Where’s All The Art?!

Parents – are you wondering where we are hiding all your kiddos art?  And when we’ll be sending it home? Well…we have it safely stowed away in the art room.

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Instead of picking up artwork during conferences this coming week, we will neatly bag it up and have it available for pick up in mid-May.  We will notify you of the pick up date in May!

In the meantime, you can check out our projects right here on our Art Blog. Can’t wait to see your student’s artwork?  Visit our Artsonia Kids Art Museum – we have over 2,800 student art pieces uploaded already this year!

Visit www.artsonia.com (here’s the LINK) .  Contact me (jbrouwer@hpseagles.net) if you need your child’s Artsonia key code access.

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New From the First Grade Crew

First grade artists are finishing up their Asian inspired art projects from our cultural focus of China and Japan.

They loved learning about China and the giant panda bears.  We looked at cool panda videos and read Barney Saltzberg’s sweet book about Chengdu, the panda bear who could not, would not, fall asleep!

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And of course their pandas are way too cute!

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We also learned about the Chinese New Year and celebrated by making hats and Lucky Fu Good Fortune wall hangings.  Gung Hay Fat Choy – Best Wishes and Congratulations!

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I can: tell two facts about Chinese pandas; talk about similarities and differences in American and Chinese New Year celebrations.

 

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Fifth Grade Asian Pagodas

Fifth Grade artists learned about Asian Pagodas as they created these beautifully detailed drawings.  After viewing many images of pagodas found in Japan and China, they began their drawings, including details they noticed such as upward curving roofs and many tiers, or sections.

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Their fabulous drawings were mounted on the Japanese shibori paper that they created earlier. Learn more about our shibori paper here.

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See more of these beauties at our Artsonia art gallery!

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Gyotaku Fish Prints

Eeew – fish prints?!  My third grade artists were a little bit worried when I began telling them about Japanese fish printing!  Gyotaku (Japanese 魚拓, from gyo “fish” + taku “rubbing”) is the traditional Japanese method of printing fish, a practice that dates back to the mid-1800s. This form of nature printing may have been used by fishermen to record their catches, but has also become an art form of its own.

We watched this video about Gyotaku, and – the printing began – with rubber fish, of course!

Third graders painted their fish with printing ink and carefully placed paper on top, rubbing the paper to transfer the fish design to the paper.  It was tricky to figure out how much ink to use, but after trial and error, they created some beautiful fish prints!

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After carefully cutting out the prints, third graders glued them to their beautiful Shibori paper backgrounds.  Find out more about our Shibori project here.

Here are some of their fabulous gyotaku pieces.

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Visit our ARTSONIA on-line art gallery to see more gyotaku prints!

I Can Goals: *tell a friend what gyotaku means; successfully print three fish; mindfully cut and attach fish to a shibori background; explain the shibori paper dyeing process

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Asian Art Projects

Georgetown artists have been learning about the art of Japan, China, and India.  Third and fifth graders explored an ancient form of Japanese “tie dye” called shibori.  In Japan, fabric is folded and tied in elaborate ways to create beautiful dyed fabric.

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Students folded and dyed paper to create their own shibori-style art.  The results…beautiful!  There was much oohing and aahing as everyone carefully unwrapped their dyed papers.

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IMG_9886 IMG_9887Their beautiful papers became the backgrounds for two more Asian inspired projects – Fifth Grade Pagodas and Third Grade Gyotaku Fish Prints.  More to come on these projects soon!

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Third Grade and The Rule of Thirds

Third grade artists learned a new “artist trick” to make their artwork more interesting and visually pleasing – the Rule of Thirds.  (Shhh…they also worked with fractions, but don’t tell them!)

Students learned that the human eye naturally gravitates to certain intersection points when an image is divided into thirds.  Placing objects on these points creates a stronger and more visually interesting work of art.

They watched this neat little video to help them understand the concept:

They also looked at works of art and figured out how the artists used the Rule of Thirds in their work.

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Third graders were challenged to create a composition using the Rule of Thirds…and to sweeten the project, they drew Valentine candy.  It was tricky at first…but their completed compositions were – sweet, of course!

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I CAN: explain the Rule of Thirds to a friend; create a composition using the Rule of Thirds.

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Clay Days

Georgetown artists can hardly wait to take their clay projects home!  They began their projects in December, oh so long ago….and have been patiently waiting (well, sort of patiently) for their projects to dry, be bisque fired, glazed, and fired again.  And of course we have to display them for just a bit so friends and teachers can admire their creations.  Soon my friends…we will wrap these treasures up and send them home.

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Fourth Grade wall pockets – adding beads and wire for hanging.

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IMG_9647 Searching for just the right beads.

Fifth grade Chihuly bowls and Third grade Elf Houses.

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Second grade Texture Houses  – a new project, and my favorite so far!

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Kindergarten India Elephants

IMG_6916The cultural focus this year in art class is Asia, and the Kindergarteners are focusing on the country of India. There is a tradition in India that happens every year called the Elephant Festival. The elephants are painted with beautiful colors and designs. The students learned interesting facts about elephants from India and compared them to elephants from Africa. Did you know that elephants from India are smaller than elephants from Africa? The artists created their own elephants by sponge painting gray paper to create texture that looked like wrinkly elephant skin. They used their painted paper to create these wonderful elephants. Their favorite part was picking out the beautiful jewel for their elephant to wear on it’s head.IMG_6914 IMG_6913 IMG_6911IMG_6910IMG_6889IMG_6888IMG_6887IMG_6871

This project was inspired by the elephant project from the blog ‘Art with Mr. Giannetto.’

Learning Goals:

I can create texture.

I can create a collage.

 

 

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Koi Paintings

Oh how I love these glorious Koi paintings by my fourth grade artists!

They learned that the Japanese Koi, or carp, is a much loved fish in Japan and is a symbol of strength and perseverance in the Japanese culture.  After a quick painting demonstration, they painted their koi with India ink on large sheets of paper.  The room was absolutely silent as everyone concentrated on their paintings.

Can’t wait to see the finished pieces after we add color!

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Fourth Grade Figure Drawings

Fourth grade artists wrapped up their study of Edgar Degas and figure drawing as they created these ballerinas and martial arts figures.

They learned about Edgar Degas and how he captured movement as he drew ballerinas as they rehearsed.

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After posing and drawing each other and drawing from wood mannequins, they had fun showing movement in these cute drawings.

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This project was inspired by fourth grader Nathan, who loves to draw martial arts figures!

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I CAN: tell two facts about the artist Edgar Degas; draw a huma figure showing movement.

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