2nd grade 3-D Cities

 2nd grade artists looked at Edward Hopper. His most famous painting is Nighthawks where several lonely figures sit in an illuminated diner. Hopper was an American Realist painter; he painted what he saw. His paintings have been described as things you would see if you were driving through a new town. He was fascinated with light and shadow. We tried to capture light and shadow in our city paintings. We used warm colors in the sky and cool colors for our buildings. Our buildings are lit up on one side and painted with a tint of a cool color (light blue, light purple). The shadow side is a bit darker. We began our cities buildings by drawing a simple arrow that pointed up and creatively turned these arrows into what you see here.

3rd Grade Self-Portraits

 Third grade artists looked at the art and life of Amadeo Modigiliani. Although a sculptor at heart, he is most famous for his paintings. He painted portraits from life. While the people were recognizable, they were distorted. His portraits typically featured elongated, oval tilted heads and long necks. We used mirrors to observe the basic shapes of ourselves--our eyes, our hair, eyebrows, etc.  Unlike Modigliani, who was a painter, we used construction paper and glue in our collages. Collage is a french word meaning glue. Every third grader has a self-portrait hanging in the art room. It's been fun for the students trying to guess who is who.

5th Grade Rockin' Lock-in Mural

 The 5th grade mural was a huge success! Thank you to all the parents that made it possible. In honor of Earth Day, 5th graders printed using recycled and re-purposed found objects. We printed on old doors, instead of new boards. There are three doors; each one a primary color. These will be on permanent display, hanging in the media center. Thank you again to everyone who participated!

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.