Saturday, March 8, 2014

Project Wrap Up, Project Wrap Up!

For the next couple of weeks, many students will be participating in, what I call, a "Finishing Day". On "Finishing Day" students have the task of putting the finishing touches on their artwork, as well as completing a self-critique. I find "Finishing Day" to be one of the more exciting days in the Art room. Students are not only able to see the results of weeks of hard work, but they are beginning ot look forward to a new project right around the corner!

There were only a couple of classes that participated in a "Finishing Day" this week. The majority of my classes will be starting to wrap things up next week. Anyway, here's what everyone was up to the past couple of days...

K4: Similar to what we did last week, a second group of students printed their gumballs using corks and tempera paint. Now that everyone has had a chance to create their gumballs, we are now ready to put our machines together.

K5: This week began the start of our new project...well kinda. This year, I have decided that before we start our final artwork that we will have a whole day dedicated to practice a new skill or idea. Since the beginning of the year, students have been learning about the Element of Art color. Starting this week, we are on to line! To practice for our upcoming project, I read the book "Extra Yarn" by Mac Barnett. The illustrations (by Jon Klassen) often depicted long lines of yarn. When I finished reading the story, I handed each student their own piece of rainbow yarn to practice creating lines on their table. Once they had created a line that they thought was cool or interesting, I asked them to draw it. Students had a ton of fun with this activity...so much in fact that I gave them the yarn to take home to make more awesome lines.




1st: I have said it before and I will say it every week...I am so proud of the work ethic that the 1st graders have been showing. Their project has been no small task. They have been working for 3 weeks now on coloring their American Realism inspired drawings and are still going along with no complaints! I am so proud that they are beginning to see the pay off of all their hard work. I still have 6 students that are working, but I am hoping that soon I can share their creations with everyone :)

2nd: After our fire drill day last week, students were ready and eager to paint. A couple of weeks ago, students had painted their first layer, making them ready this week to start adding details. They will be participating in their finishing day next week.



3rd: Almost every student except for around 4ish finished their Impressionistic landscapes. Much like the 2nd grade, they will be participating in their "Finishing Day" next week.

4th: 4th grade students participated in their "Finishing Day" this week. After putting the finishing touches on their artworks, students filled out their self-critique. Next week, students will be starting to learn about photography!



5th: Students have now completed their collagraphs! Next week we will be creating our relief from Styrofoam and then we will be ready to print!!!


6th: The 6th grade weather vanes are really beginning to take shape! Many students this week were able to apply copper acrylic paint to their designs. It is amazing what a little paint will do to really transform something!




Art Club: Over three quarters of the younger group finished their Palissy Ware this week. I will be taking pics of all their projects and hopefully will be posting them next weekend. On the other hand, the older group just began applying paint to their sculptures. Because the older group will still need several more sessions to finish their projects, the younger group will be moving on to a new project soon. The older students will eventually move to the same project after all of their Palissy Ware is completed.

In other news: First a couple of weeks ago, Kim of Art on my Hands suggested that the next time I have awesome sink art created by the paint that is washed out of my palettes to use paper to try to create a print. So, after once again washing out my palettes and dumping the muddy looking water in my sink, I was left with awesome sink art. I grabbed a piece of paper, placed it in the sink on top of the paint and here's what I got...


In some other Art room realted news that I wanted to share, you might have noticed that I use aluminum foil frequently. I use it not only for our projects, but also to protect the tables from paint or clay. When I arrived at my current school 4 years ago, I found a gigantic, industrial, cafeteria size roll of aluminum foil. Not wanting it to just sit around in my closet, I have used it regularly since then. On Friday, I was experimenting with a new discovery that I will discuss in detail next week. I grabbed the aluminum foil and pulled...turns out it was the last little piece. I thought that I surely could do without it. Nope. Not gonna happen. In fact, I found myself repeatedly heading for the closet to grab it during Art Club only to realize "Oh, yeah...its gone." Guess I know what I will be getting this weekend :)


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