all of the students' creations that were sent home! As I tell my students, the process of making their art is just as important (if not more important) than the final product, so hopefully all of the time, effort, and creativity the students put in to their creations was evident! It sure is rewarding to see the students grow as artists over the school year, both in their skill and appreciation of art. I hope they all find some time to do a little creating over the summer, even if it's just a little sketchbook entry on any pages left undone.

Please enjoy the many pictures taken at the end of our art journey this year! Until I see you again, take care and enjoy soaking in the summer sun and precious family time!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Miller 💛🎨

Kindergarten artists completed their Brave Year of First Self -Portraits! The students write down three things they did for the first time in kindergarten. They then had fun making a look a like version of them selves by selecting a hairstyle, hair color, skin color, eye color, and other features that resembles their unique selves :) To finish them off the students made a colorful background with oil pastels and accessorized themselves with extra colored construction paper. Hats and headbands were the most popular accessory!

Mrs. Sheppard's Class

Mrs. Fry's Class

Unfortunately, didn't get a group picture from Mrs. Rocky's class :(

First grade artists finished their Van Gogh Inspired Paper Batiks! The students did a beautiful job drawing their vase of sunflowers, freehand! They then colored the entire artwork attempting to imitate Van Gogh's use of color and texture, while also coloring as hard as they could with the crayons to create a waxy layer. Then came the weirdest part of the project that was a favorite for some and least favorite for others... crumpling up their artwork! The act of crumpling up the art allows the wax to be broken up, giving the paper batik its signature "crackle" effect. We then painted and wipes off watered down black ink over the artwork to complete the batik!

Crumpling up (even stepping on) our batiks!

Beautiful batiks and beautiful girls! :)

Happy camper how to draw on our last day together :)

Second grade artists finished off the school year with a NEW, fun, and quick little artwork... Aboriginal X-Ray Art! We studied the Aboriginal art form that originated in Australia and discovered that some of this type of art making showing the insides of animals, like an x-ray! The students got to choose an ocean animal to draw. We then made our own scratch art, drew and scratch away out animal design (including the x-ray), and then added color! The color was added with oil pastels, paint, and cue tips to make the dot designs.

2nd grade Aboriginal X-Ray art!

Enjoying looking at all our art creations from the school year before it is packed up to go home :)

Awesome work!

Third grade artists completed their fantastic Felted Tapestries! The students enjoyed learning to wet AND dry felt for the project, in addition to sewing their tapestry on a decorated stick, using the "whip" stitch. Each tapestry and stick design was so unique! Both the representation and abstract/non-representation designs were equally as awesome! The students really enjoyed the unique art style and the fun challenges that came with the project.

Check out these awesome felted tapestries!

Love seeing them all with their creators!

Fourth grade artists blew me away with their incredible Clay Coil Bowls with Sgrafitto Designs! This was a first time attempt at the project that teaches the students such a neat variety of clay making skills. The students became experts at making coils and crafting unique and interesting designs, including "feet" to make the bowl stand level. They then blended the clay on the outside, glazed it while it was in the leather hard stage, scratched away designs ("sgrafitto"), and carefully removed the clay creation from the mold. They are beautiful and functional! :)

Stunning Clay Coil Sgrafitto Bowls!

Front side - back side

AMAZING!!

Mrs. Sherill's class had a chance to finish up the portraits with chalk pastels!

Westlawn 4th graders will be using theirs next year to help with our Artist Inspired Self Portraits!

Fifth grade artists attempted to finish up their Artist Inspired Self Portraits, although some unfortunately ran out of time as the end of the year got busy! While not every project was 100% finished and polished, each student learned so much about their chosen artist, art style, and art media they chose to work with. The project was such an amazing opportunity for the students to make their own choices, take risks, and manage their time... all of which are needed skills as they head to middle school and beyond! Seeing the students make new discoveries and accomplish something they didn't know they were capable of is the reason I love this project so much and use it to end their time creating in elementary art. Now they're off to bigger and better things and will hopefully look back on their years in art with fond memories, and perhaps even bring it full circle with using their love of art in a future career :)

Artist Inspired Self-Portraits in the making. We had a visit one day from Parkview art teacher, Ms. O'Reilly, which was SO fun and helpful!!

Love the variety!

Artists from Mr. Hartling's class

Some Westlawn self-portraits

We would occasionally play a call and response game, "name that artist!" The student would call their artist's first name and the class had to respond with the last name! For the first couple try's there were some goofy responses (like "Alexander - Hamilton" NOPE, "Alexander - Calder" is correct) but they eventually started catching on ;)