Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Sorry For Posting Late

Well, I am posting a little later than expected. If you read my post last week, I shared with you that my family would be coming into town for Mr....I mean Dr. Chance's graduation :) My family was initially planning on going home on Sunday, but we ended up hanging out with them until late yesterday after, thus the reason I did not post like I had promised.

I guess though it is better late than never. This update will be a little different than normal. I will include the usual update, but toward the end of the post, I will share a recap of our 3rd Annual Art Show!!! On to the update....

K4: In preparation for our new monster sculptures we will be creating, the K4 students sketched ideas of what they think a monster would look like. There were the usual vampires and werewolves, along with several monsters that students have seen in the movies and on T.V. I can't wait to see how students will react this week when I give them a piece of pool noodle as the base of their monster!


K5: Since I arrived in South Carolina 5 years ago, I have waited for the opportunity to teach about Ernest Lee, or as many around here know him...The Chicken Man!!!! I love his art! It is just so fun and festive. With the end of the year quickly approaching, I thought that now would be the perfect time to discuss this famous local artist. For those of you who do not know the Chicken Man, he paints really cool, brightly colored, funky chickens. Now, he does paint other things as well, in fact, my husband and I own one of his awesome fish paintings, but he is most known for the chickens. He has been painting them for around 30+ years and has reportedly painted around 15,000 chickens for people around the city. He still paints daily and you can go and purchase one of his artworks from Mr. Lee himself downtown.
For our Chicken Man inspired paintings, students worked last week on choosing materials for the 5 different parts of their chicken: the body (fabric scraps), the comb (felt), the beak (felt), the wing and tail (feathers), and lastly the feet (scrapbook paper).



1st: To wrap up the year, I decided a couple of things. First, I wanted to begin to incorporate the Principles of Design into our last artwork and secondly, I wanted to create something summery. If you haven't found or read the book "I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean", by Kevin Sherry, you need to! It is hilarious! After finding that book again on my shelf, I knew that was what we needed to do. I asked students to think about their favorite ocean animal and then to imagine that animal creating art...aka their "Best Artist in the Ocean". This weekend, I will share our backgrounds and how we incorporated emphasis into our creations. Here are some of the sketches they created to start the project off...



2nd: Going along with the ocean theme or as I am calling it "Summer Celebration", I decided to continue it into the 2nd grade curriculum for the end of the year. After discussing the Principles of Design variety and pattern, students began sketching their ideas for our "Fancy Fish". I was cracking up at some of their ideas! So much fun!!!




3rd: This past week was a finishing day for the third grade. Students completed the final details on their artwork, as well as any critiques and journal entries. They are now ready to start a new project tomorrow!

4th: Fourth graders are still hard at work on their Op Art cubes. Some students began finishing theirs up this past week and assembled them using simple, clear Scotch tape.



 5th: To kick off our new project, students learned about quilts...I even showed students pictures of the National Quilt Museum and the National Quilt Show, both located about 20 minutes from where I grew up. It is really interesting to me to see how far quilts have come along from their traditional beginnings to ultra modern designs that look more like paintings. I was so happy to see students sharing my enthusiasm and interest!
Because we only have 3 real studio classes left this year, we really don't have the time to create a real quilt square using fabric and sewing techniques. Instead, we are drawing our favorite school memories and then will "sew" yarn around the edges of the square when the drawings are completed. 

6th: With the Art Show approaching, students used Wednesday of last week to add their final details to their Palmetto Trees. Now that we are all finished with our paintings, it is time for tie-dye!!!

No Art Club this past week :(

The Art Show was a hit again this year! In a similar style to last year, I chose one artwork to represent each student at our school. We partner again with the SpringHill Suites to put on this year's show. They set up the room and tables for us, in additional to providing some delicious food for all those who came to the event and Dr. Mr. Chance and I set up all of the art. I was really pleased with how things looked this year and very proud of all the accomplishments that students have achieved! I wish so badly that we could leave everything framed for a few more weeks so every family could see what we have created this year. But alas, all good things must come to an end...all the work has returned to the Art room and students will be receiving all of their projects Thursday to take home. Below are a few pictures of this year's show. Hopefully by the end of this week, I will be bringing a photo book to school to share all of the wonderful artworks and pictures I took!







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