Fresh From the Art Room….

We are finishing up some great projects in our art room!  Fourth graders have been revisiting a favorite artist, Faith Ringgold – and have created these beautiful self-portraits.  My favorite part of this project is reading what they wrote about themselves below their portraits – such a fun way for me to get to know them all a little bit better!  (click on the images to see what they wrote!)

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First graders have completed a little pattern project – Beetle Bop Bugs.  This project gave them a chance to show Mrs. Brouwer their direction following and cutting skills…not to mention getting to use those fancy paper punches!  First graders learned that the paper punch can be a little tricky to use!

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Second grade artists have been looking at the sunflowers painted by Vincent Van Gogh as they created their own beautiful sunflowers.

 

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IMG_0019  We love these new Crayola crayons…so many beautiful colors all rolled in to one fancy twistee crayon.

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Parents….the 1st grade Beetle Bop project and the 2nd grade Sunflowers are in Georgetown’s ARTSONIA on-line art gallery – visit the gallery HERE.

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….

  

  

 

 

 

Going In Circles With Kandinsky

Fourth grade artists have been exploring the abstract work of Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky.  They loved watching this short video, “The Kandinsky Effect”.    They kept saying… play it again, play it again!

Inspired by Kandinsky’s “Several Circles” piece, fourth graders printed circles with black tempera paint and colored their circles with oil pastel.  We finished with a yellow watercolor background.

Kandinsky’s “Several Circles”

Printing circles

Student work

   

This project was inspired by this post from the blog, “A Faithful Attempt” .

Kandinsky Project

Georgetown fourth grade artists are finishing up a big Kandinsky project this week.  The  project is stunning, and we can’t wait to hang these in the hallway!

After looking at Kandinsky’s Several Circles No. 323 and discussing abstract art, we got started.

  Several Circles No. 323

We began by thinking about texture and color as we created our background.

texture background

Next came tempera paint in rainbow order, with a little white thrown in for playing with tints.

painting – rainbow order

We traced circles and painted over our marker lines with black tempera paint.

tracing circles and painting with tempera

Then – more color, this time thinking about warm and cool colors as we painted the circles.

One more look at Kandinsky’s circle painting and a big discussion about eye path and leading the viewer through the artwork by using shape and color….and finally, cutting our circles, carefully placing them on the background, and gluing the circles down.  The results….stunning.

Assembling Kandinsky project

Finished pieces!

 

This project was inspired by “Brooke’s Quilt #3” …. check it out, it is lovely!

 

 

 

 

More Figure Drawing

After completing their figure gesture drawing practice, my 4th grade artists are now practicing drawing figures using wood mannequins.  Such concentration!

We are following up this figure drawing work with a large single figure drawing.  My students are learning about body proportion and are even using some fractions as they work to make their figures “eight heads tall”.

 

 

Fourth Grade Feather Masks

Fourth Grade artists have been reviewing the art elements of line, shape, color, and texture as they create these great feather masks.  They also brushed up on their shading skills as they explored color combinations for their feathers.

Everyone enjoyed looking through my feather collection for pattern and color ideas!