What’s In The Bag?

What to do when half of your class is finished with a project, and some students need a little more time to finish up?  Have a little fun with some mystery drawing, of course!

Fifth graders used their sense of touch to describe and draw mystery objects hidden in paper bags.  There was lots of giggling and funny faces as each student felt the item in their bag, described it to their classmates, took notes, and finally tried to draw their object without looking at it.

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This exercise was a perfect way to give my students a new way to explore drawing and challenge their powers of observation – and to work as a team to create their sketches!

New from our Fourth Graders – Still Life With Zentangles

Fourth grade artists are wrapping up their first big project – a still life drawing with a zentangle background.  After viewing the still life paintings of Cezanne, Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein’s “Still Life with Crystal Bowl” became our inspiration piece.

lichtenstein

Fourth graders carefully drew their vases and colored them with crayons. They added bright fruits, coloring them with markers and remembering to add the special highlight on the fruit to give it a modern, almost cartoonish look.

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Their still life drawings were completed with Zentangle line drawings.  After practicing different Zentangles in their sketchbooks, they added their favorites to the background and foreground of their pieces.

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See more 4th grade still life drawings at our Artsonia gallery!

From the GTown Art Room…

It’s been a busy first couple of weeks in our Georgetown art room!  Here’s a look at what we’ve done in the last 9 days since school began.

img_0961 We did this!

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Quarter circles – we put them together to make some fancy circles.

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We talked about three big Art Elements and read an awesome book – because we are all MAGNIFICENT artists!

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Kinders and Firsties drew their favorite things and made table tags to help Mrs. B. learn ALL their names!  Yikes, I have lots of leaning to do.

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Fourth and Fifth graders put new pages in their sketchbooks and did some drawing.

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Third graders described warm and cool colors and began a new watercolor project.

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Second graders began torn paper masks (mean Mrs. Brouwer took their scissors away and ugh, they had to TEAR the paper!).  No Glue Monsters allowed for this project!

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Kinders met Mr. Mondrian and practiced their cutting skills to create their own Mondrian Broadway Boogie Woogies.

And Firsties began a cool Picasso project….but I was too busy to take pictures – more later.

Whew!  And that is just the first nine days folks!

 

Fifth Grade Chancay Figures

Fifth Grade artists learned about the ancient kingdom of Chancay, a Pre-Columbian civilization located along the coast of Peru.  Our artists created model magic figurines that were inspired by the ceramics made by the Chancay people.

150px-Idolo_Cultura_Chancay Clay idol from the Chancay culture.

IMG_2777 They began with “thumbnail” sketches in their sketchbooks.

IMG_2768 Creating the background – a bit of recycle art with cardboard and some awesome texture made from a donation of window shade samples.

IMG_2765 IMG_2766 IMG_2767 IMG_2774Creating and painting the Chancay figures using Model Magic.  Students recalled our earlier color unit and talked about Earth tones and neutral colors.

IMG_2792 IMG_2793 IMG_2794 IMG_2795Finished pieces.  Aren’t they wonderful?

Michigan Visual Arts Standards: 

Compare and contrast works of art as belonging to
particular cultures, times, and places.  

Demonstrate how history, culture, and the visual arts
interrelate in making and studying works of art.

 

Here We Go!

Georgetown artists dove right in to their art making during our first week back to school!  Artists in grades 1-3 remembered how to use their “art eyes” and power of observation as they created simple still life drawings.  Fourth and Fifth grade artists enjoyed putting their sketchbooks together and beginning a fun “scribble drawing” sketchbook assignment.

still life still life still life still life still life

Sketchbook Time.  sketchbooks sketchbooks

IMG_9980Mrs. B’s Sketchbook Scribble Drawing

Calder Sculptures

Fourth grade artists have been exploring the sculptures of Alexander Calder – they loved seeing photos of his studio filled with bits of wire and junk!

Calder in his studio.

I gave my students a Calder Challenge for their sculptures:

1) their sculpture must have both moving (mobile) parts and non-moving (stabile) parts

2) their sculpture must have visual interest from every angle

The challenge was met – as you can see!

 Lots of good recycled junk to choose from!

 Sculpture in the works

 

Drawing our sculptures in our sketchbooks – translating what we see from 3D to 2D!

And some completed Calder-esque masterpieces….

  

  

 

 

 

Sketchbook Time

Our fifth and fourth grade artists spent their first days in art making their sketchbooks – assembling them, decorating the covers, and working on their first sketchbook assignment – a hand project.  They also learned how to draw some new fun zentangles.  Fifth and fourth graders will keep their sketchbooks in the art room and use them throughout the year –  when they have extra art time, to take art notes, and for working through ideas.

Sketchbook cover

  

Sketchbook hand project

  

Zentangles

Fourth Grade Meets Edgar Degas

Fourth graders have been studying French artist Edgar Degas this week.  They watched a movie about Degas’ life and career, learning that he was interested in showing movement in his figure drawings of ballerinas.  Then…it was time to be models ourselves as we practiced figure drawings.

I don’t repeat too many art projects – but this one is always so much fun, and is such a great way to help kids get over any anxiety about figure drawing, AND to pack lots of figure drawing practice into a class session…that I can’t pass it up!  My students do quick gesture drawings as they model for each other – GASP! – up on the art room tables!!  Check out the dramatic poses!

Fifth Grade Silhouettes

Fifth Grade artists have been reviewing the art elements as they design their silhouettes.  After briefly discussing silhouettes and recalling that the traditional silhouette is an outline without features on the inside, we began jazzing up our own silhouettes.  I traced each student’s features and then they got busy using shape, color, line, and texture to fill in their silhouette.

  Traditional Silhouette

  I was thrilled to see many of my 5th graders refer to their sketchbooks for Zentangle ideas to fill their silhouettes.

A few finished pieces – they all turned out so great!  This is a project that I haven’t done in a number of years – my 5th graders really enjoyed working on their silhouettes.