Clay, Wonderful Clay!

Ask any Georgetown artist to tell you about their favorite art project, and the answer will always be…anything clay!  Here’s a peek at some of the clay projects we are working on.

  

Fifth grade knee bowls – roll a slab and form a bowl on your knee.  Who knew your knee could be a perfect bowl shape?

 

Fourth grade slab picture frames.

  

Third grade coil pots – we’ll squeeze some clay through a garlic press and add it to the top to create a bird nest!

Second grade slab houses – can’t wait to add the texture and details.

First grade pinch pots with texture.

Kindergarten texture necklaces – they can’t wait to finish these and wear them home!

Soon we’ll be adding more details to finish up these projects, and then the firing begins.

First Grade Christmas Amaryllis Paintings

My first grade artists have been begging to paint – so of course we did!  The result?  Beautiful Christmas amaryllis paintings!

We began by looking at pictures of amaryllis plants and examining a large silk amaryllis flower.  We talked about how the plant grows from a bulb, sending up a tall skinny stem, and then a wonderful flower opens up at the top of the stem.  Everyone noticed right away that the amaryllis plant has Christmas colors of red and green.

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First graders began by creating a textured pot.  They drew their plants with marker, painted, and added details with black crayons.

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See more of these beauties at our ARTSONIA on line art gallery here.

I CAN….explain how to create texture, describe an amaryllis plant, use careful painting techniques.

Kindergarten Texture Spiders

Kindergarteners know lots of cool things about spiders!  We talked about spiders that jump, what spiders eat for lunch (flies, of course), and counted how many legs a spider has.  We read Eric Carle’s “The Very Busy Spider” and made some awesome fuzzy spiders.

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Kindergarten artists learned about the art element of texture as they created their spooky spiders.  After they were given their fabric spider bodies, Kinders used their weekly vocabulary word describe to tell each other the texture they could feel on their spider bodies.  They were excited to think up new “feels like” words including fuzzy, soft, furry, squishy, and even the scratchy texture on the underside of their fabric.

Kinders followed many directions to cut spider eyes and fangs, and loved folding and rolling paper to make fancy spider legs.  They made sure they were not “glue monsters” as they glued their spider parts using “just a dot, not a lot”.

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I CAN: describe texture, use scissors correctly, use careful glueing skills

Special thanks to Tina for the fabulously furry spider idea!

See more Kindergarten Texture Spiders on our ARTSONIA website!

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Giant Georgias

Fifth Grade artists really loved their Georgia O’Keeffe project!  They learned that O’Keeffe liked to fill the picture space and work BIG.  They were also surprised to discover that O’Keeffe was often upset with her art instructors because they wanted her to follow their rules and create art the way they taught her….and O’Keeffe wanted to experiment with her art and do her own thing!

There was pure excitement in the room as they learned about their assignment: to find an object in the art room, sketch it in their sketchbook, and then…draw BIG.  It was fun to watch the process; some kids knew right away what they wanted to draw, and others experimented with several items until they were happy with their choice.  Others brought items in from home to make their own still life composition.  Check out their concentration as they begin their Giant Georgias!

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Their finished projects are fabulous – each student’s personality really shines through!

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Halloween Fun With My Firsties

Georgetown First Graders had a blast creating some sorta scary art this week.  (Have I mentioned how much fun my firsties are?!)

We read “There Was an Old Monster!”, did a scritchy-scratch dance, (cause man, we have ants in our pants!) and drew some awesome Texture Monsters.

IMG_8588 Ed Emberly’s There Was An Old Monster

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We finished up our busy Halloween week by learning how to draw spiders and webs…and our spidees wove some beautiful artistic webs!

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Fifth Graders Explore Metal Repousse

Fifth Grade artists learned about metal repousse, the ancient art of embossing or pressing shapes into metal.

Embossing the metal foil

Embossing the metal foil

After embossing their designs, they wiped India Ink on the surface to bring out the textures and patterns.

applying India Ink

applying India Ink

applying India Ink

applying India Ink

They finished their piece by extending their patterns from the foil onto black paper.

Some students preferred the shiny surface instead of their india ink side…they chose which side to display.

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Thanks to the March 1999 Arts And Activities magazine for this project idea.  

Precious Portraits With Pendants

Have I mentioned before that I adore my first grade artists?  Check out their stunning self portraits and beautiful clay pendants!

The project began with the creation of our clay pendants – my first grader’s  very first clay project!  After some time rolling and smooshing the clay, we smashed it into a nice clay cookie and added texture with bottle caps and sticks.  After oohing and aahing at their finished glazed pendants, they spent lots of time lining up their beads in different patterns before stringing them.

  

Next came the portraits – we viewed self-portraits by famous artists, and there was lots of giggling as we looked in our mirrors and drew our faces.  First graders smiled into their mirrors and noticed how lines showed up around their mouths, noticed that their eyebrows were made up of little hairs, and that their ears were in line with their eyes.

Their finished portraits are so cute – and many of them captured a good likeness of themselves!

 

    

This project was inspired by a Summer 2010 article from Arts And Activities Magazine – “Jewelry Portraits” by Aimee Fresia.

 

 

 

Texture Dinos

My first grade bunch has been having fun with this little dinosaur project.  This was a texture review for my kiddos, and they recalled the two kinds of texture we worked with this year – actual texture that we can feel and create with crayon rubbings, and texture that is drawn.

These critters were created with washable markers, and my artists enjoyed painting over their work with plain water to blend the colors.  We added a horizon line and landscape details to really make our dinos pop!