My first grade artists have been having a great time exploring color this week. After learning about the primary colors, or the “boss of all colors”, as my first graders say, they drew their own color wheels and did a little color mixing.
Add comment Posted in News from Mrs. Brouwer Tagged: Color Mixing, color theory, First Grade Art Projects, Primary Colors March 7, 2013
Mrs. Persch and I had a marathon day in the art room, sifting through stacks of student artwork and preparing pieces for our upcoming HPS district wide Student Art Show. Here are our most recent art show selections – all 35 of them. Congratulations, artists!
ART SHOW 2013
See more student artwork at our ARTSONIA on line gallery!
Add comment Posted in 2013 Student Art Show ,News from Mrs. Brouwer Tagged: 2013 HPS Student Art Show, Artsonia, Georgetown Elementary Artists, New Student Artwork March 1, 2013
Fourth Grade artists are completing these fabulous Boab Trees as part of our Cultural Focus this year – Australia. They learned that the Boab Tree is also called the “bottle tree” as it stores water in the bottle-shaped trunk to endure harsh drought conditions in the Australian outback.
Our boab trees were inspired by the work of Australian artist Bronwyn Bancroft, author and illustrator of the book “Why I Love Australia”.
Fourth Graders prepared the paper for their work by first rubbing it with crayons for a bit of color and texture. Next they painted their boabs with black tempera; when the tempera was dry, color was added with oil pastels.
See more of our beautiful boab trees at our ARTSONIA GALLERY!
Add comment Posted in News from Mrs. Brouwer Tagged: Aboriginal art, Australia, Boab Trees, Bronwyn Bancroft, Fourth Grade Art Projects, oil pastel, Why I Love Australia February 26, 2013
Fifth Grade artists recently learned about the Surreal artwork of a surreal guy…Salvadore Dali. We’ve done lots of projects that focus on surrealism – see a few of them here: Monster Mash , Dali’s Elephants , Surreal Lockers , and Salvadore Dali Portraits .
This year we created a surreal room and filled it with floating objects cut from magazines. Fifth graders were asked to consider four “surreal” guidelines in choosing and placing their objects:
* Laws of nature are reversed
* Use of Juxtaposition – two objects that normally wouldn’t be placed together
* Transformation – turning something familiar into something unusual
* Dislocation – objects placed where they would not normally be found
These guidelines really helped my fifth graders focus on their selection of pictures to add to their rooms. We also watched parts of a great little video about surrealism: Get Surreal.
Creating the surreal rooms
Looking through magazines for just the right photo!
Add comment Posted in News from Mrs. Brouwer Tagged: Salvadore Dali, Surrealism February 25, 2013
Congratulations to Ashlynn – her artwork will be on display at DJ’s Pizza in Hudsonville until the end of the school year. Nice work, Ashlynn!
Add comment Posted in News from Mrs. Brouwer Tagged: Art in Hudsonville, DJ's Pizza February 24, 2013
Just wanted to give a shout-out to a new blogger – my art colleague Jessica has a fabulous blog. Check it out – here’s the link to her blog:
I’m loving some of her new projects. One of my favorites is her Blue Ringed Octopus – this project ties in to our 2013 Elementary Cultural Focus – Australia.
Blue Ringed Octopus – Forest Grove Elementary
Add comment Posted in News from Mrs. Brouwer Tagged: Art Teacher Blog Directory, Art Teacher Blogs, Australia, Blue Ringed Octopus, Forest Grove Elementary School February 19, 2013
Some beautiful clay creations from the kiln.
Second Grade clay fish, glazed and ready for the kiln.
Third grade coil pots
Fourth Grade Owls
Add comment Posted in News from Mrs. Brouwer Tagged: 2nd grade art projects, 3rd grade art projects, clay, coil pot, Fourth Grade Clay Projects, kiln, owls February 18, 2013
Second grade artists began their study of the culture of Australia and New Zealand by learning about some of the unique animals found in Australia. We read two of my favorite books by Sheena Knowles, Edward the Emu and Edwina The Emu. Second graders were also intrigued to see Mrs. Brouwer’s real emu egg!
We were so inspired by the beautiful drawings in the books (created by Rod Clement) that we created our own awesome Edward and Edwina Emus! Look for more of our Emu drawings on Artsonia too!
Add comment Posted in News from Mrs. Brouwer Tagged: Artsonia, Australia, Edward The Emu, Edwina The Emu, Emu, Rod Clement, Second Grade art projects, Sheena Knowles February 11, 2013
Third grade artists began their study of the culture of Australia and New Zealand by learning about a traditional Aboriginal ceremony. The Aboriginal people show respect for another’s language, country, and ancestors by performing a special smoking ceremony. Fragrant eucalyptus leaves are burned in a special bowl, called a coolamon. The smoldering leaves are used to cleanse the air while participating in the ritual.
After reading Why I Love Australia by Australian illustrator and artist Bronwyn Bancroft, my students were inspired to create their own interpretation of the smoking ceremony, complete with the special coolamon bowl. Third grade artists also noticed the use of painted dots in Bancroft’s art, and they spent two class periods just making beautiful dots with the handle end of their paintbrushes.
Here are some of our Aboriginal inspired pieces – more can be found on our Artsonia on-line art gallery.
And a final collage – couldn’t resist!
Add comment Posted in News from Mrs. Brouwer Tagged: Aboriginals people, Artsonia, Australia, Bronwyn Bancroft, coolamon bowl, dot printing, smoking ceremony, Third Grade Art Projects, Why I Love Australia February 5, 2013
First grade artists learned about the art of Pablo Picasso and had fun exploring shapes as they painted these fun portraits. They also got a chance to demonstrate their understanding of warm and cool colors as they painted.
We did this project a couple of years ago – see it here – but this year my kiddos painted the black lines instead of using black oil pastels; the lines look much nicer on this project. We also added white printed “snow” for background interest.
Add comment Posted in News from Mrs. Brouwer Tagged: color, First Grade Art Projects, Picasso, portrait, Shape February 3, 2013
