Kindergarten has been learning about Illustrators and that their job is to tell a story using pictures. We just finished learning about Lois Ehlert and recently looked at her illustrations in the books “Leaf Man” & ”Snowballs.” Here are some of Kindergarten’s Snowmen inspired by ”Snowballs.”
In the beginning of the year 6th Grade learned about Boston Artist Bren Bataclan & how he leaves his paintings for people to find and keep for free. His hope is that he will bring a smile to the face of the person who finds his paintings. We decided to do the same thing at our school. Each of the 6th graders worked hard on a painting & we will spend the rest of the school year leaving them around the school for people to find. Four have been left somewhere so far but I thought I’d show you a few that have yet to be hidden. You can find out more about Bren Bataclan and follow a link to video about him from CBS evening News on his website http://www.bataclan.com/
4th and 5th Grade have been studying Art History and we recently looked at Egyptian Art. They had to make a drawing following the same strict rules of proportion that the Egyptians followed. Here are some of the 5th Graders finished products (the 4th Graders are still working on theirs).
1st grade has been studying the art of Henri Matisse. They learned that he turned to making pictures by “drawing with scissors” toward the end of his career when he was bed ridden and then in a wheelchair. We looked at Matisse’s picture “Vegetables” and then I asked them to make a picture of what they wish they could eat on Thanksgiving using only paper and glue…I didn’t even let them have pencils.
2nd Grade is learning about art from around the world. They recently learned about Venetian Carnival Masks. Here are some pictures of them in the masks they made.
2A Mrs. James’ Class:
2B Mrs. Isakson’s Class:
I am in need of wrapping paper tubes & empty 2 liter soda bottles for the Art Room. If you have any you’d like to donate you can leave them for me in the office or in the Art Room. Thanks!
Welcome Back! Art doesn’t start until the middle of September so it took me a few weeks to have some work to show. I’ll try to post updates every couple of weeks from here on out so be sure to check back often because there are a lot of exciting things coming up.
1st Grade will be spending the year looking at specific Artists and exploring some basic principles of design. We began with American Color Field painter Kenneth Noland & explored vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines using colored tissue paper. Here are a few of the results. Right now all of these are displayed on the bulletin board in the hallway of the main building.
Every year, 3rd Grade spends time in class learning about Portland and even takes a field trip downtown in the Spring. I decided to enhance this by spending the year with them exploring art & Artists in and around Portland. These fabulous works are inspired by Portland Artist Kim Hamblin. She uses cut paper and nails to make beautiful works of art. We looked at her work, talked about complementary colors & then used paper & brads to make our artwork. The piece above by Kim Hamblin is called Flight 5 & if you have a chance you should really check out her work at www.kimhamblin.com
I’m so glad that you’ve found the Art Room Blog. Next year I plan to try to update this every couple of weeks so you can always have a first hand look at what we are working on.
Thank you to all who came to the Student Showcase & Art Show last night. It was so great to see you & share with you all of your student’s wonderful art! If you couldn’t make it I have posted some photos of the night down below. I am sorry for some of the blurriness and the wrong date at the bottom of the pictures, this camera is new to the Art Room & last night was my first time using it.
These are a couple of pictures from the Art Show. Below are larger pictures of each grade level’s group art project.
Kindergarten’s Clay Birds While making these we learned about warm & cool colors & how to attach two pieces of clay together (score & slip).
First Grade’s Fruit Still Life’s We studied the art of Paul Cezanne and used oil pastels to make our own still life in his style.
Second & 2/3A’s Mixed Up Clay Animals After reading some of Jack Prelutsky’s poems from Scranimals the students created their own new animal using parts from three real animals.
Third Grade’s Bridges Third Grade has been learning all about Portland’s bridges this year in class. To go along with this, they were split up into groups and made the bridges out of construction paper.
Fourth Grade’s Landscapes Wolf Kahn is an amazing American landscape painter & colorist. Fourth Grade studied his use of color and vanishing point perspective when they made these.
Fifth Grade’s Mobiles I am really sorry this picture isn’t better…these were amazing to see last night hanging from the ceiling in the hallway! Alexander Calder was a sculptor who invented the mobile. Fifth grade created their own mobiles in his style and in the process they learned just how difficult & frustrating it can be to get them to balance.
Sixth Grade’s Installation of Corks Sixth Grade learned all about installation art and just how powerful it can be because it usually requires the viewer to use more than just the sense of sight to experience it. As a group they came up an idea and constructed an installation piece of art specifically for the show last night.
