Out Thursday and Friday

The sitter who watches my daughter lost her son over the weekend in a horrible accident so she had to take off from watching our daughter this week. Unfortunately, my backup sitter is about to give birth (due in a week) and doesn't feel comfortable watching any children (understandable). So, my husband and I are taking turns staying home with her this week. I will be out on Thursday and Friday. I wanted to let everyone know in case you child comes home saying things were crazy in the art room. Mrs. Sojda, a guest teacher who most kindergarten children know already, will be my sub. She will be following all of my plans; she stopped in yesterday to go over everything. The children will be painting and color mixing.

Polymer Clay Birds and Owls

2nd grade artists have been working hard the past couple of weeks creating a bird or owl from polymer clay. Polymer clay is a modeling clay that is put into an oven to harden (i.e. Sculpey-you can buy at a craft store) 2nd graders learned the difference between 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional art, the difference between a circle and sphere and the difference between polymer clay and regular clay.
Children started by softening the clay in their hands by squeezing it, then they rolled the clay into a ball. Then, the children created the shape of their bird or owl and started adding eyes and a beak. Finally, the children started adding wings/feathers and other details (i.e. necklace, mohawk, bow tie, mustache, hat, glasses, crown) by marbeling, twisting and color mixing the clay. I will be cooking the sculptures for the children before they bring them home.

 

 

Line Sculptures

Kindergarten artists are creating primary colored line sculptures in the art room this week. We reviewed the lines learned (straight up-and-down, straight side-to-side, dotted, zigzag, curvy, bumpy and loopy) and the Primary Colors (red, yellow and blue). Children are getting a half sheet of black construction paper to glue their lines to and are using short and long primary colored lines for their sculpture. We also discussed the difference between 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional art. I taught the children how to bend lines and wrap lines around a pencil to make their lines "pop" off the paper and the children are using Just a dot, Not a lot of glue to hold the paper strips down. The sculptures are coming home the same day your child has art since I do not have space to hold all of them. I will hold onto 2 classes of sculptures for a bulletin board display.

 

SCSF art

My SCSF art class comes to art for 40 minutes, but is split into two 20 minute classes. The first group that comes are my kindergartners which consist of 4 children and their para professional. When the kindergartners leave art, the second group walks in which consists of 1st and 2nd graders. There are 6 children total and 4 para professionals. Most of the children in these classes are non-verbal and communicate via IPad. Below are some of the projects we've done over the past few weeks.

 Children finger painted a large piece of paper with red finger paint mixed with a texture medium. After their paper was dry, I cut it up into pieces and the child glued the pieces onto their flower.





Children made a Mondrian inspired piece with precut red, yellow and blue construction paper. They finished by gluing black vertical and horizontal lines over the top.

 I taped each child's initial onto a piece of paper and the child finger painted with red, yellow and blue finger paint. Once the paint was dry, I took the tape off to reveal their initial

Children had two open-ended art projects: a mixed media collage using glue and Do-a-Dot markers to create a piece of art.

  Children used liquid watercolors to cover their paper then we painted their hands for a handprint on the top.

Children created a Kandinsky inspired piece of art. The one on the left is from one child in the 1-2nd grade class who looked at one of my examples and copied some of it. The one on the right is from the same class and the child used watercolors first then glued black lines on top. Very different skill levels within this class! 

Art To Remember

Art to Remember pieces are finished-Kindergarten created Georgia O'Keefe inspired flowers, 2nd grade created Britto inspired flowers in vases, and my SCSF classes painted a watercolor background and made handprints on top.


Art to Remember ordering will be DIFFERENT this year. After I send the child's art to the company, they will send me the order forms with a picture of your child's art on it (just like last year). The new part is: ORDERING WILL BE ONLINE ONLY. Your child will have a special code on their order form and all orders will be placed online. Do not send checks or money to the school.


Order forms will be coming home mid-October.

Mondrian Masterpieces

Kindergartners are learning about the Primary Colors (red, yellow and blue) and will paint a 12"x18" representational piece like artist Mondrian. We will review straight lines: up-and-down, side-to-side and the children will draw 3 up-and-down lines and 2 side-to-side lines on their paper. They will use tempera paint for the primary colors and tracing their lines. Please remember that the paint does NOT always like to wash out of clothes-PLEASE PROVIDE AN ART SHIRT OR SMOCK FOR YOUR CHILD!!! I cannot provide a class set due to health concerns of children (lice, etc.).

Piet Mondrian is a Dutch painter, born in the Netherlands (1872-1944), and is known for his non-representational paintings of a grid of horizontal and vertical lines and the use of primary colors. 

Composition C (No.III) with Red, Yellow and Blue

Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue

Artists starting to paint

Completed Mondrian inspired art 

Kandinsky Line

This week, kindergarten students learned about famous artist Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky is a Russian painter and is known for his abstract art pieces. I showed the children Kandinsky's painting, Study for Composition II and we discussed the colors we saw and the black lines.

The lines taught are: straight up-and-down, straight side-to-side, dotted, zigzag, bumpy, curvy, and loopy. I told the children today they are transformed into ARTISTS. I heard oohs and saw faces light up with huge smiles. It was a wonderful moment I wish I could've had caught on camera to share with you how excited they were.


To start off the project, the children used black crayon to draw the 7 lines learned. They were able to draw the lines anywhere they wanted on the paper. After painting, the children used liquid watercolor paint and started painting their paper. The children who did not finish will be able to on "extra art day".

Kandinsky

When painting, the children learned they need to wipe the brush on the top of the paint cup so paint doesn't drip everywhere. They also needed to watch their brush so it didn't get a "bad hair day". This is when the brush starts getting flat and then gets spiky. When this starts to happen, they are supposed to give the paintbrush "a drink".  I told them that when a paintbrush gets too many bad hair days, the brush gets ruined and I have to throw away the paintbrush. The children thought a bad hair day was super funny.

Children also learned how to hold a paintbrush correctly by holding in the middle of the brush-not at the end and not on the silver part. Some children are still trying to hold overhand (pronate grasp) so I've been going around fixing their hold.



Study for Composition II

a bad hair day brush

student art-starting to paint

almost done painting

one finished painting

My daughter turned 1!

My daughter turned 1 on August 1st and we had her picture taken a few days prior. We just got her photos back a week ago and wanted to share with you what keeps me busy outside of work! She keeps us very busy and is constantly learning new things and words along with walking everywhere. Love her to pieces!

Keep Calm and Love Art

Found this online and I love it-the colors, the crown and the saying!

Georgia O'Keefe Flower Drawings

Kindergartners were introduced to their 1st artist, Georgia O'Keefe. O'Keefe is a 20th century American painter and is best known for her flower canvases and southwestern landscapes.

Kindergarten students learned how to draw a large scale flower and did their drawing on top of their tissue paper collage from last week. Since the children used water instead of glue to adhere the tissue paper, the tissue fell off and left their big paper bright, colorful and fun! This project will be their art for Art to Remember. This year, ordering for Art to Remember will be different. Please stay tuned later this month for instructions and look for a letter to come home with your child! (The funds I receive from Art to Remember orders help me buy special materials for the art room that my budget does not allow-scratch art paper, special paints, etc. It also allows me to create large scale murals with the students-the adhesives, plywood, installation costs)