November 2014, Art Blog

Kindergarten:

Tree of Life inspired by Gustav Klimt:

Our Kindergarten students were introduced to the Austrian “Art Nouveau” painter Gustav Klimt (born in 1862). Klimt had created many world famous paintings such as “The Kiss” and the painting the Kindergarten students were introduced to called “The Tree of Life”. Gustav Klimt painted the Tree of Life, during his Golden Era as seen by the extensive use of the golden color on this piece.
Gustav Klimt’s decorative art nouveau stile, with his use of colors and abstract shapes, is full of symbolism and can be interpreted in so many ways.  

1^ST GRADE:

Self-Portrait a la Picasso:

Our first grade students have been studying the works by Pablo Picasso. Students were introduced to the true story: Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail written and illustrated by Laurence Anholt. The story illustrates how Picasso’s work went through many changes and stages, from realistic portraits-to scrambled and obscured compositions, collages, and studies like Cubism. 

Students painted one realistic self-portrait, and created a second self-portrait in a cubistic collage form. Students especially enjoyed “braking the art rules” in creating the cubistic portrait, moving the facial features around and designing a scrambled look of themselves. 

2^ND GRADE:

Warm/Cool Color Dragons

Our second grade students continued their studies with color theory working with the two color schemes warm and cool. Each student cut and pasted imaginary dragons out of paper, representing either the warm or cool color family. With black pen and oil pastels, details such as, sharp teeth and claws, scales and spikes, horns and wings were added. 

As a whole class we celebrated our fantastic warm and cool color dragons by displaying them in a pretend art museum and sharing compliments about each others work. 

3rd GRADE:

Constellation Illustrations

What do you know about constellations? A constellation is a group of starts forming a recognizable pattern that is traditionally named after its apparent form of an identified mythological figure. Astronomers today recognize 88 constellations. Most of the constellations were identified long ago by the stargazers of Ancient Greek and Egypt. 

The constellation of the Great Bear-also known by its Latin name Ursa Major contains an easily recognizable group of seven stars called the Big Dipper. In their science class, third grade students were introduced to the most common constellations seen in the northern sky.  During art class students were introduced to the basic artistic background of how artists have illustrated constellations in the past and in the present. Using the ipad app called “star walk” students were able to view constellations in the sky in an interactive way.  

Students were asked to chose a constellation they felt drawn to and excited about. Using white sketch pencils students carefully mapped out the exact number of stars in their constellations and sketch the mythological figures and creatures around them.  For finishing touches gold start stickers were put in place and students used high quality prisma-colored pencils to render their fantastic illustrations in a cross-hatching technique. 

4th GRADE:

Tree Wire Sculpture: 

The fourth grade students were introduced to the basics of sculptures. They learned the difference between abstract and representational sculptures and what the difference is between two-versus three-dimensional art. Students were directed to use 10 strands of aluminum wire to bend and twist a representational sculpture of a tree. Thinner steel wire, aluminum wire, colored twisty wire, beads and buttons were added for volume and color accents. The fourth grade artists created amazing tree sculptures with unique characteristics.  

Along with this sculpture unit 4th grade students were introduced to the "Visual Literacy" concept of "How artists can convey meaning, a message, idea." In a class discussion students were responding to two different titles for the same piece of artwork. Students shared great connections and insides about how a title of an art piece can change a viewers perception or opinion.  Students practiced critical thinking in developing a fitting title for their tree sculptures. They revised their titles and came up with thought-provoking, clever titles to support their message or meaning of their tree sculptures. Have a conversation with your child about the message/idea she/he is communicating.