Warm Leaves

On Monday rotation (extra art day), Kindergarten artists are choosing a color diffused leaf and using warm colored markers (red, orange and yellow) to color their leaf. They used brown (a neutral color) for drawing the veins of the leaf. After the leaf was colored in, they painted water on top which blended the colors together. I think they look beautiful hanging up in the windows!

 These leaves are hanging in the windows leading up to the library from the kindergarten wing

Cave Art with Kindergarten

Kindergarten artists learned about cave art, how cavemen lived, symbols that were used, and looked at a famous cave, Lascaux, in France.

When children arrived to art, Miss Zimmerman (my student teacher) told the children the art room had transformed into a cave and to get to the learning carpet, they had to crawl through a cave. We kept the lights off during art with only a couple of lamps on to give the feel of a real cave being dark. On the learning carpet, the children watched a virtual tour of Lascaux cave and we discussed the paintings and colors noticed on the cave walls. We continued to discuss how cavemen lived and some of the things used to make the paintings.

Kindergartners received a brown piece of construction paper. They used brown and black oil pastels to draw an animal (cow, rhino or horse with provided steps) and nature symbol (water, sun, rain, moon). After drawing, kindergartners used yellow and white chalk to color around their drawings since those were the colors they noticed in the virtual tour of Lascaux. They finished their cave art by making a handprint as their signature.

 Kindergarten cave the children crawled through to get to the learning carpet

 paintings inside the cave

 kindergarten artist crawling through the cave

 Kindergarten cave painting

Kindergarten Open House

Specials teachers will not be at open house tomorrow night (October 28). I plan to start sending home your child's masterpieces before Thanksgiving break. Thank you for your patience and support!

Art To Remember order forms coming home MONDAY!!!

Art to Remember order forms will be coming home in your child's backpack on Monday! Ordering is different than in years past-it is ALL ONLINE. No cash or check payments will be accepted at school! Credit card is accepted online. We hope ordering this year will be easier for you and your child; money won't be forgotten and order forms won't be lost. 

Your child's order form is personalized for your child; it shows your child's art on various items you can purchase along with the art being on the front. You will have until Nov. 3rd to complete your order.

Art to Remember artwork was created the 3rd week of school, so if your child started school late or if you were out of the country, I'm sorry, but you won't have an order form. It's too difficult to keep track of who was gone and who started when. You will have another chance for Art to Remember in 1st grade. I hope you understand.

Please don't hesitate to email me with any problems or questions! vardas@mason.k12.oh.us

Henri Rousseau Jungles

2nd grade artists have been learning about texture (the way something feels; bumpy, smooth, soft, hard, etc.) and implied texture (the way something LOOKS like it feels) to create an Henri Rousseau inspired jungle.


Rousseau was a French painter (1844-1910) who was a toll collector and self-taught artist. His best known paintings are of jungles, even though he never visited one himself. His inspiration came from books, botanical gardens and taxidermy animals.


In one art class, artists first created a horizon line (where the sky and the ground meet) with green paper by cutting a curvy, zigzag or bumpy line. Second, children used 2 different painted papers they made the week before to create grass. One way they made grass was by snipping the paper down the length of it. Another way was making skinny, sharp zig zag lines. Third, the sun was created by "scribbling" with warm colored construction paper crayons on orange paper then drawing a circle and cutting it out.


In another art class, children received brown paper to make two trees. After cutting out the tree trunks and branches, artists had to draw an implied texture with brown marker before gluing their tree together.


Next art, the children will add leaves to their trees along with adding a tiger to their picture.




 Jungle with Lion

Miss Zimmerman Teaching the Demonstration

Miss Zimmerman observed and interacted with the children so well that I had her teach a couple classes the demonstration for the art project on Monday and the carpet motivation learning on Wednesday. I am so excited that Miss Zimmerman is with us; she is fantastic!

 

Demonstrating how to make circles around each other.

Teaching the warm and cool colors.

SCSF/Adaptive Fall Art

My SCSF classes are creating Fall themed art and created bubble wrap printed corn husks and fall trees by stamping corks into paint for the leaves.

Kandinsky Circles

Kindergarten artists learned about another painting by Kandinsky on their Monday rotation (extra art day); Squares with Concentric Circles. While looking at the painting on the Smartboard, Kindergarten artists identified how Kandinsky used circles, lots of colors and squares to create his painting. Kindergarten artists received a 6"x6" paper, drew 4 or 5 circles using oil pastels, then painted with watercolors. Children had to work hard to pay attention to their paintbrush so it didn't get a "bad hair day" and to make sure they gave their paintbrush a "bath" before switching to a new color.

Squares with Concentric Circles, 1913

Shape Cutting

Kindergarten artists this week reviewed shapes by identifying them, drawing them on paper (with provided shape tracers to make sure they were drawn large enough) and cut them out. We discussed what it means to arrange the shapes on their paper and to overlap (when one shape goes over the top of another just a little bit) shapes. This project was wonderful practice for the artists! Cutting is still challenging for some, but they are getting better each time! Please continue letting your child use scissors at home to practice their cutting skills. If you ask your child which finger goes in the small hole of the scissors they should be able to tell you their thumb along with 3 fingers in the larger hole of the scissors. :-)

Student Teacher Starts Today

My student teacher starts today! Her name is Hannah Zimmerman and she attends Miami University. She will be with us until December 11th. I am (and I'm sure the children will be) very excited to have her with us!!!!

Secondary Color Fall Pumpkins

Kindergarten artists used their painted paper from last week and created a fall pumpkin picture. I provided various sizes of circle shape tracers for the children to make their pumpkins from. Usually I would let the children draw their own, but this early in the year, the majority of kindergartners have a difficult time drawing large enough. After the artists traced circles, they learned how to use scissors the correct way: thumb in the small hole, 3 fingers in the large. The hand holding the scissors should stay in front of their belly while cutting and not out to the side. Their thumb should stay "up" when cutting-when it does, they are giving themselves a "thumbs up job". If their thumb points down when cutting (if they flip their hand) they are giving themselves a thumbs down and not using scissors the right way.
The majority of children did an excellent job with this! I also had the children stand to cut so the table didn't get in their way and they didn't keep the paper on the table when cutting.
After the circles were cut, children started turning them into pumpkins by adding lines and stems. They also added a nighttime sky and learned a new way to make grass by snipping the top of the paper all the way down the length of it. If the child had their own idea for making their grass, I definitely let them do it their way! :-)

Color Mixing Fun!

Kindergarten artists learned how the Primary Colors can make orange, green and purple, called the Secondary Colors.  I read the book, Mouse Paint, by Ellen Stoll Walsh and showed a YouTube video: Sesame Street: OK Go-Three Primary Colors    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu44JRTIxSQ

The children mixed red and blue to make a purple paper, yellow and red to make an orange paper and if time allowed yellow and blue to make a small green paper. Next week, when the papers are dry, the artists are going to create Fall pumpkins from the orange paper, grass from the green paper and glue it to their purple paper.