2nd Grade Art

The second graders have recently finished Chinese Dragon drawings to complement their Asian Unit.  After drawing an Eastern Dragon (western dragons are the fire breathing, scary type) the pictures were colored with an analogous color scheme. Swirled designs filled the background and the addition of glitter to these creations helped keep the focus on dragons used in celebrations.

Third Grade Art

3^rd Grade peacocks emphasize feathery textures and repeated color patterns.  These oil pastel pictures were created in less than two hours time. Colors were blended on the peacocks’ chests, highlighting the curved forms of the bodies. Before drawing the tail feathers, a variety of colors of chalk pastels were added to the backgrounds adding unity to the tail shape.  

First Grade Art

First graders learned that many clowns make their faces white to create a stronger contrast to their other make-up. This allows them to be seen better from a greater distance. It surprised them that even though clowns might exaggerate their features, their eyes, nose, and mouth placement always remain in the same exact place as when they wear no make-up. The white paper faces were glued to a bright background, and colored with a combination of permanent markers, oil pastels, and construction paper crayons. With the addition of sparkly glitter and “Dab a Dots” in the backgrounds, you can almost hear the calliope.

Kindergarten Art

The Kindergarten painted deer walking in the snow. Using white paint, they established their horizon lines and painted all the ground beneath these lines. Horizons could be flat, be covered with hills, or even form a valley.  After the ground was completed students added one or more deer or deer families, trees, footprints, and anything else they felt would make the scene complete. We learned that things placed on the horizon line would appear smaller and things placed near the bottom of the page are closer to the viewer and so would be larger.

Sooooo cute!!!

Kindergarten Art

Right before Thanksgiving, the Kindergarten began observational drawings of Raggedy Ann and Andy in an environment.  Each child had a doll to look at while they drew with permanent markers and then created a background from their imaginations.  The drawings are then colored with the primary colored red, yellow, and blue payons (paint/crayons). All secondary colors (green, orange, and purple) must be mixed by combining two of the primaries. Brown is created by using all three of the primaries. After the coloring is completed the picture will be painted with water allowing the colors to mix and it takes on a watercolored appearance. The drawings are fantastic. Now the emphasis is on coloring our best.

3rd Grade Art

George Rodrigue, a contemporary artist from the United States, is perhaps best known for his Blue Dog pictures.  In 1984 George was asked to illustrate a book of Cajun ghost stories. One of the stories was called Watch Dog, a story about a Loup Garou, the Cajun name for a Werewolf. He used a photo of his little white dog Tiffany as a model for the Loup Garou and painted her fur a bluish color (the color he thought the night time sky would make her fur appear) Soon people started asking about his blue dog pictures so the blue dog was born. He used bold solid colors and expressed the feelings of mankind through the Blue Dog—why am I here, what am I doing, and where am I going. The Blue Dog began appearing in different colors depending on what he was thinking about. For example, if he was thinking about hot dogs, he might be yellow for mustard. These very creative pictures were made from cut paper.

2nd Grade Art

The second graders created close-up flower designs inspired by the artwork of Georgia O’Keeffe. Students began by cutting a 12x12 inch paper into a large flower shape and then cut progressively smaller stencils which they used to create the flower petal shapes by brushing pastel from the stencils onto their flower. One of America’s most famous artists, O’Keeffe loved to paint large close-ups of flowers, mountains, seashells, and even cow skulls that she discovered in the desert. 

1st Grade Art

These dogs may not be anatomically correct but they sure bring a smile to your face.

Using only trapezoids, the 1^st Graders created Dalmatians in motion. Each student started with enough trapezoids for two heads, 2 bodies and eight legs.  After cutting out the shapes, students moved the pieces around to create dogs in motion. They positioned their dogs, added ears, tails, spots, eyes, and collars. Then, they added a tad of environment with construction paper crayons.  These are some happy pups!