3rd Grade Art

Third Graders finished their rainforest projects just in time to display during the “Wine in the Vine” celebration. Instructions included drawing an animal of their choice as the center of interest and placing it in its proper rainforest environment. Artificial flowers, paper vines and ferns, wiggle eyes, and dimensional paint could be added to their marker and painted pictures. This multi-media project is always a favorite for both the students and me.

2nd Grade Art

After viewing and discussing the movement and texture seen in Van Gogh’s Starry Night, the Second Graders created their own landscapes. Starting with the horizon line they drew their textured landscapes with glue, colored them with construction paper crayons in a cool/warm color scheme. Students had the option of adding additional movement lines with oil pastels.
They have recently completed a drawing in the style of William Wegman. Wegman, a photographer, became famous for taking pictures of his Weimaraners dressed up in human  clothing and doing human activities. The second graders' dogs are quite creative as their dogs play soccer, dance, and dress up like the King and Queen.

1st Grade Art

Henri Rousseau became 

famous for his paintings of rainforest scenes even though his only experiences with wild animals and plant life were through zoos, botanical gardens, and books. 1^st graders tried their hand at drawing realistic jungle pictures, although the fluorescent paints certainly give them a unique look.

Kindergarten Art

The  Kindergarten has just finished a paper weaving and added snowy hills, a snowman, and an environment. The edges of their hills and the edges of the snowman were shaded with pastels to add a little contrast to overlapping shapes.  A repeated pattern of snow will be drawn in the woven “sky” with crayons and glitter.

2nd Grade Art

Second grade have finished their snowman portraits, always one of their favorites. They created a close-up of a snowman, creating texture by using a dabbing motion with the brush. Pastel shades of paint (tints) were made by mixing secondary and primary colors with white. Water thinned paint and large glittery flakes were used in the backgrounds to create a wintry atmosphere (not unlike our current weather here)!

Third Grade Art

Before Christmas break the third graders created portraits of nutcrackers either as a close-up or pictured in an environment. Nutcrackers were drawn from observation with black Sharpies and colored with permanent markers. Drawing with materials that cannot be erased helps the children draw with care since the option of erasure has been removed.  They learn to think about how to turn unwanted lines into, as the book says, A Beautiful Oops! One of the most important parts of learning how to use your mistakes is to remember not to scribble it out. A big black blob is awfully hard to disguise.  Collage materials (jewels, glitter, shiny dot strips) were added if desired.   Although they weren’t finished in time to display before Christmas on their bulletin boards, look for them at the spring, April K-8, Art Fair.

First Grade Art

1^st Graders drew close-ups of scarecrows in an environment. The scarecrows were positioned in the foreground as the lowest thing on the page, making it close to the viewer. To make their scarecrows look inanimate they were positioned with their arms straight out to the sides and their mouths were “stitched.”  But, besides that, anything goes…hat/no hat, boy/girl, pants/dress etc. Environments included farm buildings, crops, and animals.  All objects in the picture were colored hard and solid with crayon.  The sky will be painted with watercolors.

Third Grade Art

Looking at the ocean through a porthole creates a whole new perspective on the third grade underwater scenes. Having at least one large fish and different varieties of very detailed plant life makes these pictures appear up close and personal.  Water-soluble oil pastels in analogous colors were used to blend the colors of the fish and plants. Liquid watercolors fill the background.

Kindergarten Art

There’s really something fishy about this! The Kindergarten has started an overlapping underwater scene. After a short fish anatomy lesson they drew a fish (or two, or three), and  added a habitat by drawing objects such as overlapping seaweed, air bubbles, starfish, mermaids, sand dollars, seahorses, sunken ships, coral, and a sandy ocean floor.  After coloring these objects with very waxy crayons they painted over their entire pictures with liquid watercolor. Everyone thought it magical as the crayons resisted the paint. Large rock salt crystals were sprinkled on the wet picture to create a bubbly effect (almost as fun as glitter!). 

2nd Grade Art

An analogous color scheme helps give unity to the Second Graders’ complex fish drawings. After drawing an underwater scene that must include at least three fish and/or underwater animals, three different types of plants, and the use of overlapping for perspective, students choose an analogous color scheme to complete the project. After choosing a primary color as their starting point, students can use that color and all other colors up to, but not including, the other two primaries. Observing the color wheel assists students when choosing which colors are available for use in their chosen color scheme. Although an analogous color scheme usually only includes three or four colors (analogous colors have at least one color in common, e.g. students could use the colors of blue, green because it is made with blue and yellow, and purple because it is made with blue and red, the common color being blue) we use all marker colors available that have a common color. 

3rd Grade Art

The Third Grade just finished creating portraits of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. After looking at self-portraits by Frida we compared them to the decorative Frida portraits by Heather Galler. Upon completion of their portraits, students added backgrounds in the style of either Kahlo or Galler. Color was added with water soluble oil pastels. Absolutely fantastic!!!  

1st Grade Art

The 1^st Grade observed the wonderful landscapes of Heather Galler before beginning their own paintings. Galler uses simple shapes, bright colors and patterns, patterns, patterns. We tried our own versions of these pictures using a new art supply, PlayColor paint sticks. Like its name, the product is paint in stick form similar to a large tube of lipstick. Students drew a farm landscape, cityscape, or ocean view picture with sharpie and added color with the paint sticks. They absolutely loved the ease of the paint sticks—no brush, no wash, no fuss… The paints worked wonderfully. We filled in our patterns with colored permanent markers. The color of the first layer of paint had to be chosen carefully so that the patterns would stand out. They turned out beautifully! 

Kindergarten Art

The Kindergarten started the year with a review of how shapes and lines combine to create objects. While carefully observing a stuffed Sesame Street Character, they created a directed draw of Oscar the Grouch. After learning about environments students created one for Oscar. Is he at a birthday party, in your backyard, camping in the woods, alone or with friends?  Other Sesame characters were available for them to draw from observation and the rest of their environment was drawn from memory. Their horizon line, or the line separating their floor from the wall, was the last thing they drew, adding great depth to their pictures. Focus is now on careful coloring

1st Grade Art

The First Grade finished their Winnie the Pooh pictures right after the art show. Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit, Eeyore, and Piglet were drawn from observation and environments were added from their memories.
After finishing these pictures, we worked on making pictures tell stories by playing a WHO, WHAT, WHERE, game. Each student chose random who, what, where paper slips and told these stories through pictures. For example, they may be drawing a gorilla, playing a guitar, on a motorcycle, or perhaps an elephant, ballet dancing, on a pirate ship. The excitement was high as they tried to illustrate some rather unusual scenarios. 
To finish off a creative year, stencils were cut from white paper, colored with chalk pastels, and brushed onto background papers. Symmetrical cutting, overlapping, and positive/negative space were emphasized. Very interesting.

Second Grade Art

The Second Grade created watercolors of Pandas to complement their Asian studies. Whether walking through the bamboo forest or in a mountainous environment, these bears are charming. The Panda pictures were drawn with water-based markers and then painted with watercolors. Students learned to control the amount of liquid watercolors used so that moistened marker lines would self shade and not be washed away. 

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.

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!

Kindergarten Art

On the first day of art class Kindergartners learned they could draw everything in the whole world by just combining lines and shapes. On our second meeting they began a directed line drawing of a lion in an environment. Directed line drawings help the children with their listening and direction following skills. We discussed the parts of the lion’s body in terms of shapes and line types. They chose a position for their lion (sitting, lying down, or standing) then added an environment to make their picture tell a story. Their vocabulary is enriched as they create an overlapping environment for their lion(s) and add the horizon line last adding more depth.