5th grade cupcakes

We looked at art by Wayne Thiebaud and then recreated his work using cupcakes as our subject. Thiebaud's work falls under the Pop art category and became popular in the art world in 1962. His paintings of cakes and pies are colorful and whimsical. Our chalk drawings of cupcakes are no different! We learned about value and blending using chalk. They turned out amazing!!

Molas- 3rd grade

Our A mola is a hand sewn design, usually an animal,made of layers of fabric using the appliqué technique. Molas are sewn on to a blouse and worn by the Kuna Indians of Panama. 

Today, Molas are sold as art pieces and vary in cost depending on the size and complexity of the design. My parents lived in Panama for a year and this is a mola they brought back for me:

Our 3rd grade Molas were made using layers of paper and marker.  

We discussed geometric shapes and the use of balance in an art piece. 

 

Aboriginal art- 2nd grade

We looked at work by the Aboriginal people of Australia. These native Australians would draw on the bark of trees using animals as their subject matter. The animals were drawn and filled in with line and dot patterns. 

We reviews the use of pattern as we explored the concept of space and filling our paper with our drawings. Our crayon resists turned out great!

Blue dog- 1st grade

The first graders learned about George Rodrigue, an Smerican artist from Louisiana. He painted his dog, Tiffany and his work caught on quickly. He used bright colors, starting with blue then he ventured into dogs of other colors. 

Our dogs, like Rodrigue's, are super cordial and fun. We drew or dog, painted it, cut it out and glued it down. We tked about the use of oattern in a border as well as a pattern used as a background. 

4th grade disco turkeys

We did a step by step drawing of a turkey while reviewing patterns with shapes and lines. So cute! B

1st grade sculptures

First grade learned about 3D shapes, called forms. We made cylinders out if paper to make our sculpture. Look how cool they look on the wall!!

3rd grade reflection of fall

We used cool colors and learned the watercolor technique wet on wet to create the water for our reflection scene. We used tempera paint to create our trees. To make the reflection, we folded our paper in half to make a print. 

3rd grade leaves

We did a lot with leaves...just ask the 3rd graders. We were all about fall!!! We did a painting of fall trees reflecting in the water. These are currently on display in the 5th grade/art room hall. 

We also drew leaves realistically looking at photos of leaves. This taught us to observe and look carefully at our subject matter. We discussed line and value. 

Finally, we studied texture in art by making clay leaves!

November wrap up- 1st and 2nd grade

1st grade:

After talking about The artist Henri Matisse and collage we looked at Matisse's still life paintings. We used PATTERNS and OVERLAPPING concepts. 

1st grade also learned about FORM and TEXTURE when creating clay necklaces! Students stepped on....yep, you read that right....stepped on the clay to get the texture from the bottom of their shoe! We painted them with tempera paint. I applied midge podge to make them shiny. We added a cord and beads to complete it!

We are currently learning about the work of folk artist Grandma Moses!

2nd Grade

We learned about VALUE and FORM when drawing pumpkins using oil pastels. 

Next, we read the book Where the Wild Things are. We discussed authors and illustrators and looked specifically at the monsters in the book. Students drew their own monsters using PATTERNS within the work. 

We are currently working on a printmaking project!

September wrap up

1st grade is working on a STILL LIFE painting where we are learning about pattern, overlapping and painting skills. These followed our collages we did previously. 

2nd grade:

2nd graders learned about COLOR through the art of Wassilly Kandinsky. We painted, primary, secondary, warm, cool and complementary colors. Our last set of circles was their choice. We used paint and oil pastel. 

3rd grade:

3rd grade reviewed warm and cool colors and learned to weave too. We painted two pieces of paper after drawing on it with white crayon. I cut the cool paper and they cut the warm paper I to strips to weave them through. 

4th grade:

4th grade reviewed warm and cool colors as well as the use of pattern in art. We created this collage in the style of the Austrian painter Hundertwasser. We painted using texture- two papers. One cool and one warm. We cut strips, glued them and created patterns with markers between. We cut circles and created our Hundertwasser trees. 

5th grade:

We are in the process of painting our Statue of Liberty project. Students drew the statue step by step then added a cityscape and details to make it their own. Next they used sharpie to outline. We are using watercolors, crayons, markers and oil pastels for this project. 

1st grade Matisse collages

1st grade is learning about free form and geometric shapes through the collage art of Henri Matisse. We cut out two geometric shapes and glued them down. Then we cut out a free form shape and glued that down. We even glued our scrap from the free form shape!!  Then we cut out two types of lines to add to our collage. We discussed overlapping and composition. 

August wrap up

Here is what is going on in the art room!

1st grade is learning about vertical and horizontal lines as well as primary colors by looking at the art of Piet Mondrian. Her is an example of what the 1st graders are creating:

2nd grade- we are learning about the American artist Alexander Calder. He made mobiles. Our mobiles are made from paper plates, tag board and yarn. They represent things about us. 

3rd grade is learning about abstract art as compared to realistic art. We are looking at art by Pablo Picasso. Picasso created the abstract style of art called cubism. Our art is a face drawn realistically then colored abstractly. We then will cut it into pieces and put back together to resemble cubism. 

4th grade looked at cave paintings and carvings from Lascaux France. We raked about this first form of art and how it allows us to look in the past almost 20,000 years ago. We drew an animal, cut it out, painted around it so it resembles a petroglyph. The pictographs are Native American symbols. 

OOPs- that's upside down - ugh!!! Sorry. 

5th grade is discussing contrast in art. We are making cityscapes on yellow paper with black Sharpie. We looked at many stes of buildings and buildings all over the world. Two buffing a are drawn on the yellow paper and one on shite that is cut and glued. We discussed perspective as well. 

And there you have it!  Happy 3 day weekend!!!

Welcome back!

Hello! Summer is coming to a close and we will soon be busy in the art room! Come visit me during the open house and say hi...and see my awesome banner I made. The kids will get to color that their first day of art! 

Please look for a letter from me that will come home with your child this coming week. Hopefully it will answer any questions you may have as well as provide valuable information about the upcoming year!

Enjoy the last few days of summer!

-Mrs. Johnson

4th grade Cardinals

These paintings are awesome! The 4th grade course of study includes learning about Ohio animals. This translates to drawing and painting our state bird, the Cardinal! We looked at pictures of

Cardinals and students drew the cardinal of their choice. We used tempera paint and white oil pastel for the snow. 

ART SHOW!!

Save the date!!! The art show will be Tuesday, April 15 from 6-7:30. Stop by to see our whole school turned into one big art gallery!!! 

2nd grade Matryoshka dolls

4th grade Van Gogh clay tiles

Every year, 4th grade creates tiles out of clay depicting ether Starry Night or Sunflowers by Van Gogh. They have become a favorite project among students and parents. 

Students learned about Van Gogh's style if painting and his use of texture in his work. Clay is the perfect medium in which to explore texture. Students created their tile then drew into the clay adding texture as they went along. Glaze was used to finish the tiles. 

1st grade Henri Matisse still life

The first graders looked at still life paintings by the French artist Henri Matisse. We drew our still life in a similar way using multiple patterns like Matisse. Watercolor was used as we discussed various watercolor techniques. 

3rd grade Molas

3rd grade learned about Molas from Panama. Molas are layers of fabric made into a design,typically animals,and are made into clothing. The kuna Indians make Molas and are typically 2-7 layers of fabric in a variety of colors. We made ours out of paper and we cut out various shapes to create patterns. 

1st grade winter landscapes

The 1st graders learned about foreground, middle ground and background in this one day painting lesson. We painted blue paper white on the bottom half and then used very light gray paint to paint two trees on our horizon line. The next tree was in the middle of the white section and is a darker grey. The final tree in the foreground is at the bottom of the page and overlaps some of our previous trees making it look like it is in front. This one was painted black. These were a great one day landscape study.