September Art Blog 2019

Welcome to Art For Bears 

Bacich Visual Arts Program TK-4th grade

We are off to a fabulous start.  We are exited about our new tables and stools! The new furniture make the art room a complete, flexible, creative work space.  During our first art lessons of the new school year, we established routines, rules and practiced collaboration and sharing tools and supplies. 

All grade levels started the year with practicing drawing skills. KT-2nd grade worked on guided drawing activities and 3rd and 4th grade students explored drawing with two hands. 

Inspired by the Visual and Performing artist Heather Hansen 3rd and 4th grade students embraced the challenge to stimulate both sides of the brain drawing with both hands at the same time. The spontaneous layered line work and symmetrical designs students came up with were quite impressive. 

The Art Journal

It is a Bacich Art Room tradition that in the beginning of a new school year students get to start out their visual arts journey with grounding themselves with an art journal activity. Throughout the school year students will have the opportunity to use their art journals in a combination of sketching, note taking, and personal journal writing. Students reflect upon and evaluate their own learning. This allows students to place reading and writing in a context that is functional and personally relevant. 

One of the key lessons in the Bacich art program is that there are no mistakes in art. Besides being a means of recording, the art journal is a safe place for the student to express his or her thoughts and ideas in writing and drawing that is not corrected by the teacher, giving freedom for individual expression.

TK- 2nd grade Art Journal activities: Guided Drawing, Elements of Art, Discovering Lines and Shapes

Many people claim they cannot be artists because they "can't draw a straight line". Using the strategies of this guided drawing unit "Discovering Lines and Shapes" anybody who can hold a pencil can learn to draw. Drawing is basically a matter of close observation, breaking the subject into lines, shapes, and space and of course lots of practice. 

TK and Kindergarten students celebrated "International Dot Day" inspired by the book The Dot by Peter H. Renolds. Students connected with the story of making their mark and decorating their journal covers with many different dot combinations. 

Sometimes the simplicity of a line drawing can say more than color - and the delightful animal drawings 1st and 2nd grade students drew do just that!  In creating these fabulous animals the students leaned to recognize and categorize lines and shapes and space. 

3rd-4th GRADE Art Journal Making 

The art of upcycling is to reuse (discarded objects or materials) in such a way as to create a product of a higher quality or value than the original. Third through fourth grade students upcycled brown paper bags to create art journals. Students were introduced to the basics of bookbinding, the process of physically assembling a book from an ordered stack of recycled paper sheets folded together into sections. Students learned how to sew their journals with the saddle stitch book binding method.

Third and fourth grade students designed their art journal cover with a positive, inspirational, or personal word. Using graphic design principals students traced letter stencils onto their cover to spell their word of choice. Using warm/cool color schemas and pattern designs students colored their letters to create a pop art effect. Pop artist Jasper Johns' bright colored works of letters and numbers was an inspiration for many students.