Bacich Elementary Art Blog

TK: Winter Landscape with Bluebird With this winter landscape art project Transitional Kindergarten students explored texture painting for the bark and branches of birch trees. Students practiced scissor cutting, as well as gluing skills. Students created the blue bird out of one circle, cut in half, four and eight parts.  Using colored pencils, students added details to their personalized birds.  The Bluebirds are sometimes confused with other blue birds, but they can be distinguished without difficulty. The western bluebird has a blue (male) or gray (female) throat, the eastern bluebird has an orange throat, and the mountain bluebird lacks orange color anywhere on its body. It has a stocky build, and a thin straight beak with a fairly short tail. Its posture consists of perching upright on wire fences and high branches. The western bluebird pounces on the ground when looking for food, such as worms and berries. It also flies to cat...

Kindergarten: Leaf Prints This project was an introduction to watercolor and printing. Students were taught the wet-on-wet watercolor technique - using a water wash on the paper, on which a color is applied while the paper is still wet.   The myriad patterns and textures found on fall leaves, which were collected around campus were transferred by placing wet leaves onto a yellow underpainting. Students painted on top of the leaves with a variety of colors. Leaves must stay on background until completely dry! The result - soft backgrounds contrasted with beautiful textured patterns from nature! To create a frame for the leaf prints, students experiment printing with different tools such as corks, forks, tubes, etc. to print a pattern.  1 ST  GRADE: Color Theory: Fall Colors/Leaf Composition First grade students were introduced to their first color theory lesson. We read the wonderful book titled “Mouse Paint” by Ellen S...

TK/Kindergarten:     Discovering Lines Many people claim they cannot be artists because they "can't draw a straight line". Using the strategies of this unit "Discovering Lines" anybody who can hold a pencil can learn to draw. Drawing is basically a matter of close observation, breaking the subject into lines and shapes, and of course lots of practice.  This unit starts with a teacher/student discussion that anything we wish to draw, simple or complex, can be broken up into the "five line and shape families" (based on "Monart" methodology).  Students learned that they can use lines to create a representational or an abstract piece of art.  Students practiced drawing a variety of lines and shapes by copying simple and complex line designs. Students learned that each line or shape starts with a dot. To draw objects and challenging designs students learned to "break-down" their subject into lines and shapes. By using a bl...