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. 

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.

2nd Grade Art

Second Graders completed a Native American pottery picture just in time for the art show. Students cut out and embellished with earth tone markers at least three symmetrically cut paper pots.  After their designs are completed they add contour shadows, glue the pots to a background paper and add cast shadows. Very messy, but the effect is magical.

 

2nd Grade Art

The Second Graders finished their oil pastel pumpkins barely in time to hang before Thanksgiving. Pumpkins and gourds were drawn with chalk and outlined with glue. After drying, pictures were colored with thick, blended oil pastels. Overlapping, analogous colors, and contour shading of forms were the focus points of this lesson.

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. 

Kindergarten Art

After finishing an African art unit featuring King Tut and Masks, the kindergarten started a paper strip landscape. Skills involved in this project include cutting lines to represent different types of terrain for foreground, middle ground and background, gluing strips down starting at the top of the paper and overlapping to the bottom, and creating a scene from cut papers tucked into the layers of background. Cities, forests, oceans, and even some inside environments have been created by these really talented students.

1st Grade Art

After looking at some artwork by Cezanne the 1st Graders created a still life of apples.   In order to keep their fruit similar in size, they drew one apple, cut it out, and used it as a stencil for the others. They learned to overlap their fruit by drawing the closest (lowest on the page) pieces of fruit first. A table line was drawn after the fruit was completed. Color changing markers were used to create the pattern on the table and wall.