Spring Has Sprung!

Spring is here!.... at least in the halls at school! Today we looked at more of Georgia O'Keeffe's beautiful floral paintings. Students used view finders to "zoom" in on one of the live flowers from the bouquet on their tables. They used pencil to draw an over sized bloom on their page and included texture to their image by taking an even closer look at the actual flower. Next, they carefully and slowly painted these wonderful spring blooms!
Can't you smell the fresh spring air?!

Plenty o' Poppies!

In preparation for the play this year we have started to transform the hallway to a field of poppies from the Wizard of Oz. The kids created more than 300 poppies to decorate the hall!
Not only does it get us in the spirit of the play but it's also a nice preview of spring!
Enjoy the sunshine and snow this week. It's perfect for forts, snowmen, sculpture and if you happen to find a stick, like my three year old, it is great snow to draw in!
See you in the halls!

Happy Valentine's Day!

This week we kicked off Valentine's Day a little early in art class. The project was to create a Valentine animal and incorporate a heart into it. Here are some of the examples of fun and wonderful artwork! I wish I could frame them all!

A Shadow Book

The Foggy Foggy Forest by Nick Sharratt is a perfect book to talk about shadows and silhouettes. I wish that I had found it before we were talking about the shadows of Punxsutawney Phil and our Matisse shadow art project from last week!
It has wonderful silhouettes that are printed on translucent paper. It is fun to guess what might be behind the dark images. When you turn the page it reveals what it is in color! I think this book could be a fun read for kids of all ages!

Matisse Shadow

There was a lot of discussion last week about what was happening in Matisse's Icarus so we took another look at it again this week. Some ideas that students had were that the image was dancing, swimming, leaping, doing a cartwheel or floating in space. We talked about the idea that perhaps the image was a shadow of someone.
Today students started by cutting out a shadow image. Next, they used the skills they learned last week to draw a person in the same position as the shadow. After the outline of their person was complete they added background and features to their person to allow the viewer to recognize what activity is happening in the image.
It's wonderful how many ideas came out of one shadow image!

People in Motion

This week we began class by looking at a few of Matisse's works including Icarus. We discussed the possibilities of what the image might be doing. There were many suggestions that it might be dancing, jumping, leaping in the sky with fireworks, and skipping. We talked about how the bent limbs of the image made it look like it was moving. Students began with a sketch, in pencil, by drawing one of the teachers in a pose with bent limbs. They focused mainly on the outline and shape of the body rather than details in the face or hair this time. Next they began a series of three drawings in oil pastel. Each drawing was done by looking at one of the teachers in a different pose. The three together are a wonderful example of drawing people in motion!

Animal Profiles

This week we continued to work on profiles. We looked at several works of art including more Picasso. I brought a bag of small plastic animals for students to draw. Students began by doing a practice sketch of the profile of the animal. (See the elephant and bird above) This was a wonderful exercise! Everyone quietly focused on drawing their sketch. Next they drew the animal on a larger piece of paper. We talked about how to create texture on their animal through drawing techniques. Finally, they completed their work by painting it with watercolor.
They turned out fabulous! Sketching first has really empowered the kids to make their own decisions and experiment with their own style of drawing.