2nd grade Lego self portraits

Second grade artists looked at the self portraits of many famous artists including Kahlo, Picasso, Rockwell, Cassat, Chagall, and Van Gogh. We talked about the difference in styles and also looked closely at the details in the paintings that provided clues about the what the artist liked. For example, Van Gogh is holding a palette and paint brushes. Since we are about to begin an OPEF project building with Legos, we created a lego mini figure of ourselves. We had to include two details that told others things about ourselves.

First grade line art

First graders looked several different pieces of artwork. We talked about the elements of art as the ingredients that artists use to make art. They are line, shape, form, color, value, space and texture. After reading the book, "The Dot," we created made a dot on our paper and went wherever the idea took us. Our art is abstract and we tried to incorporate all seven elements of art into our work. The following art class, we read the book "Lines that Wiggle." We drew four or five lines on the back of our papers. We carefully cut along those lines and reassembled our art, much like a puzzle. We were careful to leave space in between the pieces of our puzzle, creating lines.

3rd grade Haring Art

Third graders learned about the life and art of Keith Haring. Haring became famous after drawing in the New York subways. His art features simple, stylized figures that are often in motion. He suggests movement by using action lines. His figures feature bold outlines. After discussing human proportions, we drew a simple figure in an action pose of our choice. We collaged our artwork. The only drawing is in the background, where we created designs using only line.

Kindergarten Abstract Art

Kindergarteners learned about the artwork of Piet Mondrian. We looked at his paintings. We found lines, both horizontal and vertical. We found shapes and colors too. We talked about abstract Art as being artwork that isn't a painting of a tree, or anything recognizable. It's art about feelings and it makes people think about what they artist was thinking. We collaged black construction paper lines, reviewing horizontal and vertical lines. We tried to make shapes with our lines. The next art class we discussed texture. How something feels, or looks like it feels, is texture. We used oil pastels and rubbing plates to give our art texture. Lastly, we painted over  the pastels in watercolors, remembering, mostly, to was our brushes before changing colors.

Radial name designs

5th grade artist studied radial balance and radial symmetry. We looked at nature to find examples in things like flowers, starfish and eyes. We found radial symmetry and balance and human-made objects like wheels and fans. We also looked at the rose window in Notre Dame and Tibetan monks' sand mandalas as inspiration for our radial artwork. We used our names, reflected and rotated radially around a center axis, to create an abstract radial design. Upon completion, we wrote an artist statement about our work, addressing common core standards for literacy, explaining the process of creating our art, explaining our choice of lettering styles and colors and then reflecting on successes and areas for improvement in our work. The results are pretty cool!