KindergARTen Sunflowers

Kindergarten artists learned about the life and artwork of Vincent VanGogh (1853-1890).  We looked Starry Night and the many different versions of his sunflower paintings, but we spent the most time looking at Vase with 12 Sunflowers.  We discussed how some of the flowers looked healthy and alive while others looked wilted and dead.  We noticed the colors that he used in his paintings—warm colors like reds, yellows and oranges. We then donned our smocks and created our own versions of Van Gogh’s sunflowers using only warm colors and tempera paints. We used construction paper to fold and cut out symmetrical vases and used markers to draw line designs on them.

First Grade Action Paintings

First grade artists learned about the abstract artwork of Jackson Pollock. Pollock reached fame and fortune through his "action paintings" where he splatted, dripped, poured and flung his paint unto his canvas. We discussed the color wheel and reviewed the primary colors. We created our action paintings by putting our paintings in a tray, placing blobs of primary paint colors on our papers and rolling marbles around and letting them mix and drag our colors around the paper. We completed a second action painting by blowing paint around on our paper using straws. We concluded by using the netbooks and visiting www.jacksonpollock.org and painting 'Pollock-style' online.

Art Show!

Please visit the Oak Park Public Library to see artwork created by Holmes students. All grades K-5 (excluding 2nd grade) have artwork on display.  All 5th grade classes, 4GE, 3N, 1CO, and KM can all see their artwork in the "Art Alcove, " located downstairs in the Children's section of the library. The work is on display through the month of December.