Fourth Grade Art Projects

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Fourth Grade Mandala Ornaments

Fourth grade artists learned about the art of drawing a mandala as part of their study of Asian art.  They can tell you that  the word ‘mandala’ in the ancient Sanskrit language means ‘circle’.  A mandala is a spiritual symbol in Indian religions and represents the universe.

Georgetown’s artists created their own mandalas, enjoying the meditative process of working from the center of the circle to the outside edges, adding pattern and shapes to create a pleasing design.

We turned our mandala art into beautiful ornaments, adding printed pine needles and a watercolor background.

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I Can: describe a mandala; create a mandala using line and shape; create a pleasing color combination using warm and cool colors.

See more of these beautiful mandalas at our ARTSONIA art gallery!

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Calder Sculptures

Fourth grade artists had a blast making these colorful Calder sculptures!  They used problem solving skills to fold and create a standing “stabile” sculpture in the style of Calder’s “La Grande Vitesse” that can be seen on the Calder Plaza in downtown Grand Rapids.

Calder La Grande Vitesse

IMG_8208 First everyone made a practice sculpture from plain paper.  Bonus if you could get your paper sculpture to stand on its own!

IMG_8243 Students traced their practice sculpture on to heavy weight tagboard, then cut and folded their mini Calder “just right” so it would stand.  Their next challenge was to add sticker dots so their stabile would be interesting from all angles.

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I Can:

*Tell a friend the difference between a mobile and a stabile sculpture

*Create a stabile sculpture that stands on its own

Special thanks to Pink Stripey Socks for this project inspiration!

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New Clay Projects

Third and Fourth Grade G-Town artists are wrapping up their clay projects and are excited to show them off!

Third graders created coil pots and turned them into bird nests by squeezing clay through a garlic press; they loved creating the squiggly looking nest tops.

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They created colorful birds, eggs, and baby birds using Model Magic.  What child doesn’t love a nest full of birds?!

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Fourth Graders created fun little face pinch pots, and added awesome felt hats.  Each pinch pot has such character – every one of them makes me smile!

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Inspiration for this project is from Fem Manuals blog – check out their darling face pots with hats too!

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Inspired by Kandinsky

Georgetown fourth grade artists have been learning about the work of Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky.  Inspired by his “Composition VIII”, they traced circles and masked off lined areas on their watercolor paper as they explored creating an art piece in the style of Kandinsky.

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This great little video really brought this painting to life!

Their finished Kandinsky pieces are colorful and filled with interesting lines, shapes, and patterns.

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I CAN:

* Identify realistic, abstract, and non-objective art

* Create an art piece in the style of Wassily Kandinsky

* Use color, line, shape, and pattern to create an eye-path through my art piece

Thanks to Melissa’s Studio for this project inspiration!

 

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Fourth Grade Figure Studies

Georgetown Fourth Grade artists recently finished a huge figure drawing unit.  They began by looking at the art of Edgar Degas, who was a master at drawing the human figure and known for his pastel drawings of ballerinas.

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Then they tried their own figure drawings…modeling for each other and doing a series of quick gesture drawings in their sketchbooks.

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Next we moved on to drawing wooden mannequin figures!

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Finally – they created a background by straw blowing paint and outlining their beautiful blotches…and adding their figure drawings and other practice forms on their background.  Magnificent!

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I CAN:

* Identify the work of Edgar Degas

* Capture movement in a figure by gesture drawing

* Draw a mannequin figure in correct proportion

See more 4th Grade figure drawings at our ARTSONIA on-line gallery!

 

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Amazon Rain Forest Birds

Georgetown’s Fourth Grade artists created these beautiful Amazon rainforest birds to wrap up their study of Mexico, Central America, and South America.  See more rainforest birds in our on-line Artsonia gallery here!

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This project was inspired by Denise M. Logan’s book, “Dynamic Art Projects For Children”.

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A Few More….

Well everyone, we are finishing our last selections for the 14th Annual HPS District Art Show.  Here are our most recent masterpieces – congratulations, artists!

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Check here for more art show information!  Hudsonville Art Program

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Fourth Grade Portraits

Fourth grade artists have been studying the art of American Artists Mary Cassatt.  They learned that she loved to paint children, including her own nieces and nephew.  So of course they created portraits of children – themselves!

After writing about themselves and creating a background of colored tissue paper, they traced their portraits from photos.

Mary Cassatt

 

Mary Cassatt

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Fourth Grade Highway And Byways

Paul Klee’s “Highway and Byways” was the inspiration for these pieces created by our Fourth Grade artists.

Paul Klee "Highway and Byways"

Paul Klee “Highway and Byways”

This project also focused on our school-wide goal of improving student math number sense with a deeper understanding of fractions. Fourth grade students used their knowledge of fractions to divide their paper space into halves, thirds, and fourths.  They chose a warm or cool color palette and used watercolor to fill in their spaces.  The finished pieces are a reflection of their use of color, shape, line, and of course…fractions!

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See more of this project at our Artsonia on-line art museum.

And – special thanks to Miriam at Arteascuola for this project idea!