O'Keeffe Pastel Flowers

 3rd grade artists learned about the life and artwork of Georgia O'Keeffe.  She is a famous female artist known for cropping her paintings of flowers. She would paint one or two really big and colorful flowers. Sometimes she would crop her paintings so much that they became abstract.We began our drawings by drawing one large flower that was cropped-meaning it had to touch all four sides of the paper. Then we outlined our drawings in white school glue and let them dry. The following class we used pastels to create tints (lights) and shades (darks) and make our flowers look 3-D and realistic. This was a new project that turned out really well. I overheard several students telling other students that this was the greatest drawing they had ever made. How cool!

Design an Ad Contest

 The 5th graders all participated in the Wednesday Journal's "Design an Ad" contest where students designed advertisements for local businesses. The businesses then choose their favorite ads and these ads were published in the newspaper! These are the Holmes School winners. Congratulations!

ZENTANGLES

 

A     A zentangle is a doodle where the mind and body are in a relaxed state (zen-like). A “tangle” is a little doodle. So a zentangle is a focused and relaxed drawing. Usually these doodles have “step-outs” where the creator draws up directions to create a specific design, signs their name to them and publishes them online. Fourth and fifth graders made these zentangles as a one-day project.

5th grade Perspective cities

 5th graders spent several weeks working on these two-point perspectived drawings. And we learned alot along the way. We learned about the Renaissance and the invention of perspective. We looked at artwork before the Renaissance that featured goofy looking and unrealistic attempts at portraying depth. Then we looked at artwork by DaVinci, Rafael and others that used vanishing points and perspective to create a realistic illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface.

2nd Grade Senufo Mud Cloths

  Second grade artists learned about  Senufo mud cloths. This tribe in Africa creates stylized paintings of animals and also incorporates  geometric patterns. They are called "mud cloths" because they are literally painted with a special kind of mud and created to bring the hunters luck as they search for food for their families. The glow around the animals represents the animals spirit and energy.

4th grade perspective

 4th graders learned about creating the illusion of depth and distance on their two-dimensional papers. We learned about shapes and forms and we learned all about the Renaissance. We looked at video games from the 1980's and compared them to today's games. The older video games lacked perspective or depth. Then we looked at artwork from before the Renaissance and in much the same way as the video games, these paintings are lacking in the accurate portrayl of depth as well. We finished our drawings in "plastipastels"--these are like a cool combination of crayons and colored pencils. We also used texturized rubbing plates to give our buildings a variety of textures.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 2nd and 3rd grade artists learned about the life of St. Patrick. Born in 387 AD in Scotland, Patricius was kidnapped at the age of 16 and taken to Ireland. He spent six years working as a slave and finally escaped. He ended up in France where he studied hard and became a bishop in the catholic church. He returned to Ireland and spent thirty years teaching and preaching while building schools and churches throughout the country. He used the shamrock when teaching and it has become a symbol for Ireland as have lucky leprechauns. Our leprechauns are 3-D paper sculptures. Happy St. Patrick's Day!