Snowmen! Near, Far and In Between!

Today we used an imaginary telescope to zoom in on a snowman. I read the book All You Need For a Snowman by Alice Schertle. We looked closely at the illustrations and talked about pattern as well as foreground, middle and background.Students drew three different snowman pictures using colored pencil demonstrating near, far and in between!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Have a wonderful and safe holiday!

Mayflower Art

This week we continued our discussion of shapes. I read the book Ship Shapes by Stella Blackstone. We had a lovely discussion about different types of shapes including the semi-circle, which was new to many students! The book has wonderful collage like illustrations. Since Thanksgiving is nearly upon us it seemed appropriate to do a project incorporating the Mayflower!

Miro Inspired People in Motion

Today we took a look at a book titled Shapesville by Andy Mills, Becky Osborn, and Erica Neitz. This is a wonderful book about being happy and proud of who you are and respecting those around you. The illustrations are characters made from many different shapes, sizes and colors emphasizing the point of accepting everyone for who they are.
Next, we looked at some work of Miro. We discussed what a drawing might look like of a person standing still with straight limbs and what one might look like of a person in action. Students then drew an image of a person in action in oil pastel and finished it off with brilliant watercolor!

Alphabeasties

This week we are working on a wonderful alphabet project, soon to be displayed in the hallway, which made me think of the book Alphabeasties.
I am crazy about this book! It is a beautifully designed book about the alphabet for children and, in my opinion, adults too! It could even be a coffee table book! This is not an ordinary abc book. There is so much to see which makes it easy to read and simply look at over and over again. Not to mention it has a local connection having been created by two designers in St.Paul. They also have the most amazing flash cards that would be great to decorate a room with. Here is the amazon link for the book!

p.s.If you have an iphone and are inspired by the book, the app TypeDrawing is a lot of fun!

Inside Out Pumpkins!

Halloween is all around this week at school! So in the spirit of the holiday we created pumpkins. Not just any pumpkins though! Today we spent some time talking about the shape and texture of the outside of the pumpkin and then we talked about the gooey, slimy, inside part! (the kids loved this discussion the most)
First students created the outside pumpkin drawing and designed the carving how they would like it. Next, they created the inside of the pumpkin. They drew a pattern of the "slime" and seeds for the texture on the inside. The completed both drawings by adding a shadow to the base to ground it and a stem and vine to the top. Side by side they look fantastic and very Halloweeny!
Enjoy the weekend!

Nature Jars

I wanted to make sure that before the ground gets covered in a beautiful blanket of white frosty snow that my little guy and I collected some bits of nature. There is something about having these little jars of rocks or jars of twigs and things sitting around that are comforting on those really, really frigid days. It's a reminder that there is something under all that white stuff.
We set out on a nature walk to gather things that inspired us and put them into a little jar. He can use this as inspiration to paint, sketch, assemble a collage or even take out and drive hot wheels around for an obstacle course!