SAVE-THE-DATE KINDERGARTEN ART SHOW

Parents, please save the date of Wednesday, April 22nd! I will host our annual Kindergarten Art Show in conjunction with Family Night Book Fair! :-) 

• You can show any time between the hours of 5:30-7:30. 
• Your child will have 1 masterpiece hanging for the show and the art will be grouped by classroom teacher. 
• Art will be displayed down the main kindergarten hallway and on some accordion panels. 

Kindergarten Self-Portraits

Kindergarten artists are learning about self-portraits. They are very excited to draw a picture of themselves! We are discussing how dots for eyes, triangle for a nose and a line for a mouth is not what a person looks like and that it is only a smiley face. I am having the children use their hands and feel the parts of their face and explain what it feels like; oval, bumpy, etc. The children will be using their hands to feel their face and will draw what they feel instead of looking in a mirror and then drawing. I feel children are able to create a more realistic and accurate self-portrait this way and they don't get as discouraged. When children used their hands to feel their eyes, they realized it to be an oval. Then, we said in the oval was a circle and a dot. When they felt their nose, they said it was kind of like a triangle but bumpy. I agreed that it more "bumpy" and not a triangle because triangles have 3 sharp pointy corners and their nose isn't sharp and pointy. I got lots of "ohhhh" and "duh". It was really cute. 

After kindergartners draw their self-portrait, they will look in a mirror for coloring. I have provided skin color crayons for children to match their skintone. They will find the appropriate crayon color for their eyes, mouth and hair. 
I also gave a brief introduction to famous artist Vincent van Gogh since he painted 101 self portraits. We talked about how real his eyes, nose and mouth were painted and the difference between realistic vs. non realistic. 

This project will take 2 art classes to complete. While most students were able to finish drawing themselves and start coloring, no one finished in the first class. The portraits are looking ADORABLE!!!!

Hundertwasser Landscapes

2nd grade artists are learning about Austrian artist and architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000). Hundertwasser used bright colors, organic forms, nature, spirals, onion domes, 'lollipop' style trees, windows of different shapes and sizes and curved or zig-zag lines. We are also reviewing what a landscape is along with foreground and background are. 

Children will look at architecture by Hundertwasser and will discuss what they see. They will get a 12x18 piece of white paper, draw their Hundertwasser-inspired landscape including a foreground line, house, background lines with "lollipop" trees and a sky. Artists will trace their drawing in Sharpie then color with markers and paint with liquid watercolors. 

Pictures from the 2nd Grade Art Show

Below are pictures of my 3 second grade classes art show art. Each 2nd grade child I teach had 1 masterpiece on display for the art show. I will add more pictures of the other 2nd grade art on display later today. During the art show, a bird craft was held in the art room. 

2nd Grade Art Show!!!!

I gave all of my 2nd grade students a note last week reminding about their art show tonight!!! You can view the art before or after their music concert in the 2nd grade hallways. Stop by the art room for a quick craft!

Happy Youth Art Month!!!

Dream House/Shape House

Last week, kindergarten artists are learned what an architect does and how to think out of the box and draw a house that does not look like a square with a triangle on top. I showed pictures of three famous architects: Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Libeskind, and Zaha Hadid. After looking at famous architecture from the various architects, I showed a few pages from the book, Arches to Zigzags, an Architecture ABC, by Michael J. Crosbie, so the children would have more ideas of things they could add to their house. One requirement for the project was to include the following shapes: square, rectangle,  diamond, oval, circle, triangle and semi-circle. After the drawings are complete, children will color in their drawing.


Below are some of the architects famous works and pictures of the kindergarten architects masterpieces.


 Falling Water House by Frank Lloyd Wright
 Wright's house in Chicago






 The Ascent, by Daniel Libeskind, located in Northern Kentucky

 The Contemporary Art Center by Zaha Hadid