A Week of Aha's and Tada's

Sorry my post is coming later than normal today. Mr. Chance and I attended the Korean Festival today to see one of our friends perform. I really enjoyed the event, especially some of the traditional dances that were performed.

So...without further adieu, onward to the updates!

K4: The K4 has been practicing using their cutting skills this week while creating a collage inspired by the book "Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes". If you haven't read the book...go get it! In the book, Pete starts out with white shoes and as the book progresses along he steps in numerous things to turn his shoes different colors. Using that as inspiration, I asked students this week to choose a color. After students had chosen their color, I asked them to look through magazines and try to find foods of their color choice. After their food was located in the magazine, students cut it out and glued it to what will be the "ground/grass" of their collage.

K5: K5 students finished coloring their dog inspired by George Rodrigue's Blue Dog. After all students had finished, we discussed the warm and cool colors. Students then colored their background opposite of what color family they had colored their dog (i.e. dog = warm colors, background = cool colors). I have a few students that missed class this week, but as soon as they finish their background, I will post pictures of all of our finished dogs!

1st: 1st graders this week were introduced to the works of Anthony van Dyck. We discussed portraits in length, in addition to discussing what would have to be drawn if students created a self portrait. I showed students my favorite van Dyck painting (as it happened to be our inspiration for this project), "Triple Portrait of King Charles I", 1635-36. We compared this portrait to photo booth images (especially the images that were still intact as a strip). Students for this project will be creating four self-portraits, each depicting a different emotion, which will be displayed in the style of a photo booth strip.

2nd: The 2nd grade completed their self-critiques. With the conclusion of our critiques, we are now ready for our second project! We will be studying the art of the Rococo period and will be creating still lives that are inspired by some of the techniques and styles of the period. More details coming next week!

3rd: The 3rd grade finished up their biographies of Leonardo da Vinci. As they finished, each student got a turn at tracing a horse template. A word on templates....I normally do not like students to use templates to copy an image. I had much rather them draw it on their own, not only for practice, but because I love to see all the different characteristics of each student's work. However, this time I did not want them worrying about drawing a horse "perfectly". This project is not really about drawing. Their challenge is the design that they will incorporate starting next week. So, students finished up tracing their horse and are ready for the fun stuff. We will be starting the decoupage process next week!

4th: Along with the 2nd grade, 4th grade too finished up their critiques. We will be starting Ming Vase mixed media artworks next week!

5th: The 5th grade was introduced to Rose Windows on Tuesday. We discussed not only how they are created, but also the different types, their purpose, and the symbolism often included in the windows. Hopefully next week, we will be taking a tiny field trip to look at some rose windows first hand!

6th: I am extremely happy to announce that our Greek Vases finally worked out! Students were so excited when they started etching their vase! It was a huge relief for both myself and students to not see peeling paint :)

Art Club: Our Britto paintings are on display! They look awesome!

I also decided to try something that I am incredibly excited about in Art Club. Since all of the artists that we are learning about this year are living, we will be writing letters to them after we finish our projects! Students are so excited thinking that Romero Britto might read their letters! I will be writing a letter, as well, explaining what I discussed with students and how we did our project. Hopefully he will write back to us :)

Lastly this week, I received an awesome surprise from some of my students! They created a huge wave for me using chalk pastels! Super Cool!!!