5y clay presidents

5P Clay presidents

After researching and writing a paper on different American presidents in social studies class, fifth graders sculpted their president out of clay. We used reference photos to help us sculpt details like hair, clothes appropriate to when the president lived and facial features. We looked at the artwork of Shepard Fairey, the controversial street artist who created Obama' "hope" poster for the 2008 election.

O'Keefe flowers

Kindergarten and first grade artists looked at the life and artwork of Georgia O'Keefe. She is a famous female, American painter noted for her large, colorful paintings of flowers and other natural objects. We also found inspiration in time lapse videos of flowers opening and closing and sunflowers following the sun. We began by painting with primary colors. We painted ten randomly placed blobs of each color. Then using markers we added stems, leaves and grass. Then using a variety of colored markers, we added petals and looking at photos of actual flowers drew and colored petals to finish our landscape artwork.

4th grade sky scrapers continued...

First grade Matisse paintings

First graders learned about the french artist Henri Mattise. He lived from 1869-1972. He grew up wanting to be a lawyer and did not begin painting until he was 20 years old. After painting for the first time, he declared that for the first time in his life, he was not bored. He quit law school and became an artist. Matisse loved color and painted the colors he felt, not the colors he saw. An art critique said that he painted like a wild beast or in French- les Fauves. Matisse therefore was part of an art movement known as fauvism. We looked closely at his painting of goldfish and tried to replicate it, but using the colors we liked.

3rd grade value and form drawings

3rd graders studied the difference between two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects in art. Together we drew three forms-- a cube, a sphere and a cylinder. We then discussed how light affects and changes the way things look. We imagine the sun was shining in the top fit corner of our drawing and after completing a value scale in pencil, we shaded our forms. The last part was the background. Using only one marker, we created an abstract design that was 50/50 white/color of our choice.

Illuminated Letters

Third graders studied Ireland's Book of Kells. We learned that reading is something that most people didn't know how to do. We also discussed the process of making a book from the parchmenter, the scribe to the illuminator. Our illuminated letters feature the first letter of our first name and the designs around the letter tell the viewer about the things we like. We made this with metallic markers, trying to replicate the glowing gold leaf in the real illuminated letters.