Group Critique Day!

Level 1 Arts Majors

The students are about 1/3rd of the way done with their self-portraits, inspired by Chuck Close and his amazing grids.  

We are working to not only increase our art skills but our art vocabulary too!

When talking about another student's artwork, students were to use their art terms (i.e. shading, value, texture, contrast, line, etc.) to talk the positives that they saw and the areas that could be improved upon with more work.  

All About That Mood Lighting!!!

Level 2 Art Majors

Before we started working on our final still life drawings of the quarter the students had two days to create a few practice drawings with the charcoal.  These practice days are built in to allow the students time to experiment with the new materials and see what techniques they prefer to use when working with this very messy material.

3 still life arrangements were set up with intense dramatic lighting, for all the students to see the shadows and highlights a little easier (their personal still life arrangements will also have a dramatic spot light as well).  

They started by marking in the basic shapes of their still life drawings then began creating detail with the black and white charcoal. 

The glass and ceramic still life.

Mixed Metals Still Life

Themed Still Life- Nautical

2nd Grade Color Wheels

For our second project of the school year second grade is learning about the primary and secondary colors using paint!!!
We had a very exciting class experimenting with mixing our primary (red, yellow, blue) colors to create the 3 secondary colors (orange, green, and purple).  Cleaning our brushes and placing our artwork on a drying rack were also new concepts covered this class.

Scrub! Scrap, Scrap! To clean our brushes.

Who knew box lids made such great paint trays?

Wipping off the extra water in the brush bristols.

PURPLE IS OUR FAVORITE SECONDARY COLOR!

The Elements of Art

The Elements of Art are the basic building blocks to all works of art. 

Every work of art has at least 1 element of art or like we call it in class EofA.  

The students this year created foldables to help them remember the 7 elements of art, their definitions, and some visuals to represent them.  

Paper Sculpture Contest

One Day Lesson!

To wrap up the end of the school year the middle school students participated in a Paper Sculpture contest with a theme of Amusement Park. 

7 Paper Sculpture Techniques were discussed/introduced 

They also viewed some famous paper sculpture artists that can be found at the link below.

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/masters-of-paper-art-and-paper-sculptures/

Pablo Picasso's Old Guitarist

Concepts Covered:

Artist introduction- Pablo Picasso 

Art Discussion- Class Critique/Discussion on

 Picasso's Painting "The Old Guitarist"

New Material Introduced- Oil Pastels

Method/Application of Oil Pastel on Paper

Review- Patterns (A/B; ABC; Size; Color Patterns)

1 Point Perspective- Level 1 Art Majors

For our 4th quarter "Design" project, the Level 1 Art Majors are learning all about 1 point perspective.  

We have covered the basics of horizon line, vanishing point, and how to build or create a shape that looks 3-D and goes back in space. 

The students practiced creating numerous different shapes, letters, and objects in 1 Point Perspective.

Van Gogh Sunflowers- Kindergarten Style

I saw this great short, but sweet post on another art teacher blog called ART PROJECT GIRL (the link is shown below).  I thought it was a great one day project for kindergarten that covered some key art concepts and ideas.

http://artprojectgirl.blogspot.com/2010/04/easy-project-you-can-do-tomorrow.html

Concepts Covered:

• Artist Introduction- Vincent Van Gogh
• How to Talk About Artwork (Class Discussion on the shapes and colors we see)
• How to hold a paintbrush
• How to make thick and thin lines using the same paintbrush
• How to outline using paint
• How to create a flower similar to Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers

Look at these students hard at work!!!!

First we started by making dots.
Then we used our paintbrush to make thick or thin lines.
And lastly we used a small paintbrush to make our black outlines. 

Finished Student Examples to be Posted Soon

Laurel Burch Cats and Dogs

The students in third grade are learning about a new contemporary folk artist.  We learned that folk artists are artists are people that have no formal art training and the artwork they create represents their culture, traditions, or the things they see around them.  

To begin students selected either a cat or dog inspired by Laurel Burch.  

Then using the following directions for assistance, the students drew some practice sketches.

Mural

The upper level art majors were given a wonderful opportunity this year to create a mural and permanently leave their mark on the school for all to see.  

It has been a long process and we are almost finished, the only thing slowing us down at this point is the wall...it took 4 gallons of paint!

Such a nice blue!

Original Design and Color Concepts
The approved design has even more bears one for each academic area.

The students hard at work creating all those bears!
 

THIS MURAL WILL BE FINISHED BY THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR!!!!

Middle School Comic Book Club

Working Together to Learn a New Art Form

The middle school students are just as excited as the elementary students to learn about Manga comics, as well as to share what they know with others about some of the comic books/anime characters that I am not as familiar with.

During these past 5 sessions we have learned how to draw eyes, noses, mouths, hair, and body types in the Manga style.  At this point the students have begun to develop their main character (many of which have supernatural abilities) and their backstory.  They are quickly learning that in order for their characters to seem relatable and interesting their readers are going to need to know why the character is acting in a particular way.

Keep checking online to see how our characters and their stories progress!

Newsletter for the parents!

Elementary Comic Book Club

Learning a new style of art!

During these past two years at Pullen I have seen so many students come through my classroom doors ready and excited to learn a new concept or technique.  Of course paint is and will always be a top contender in favorite topics and materials, but it wasn't until I tried a mini lesson with my fifth grade classes that I saw where most of their interests lied.  

COMICS!

The fifth grade classes loved the mini lesson so much, that I thought why not turn this into a club where students who have a lot of interest in this particular topic can come to learn and create!

Over the past 4-5 sessions that students have learned to draw in the style of Manga.  

They have learned how to draw different styles of eyes, noses, mouths, hair, and body types.  All of these little units have helped them to begin developing their own original character that will star in it very own comic strip!

Continue to follow our progress online as our ideas become finalized and our characters stories are told.

Third Grade Self Portraits

Concepts Covered:

- Element of Art Space (focus on creating depth in a work of art)
- Principle of Design Pattern (recreating the patterns seen on the bottom of their shoes)
- Warm vs. Cool Colors (shoes created in warm colors, clothing created in cool colors)

The students started by tracing their hands(at the top) and their feet (at the bottom).

To focus on the Principle of Design Pattern the students looked at the patterns on the bottom of their shoes  and they could draw the patterns they saw on the soles of their shoes or they could make up their own patterns.

Next came the fun part of demonstrating their wonderful knowledge of proper marker color technique and the differences between warm and cool colors combinations.

Student Examples Coming Soon!

Clay Adventures Part 3

The sculptures are now ready for the drying process.  Such wonderful and different "transformations" created by the art 1s.

Clay in Progress

 Coils, Coils, and More Coils

The students are working on creating a ceramic transformation sculpture. For this ceramic piece the students were required to use both the coil and pinch pot methods for creating their designs.  

They are hard at work trying to recreate their drawings in a 3-D design.