Week 15 Art with a HeART

Next week we will be collecting new mittens, hats, and scarves for our Share the Warmth community event hosted by the art department. Please help by donating new items. If we reach our goal of collecting 60 items, students will have a chance to win an "Art with a HeART" gift basket filled with wonderful art supplies...

1st grade students completed their 3d tepee and fire this week. Students made their tepee using a brown lunch bag stuffed with newspaper. They tied the top off their bag using yarn and beads. Next students glued their tepee to a black sheet of paper and then created their 3d fire. Students enjoyed making their 3d art and they all commented on how nice everyone's tepee and fire turned out.

3rd grade students completed another "Fall" project this week. Our focus was on texture, so we went with a dried corn husk as our theme (to go with our Novemeber American Indian and Fall theme). Students created these using their color choice. 

4th grade continued to finish their "Changing Leaves" art this week and will continue to complete it next week.

5th grade - Pictures with my iphone do not do justice to these amazing pieces of art. Students drew on black paper, traced their drawing with glue and then colored them with colored pencils. These "Fall Harvest" pictures took some time to complete, but well worth the time and effort.

Have a great Thanksgiving (turkey day) and enjoy the few extra days off from school and work :)

Week 14 : Party in The Art Room!!

This week has been super fun for many of our students and that's because there has been lots of partying going on. I like to reward students for positive behavior and when they have earned 9 "Green Days", they earn an art party. Green days are earned when no reminders are needed for classroom rules. As much as the students love having an art party, these art parties drain me. They take so much effort and being the organized person that I am... art parties can get a bit chaotic and not as organized as I like (hard for me to just step back and not give directions sometimes), but hearing the laughter and hearing them comment on how much they love art makes all the craziness of the art party well worth it. 

This week we also created our first batch of watercolor paint. "Mark" the marker eater has been fed well the past few months and that means we get to make paint! Here are some pictures of the process... 

2nd Grade students were the first to use our "class made" watercolor paint. Our "Changing Leaves" art project required many steps to complete. Students first created their own leaf template, then traced their leaf (over and over), next we colored the background with a black crayon and lastly we painted our leaves with our watercolor paint...

Week 13 Native American Indian Art and More...

Art to Remember is scheduled to ship out to Bradley this Monday, November 18th and we should receive all the art by that Wednesday. My goal is to have all students bring home their keepsakes by Tuesday, November 26th.

Kindergarten students created a mixed media art project this week to celebrate Native American Heritage month. The tepees were made with construction paper, markers, and Popsicle sticks and the backgrounds were painted.  

1st grade students are creating 3d tepees and will be completing them soon. We are using brown lunch bags to create the tepees.

2nd grade students also created art to celebrate Native American Heritage month. This project was a mixed media project. We used brown butcher paper, markers, construction paper, and beans. The main focus of this lesson was on symbols. We discussed how Native American Indians drew pictures to tell stories. 

2nd graders also made these very cool looking birch trees. We used a technique called masking and used watercolor paint. We added tree shadows to add a nice finishing touch. Students had the choice of either a blue sky or a sunset sky. These birch tree forest turned out wonderful!

3rd graders had fun being "mad scientist" and creatied their own science lab. First we drew our science labs and then painted them... but in a different way. Students learned a new technique - blowing on wet paint. This technique gave the appearance of explosions and helped to make their science labs look as tho a real mad scientist had created it. 

4th grade students are finishing their Leaf project and should have them completed by next week.

5th graders are working on different projects at this time. I've learned that all my classes work at different speeds and trying to keep them all on the same schedule is impossible. My goal was to have all students start on their "Fall Harvest" art last week, but we still have many students working on completing their Modigliani self portrait. Hopefully by the first few weeks of December, they will all be caught up and working on the same project. For those students who have started on their "Fall Harvest" art, they are half was complete.

Week 12... Caution, Students at Work

Most of all the grade levels started a new project this week, so it may be a few weeks before pictures are posted.

Also, if you haven't had a chance to vote for our Bradley scarecrow, please do! Bradley has a chance at winning a $500 grant. It is simple and fast. Click the link and comment with the word "VOTE" in the comment section! Voting will end on Friday, November 15th.

 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151988713221675&set=a.10151982660226675.1073741842.117244956674&type=1&permPage=1

Kinder students are working on their fine motor skills: Cutting, ripping, and gluing. Next they will be making a mixed media art project to celebrate Native American Heritage Month. 

1st grade students recently learned about American symbols in their home room class, so to continue on that topic... We are making "American Symbol" art in art class. Students first made their own American flag and then added their choice of an American symbol that they were familiar with. We then added red, white, and blue yarn to add texture to our art. These great pieces of art should be hanging at the White House. 

The Statue of Liberty and A bald eagle

The White House

The Liberty Bell and Washington Monument 

2nd grade students are celebrating Native American Heritage Month in the art room and we are creating art using Native American symbols. For this project, we are using brown butcher paper, dried beans, and yarn. I can't wait for these to be completed and hung in the hallways at Bradley.

3rd graders have become made scientists and are creating their own "Mad Science Lab". So fun! We are using watercolor paint for this project. Students are using all the skills they have learned from previous projects and combining them together - perspective, overlapping, and object placement to create balance in art.

4th grade students are creating "Fall Leaf" art. We created a leaf template and will be using the leaf template to produce art that shows pattern repetition, balance, movement, and the elements of art.  We will be using our old markers and turning them into watercolor paint for this project.

5th grade students are starting their "Fall Harvest" project next week and the project will take us about 4 weeks to complete. I originally wanted to start the project this week, but with voting, field trips and chorus... we are behind schedule. This week they are helping to create flags for our International Festival scheduled for November 19th. Other 5th graders are also catching up on other projects that they haven't had a chance to complete.