Adventures in Clay

Today with the Art 1's we started the awesome process of building a clay sculpture.  With our ideas planned out and having been introduced to the history and techniques associated with clay building the students were excited to get to work.  

Before getting started we did a quick review of the "10 Golden Rules of Ceramics". 

Shout out to the awesome contributes of the INCREDIBLE @RT DEPARTMENT. 

A link to their page and the 10 rules is below.

http://www.incredibleart.org/files/ten.htm 

To get a true understanding of the entire building process we started with wedging our own pieces of clay.  We learned that the reason we wedge our clay is to remove any air bubbles that might be trapped underneath the surface of the clay.  They were told the horrible story of my experience with poorly wedged clay (or a really bad scoring & slip method, I can take the blame where blame is earned).  

For whatever the reason my ceramic piece and from my mistakes my students learn and hopefully we don't have any unfortunate accidents this year.

  

You know for a broken vessel, these are still some great photos... :)

Updates coming soon!

ELEMENTARY ART SHOW

This year we had our school's first ever elementary art show!!!!!!!

It was a great turn out of students, families, and friends on one of the coldest nights of the year.  Everyone had a great time participating in the awards ceremony, looking for the artworks in our show's scavenger hunt, and enjoying the great work created by our wonderful students.

We started a new tradition this year that I know we will keep going for years to come.

The slideshow of the Little Artists Elementary Art Show is below.

Homes for our Feathered Friends

1st Grade

Drawings of Birds & Painted Bird Houses

For this project the students were to create a directed drawing of a bird, as well as, create a birdhouse out of pre-painted paper (the students painted one color each in a previous class).

We begun by talking about the changes in weather and how it was becoming colder out; we said that when it becomes colder we tend to stay inside more.  We discussed that animals were doing the same thing, that as it gets colder the animals want to be warmer so they stay inside of their homes to avoid being cold.  One type of animal discussed were birds.
The students learned how to draw a bird following the steps from the amazing Joy Sikorski (see the image below).

After making the grown-up bird the students made either a little baby bird following the same directions or 3 tiny eggs waiting to hatch.  

Once our small bird families were made, the students painted 3 pieces of paper using their table color.  For this part of the students learned the difference between a tint and shade.  A tint is where you add white to a base color (in this case their table color) and a shade is where you add black to a base color.  Once their papers dried they were cut into 1 inch strips that the students picked from to create a mulit-colored bird house.  

Keith Haring-5th Grade

Keith Haring 

Positive vs. Negative Space

Our most recent unit had the students learning about the subway artist Keith Haring and his use of space in and around his artwork.
To start this unit off the students read two brief articles about Haring's life and artwork.  They learned that he used a variety of symbols in his art to represent the different things happening in the world around him. For example he used dolphins to represent peace, while computers/box televisions were used to represent technology.  While the students learned a lot about symbols and his use for them in artwork, our main focus for this unit was the element of art SPACE.
The students viewed the PowerPoint below, helping them see the difference between positive and negative space in a work of art.

The students then got to work creating 5 figures in the style of Keith Haring.  

From those 5 figures the students had to select the top 3 of their drawings that showed the most motion and action.

The 3 figures were drawn on 3 square pieces of secondary colored construction paper; making sure that one part of their figure was touching one edge of the paper square.  Then making one continuos cut around their figures, the students created examples of positive and negative space figures.

Art Majors- Leaf Triptych

Medium Study

One project the art majors worked on this quarter had them creating 3 drawings of 1 leaf from observation. Each drawing needed to be completed in a different material (1 in colored pencil, 1 in drawing pencil, and 1 in sharpie).  The goal for this project was to focus on these four Elements of Art; Color, Line, Texture, and Value while including a range of shadows and highlights both on the leaf as well as the tabletop (cast shadows).

The students had 3 days to create and mount this leaf triptych and all students rose to the challenge.

The students drawings varied from realistic colors and details to a wide range of abstract patterns and designs to represent the leaves.

OP Art and Paper Weavings

4th Grade 

The students were introduced to the artwork of OP Artists Victor Vaseraly and Bridget Riley as well as the art movement know as OP ART (optical illusions).

The students discussed the different types of line used in both Vaseraly's and Riley's optical illusions. As well as why we thought these works of art were considered optical illusions when they look so different from our day to day optical illusions as those seen below.

To create their own OPtical illusions the students used a paper weaving method.  

To help them create a their weaving the students watched a step-by-step video (see below and sorry in advance about the squeaky audio during the fast-forwarded parts.

video coming soon

The great weavings created by some of the very talented 4th graders are shown below.