Monday art includes lots of color

The kindergarten started the day with the books 7 blind mice and "Mouse Paint" learning about colors and mixing colors. They colored the white mice's ears, tails, and feet in the primary colors then made rainbows coming out of the mice's paint brushes. It was a fun project.

The 4th grade created the warm hands in a geometic cool figure. Distinguishing the warm and cool colors was hard until we decided that if the hand was " alive" and therefore "warm" that the colors would be red, orange and yellow. It was easier to do the cool colors as the ones that might be water or grass.

Art to celebrate Georgia O'keeffe's birthday

The 2nd and 3rd graders did a complicated floral project to celebrate Georgia O'Keeffe's birthday and learn a little about the artist and her life. The students folded the paper then marked it to cut out the petals. A few had mishaps but all were able to get the flowers cut with a little help. We talked about vibrant colors and LARGE art that was her specialty. We used colored pencils and markers then added 3-D centers with bright colored tissue paper wads. The students were pretty creative and everyone wanted to show off the flowers they made. This is a great project to work on manual dexterity and learn about color intensity.

1st Grade makes clay and pinecone turkeys

It was not very messy and everyone was able to do these turkeys with just a little help. We used pinecones that had opened just a little but still had pointy ends for the head. First we made the feathery tails from a paper plate and drew our own feathers and colored them. Using the homemade clay in brown, yellow and red we created the head, comb, beak and goblers and pressed them on. We glued the tail to the body, some needed a bit of a splint or cushion between the tail and cone to seat them. Of course most of the students have not seen live turkeys but these are a pretty good representation anyway.

2nd & 3rd grade create Veteran's day multimedia pictures

November 11th is Veteran's Day so we used one of the Picturing America prints, Childe Hassam's Allies Day May 1917, to create multimedia pictures and to expand our knowlege of history a bit too. 


The students were told to look at the print and then do their picture from the perspective of being at the parade--what are they seeing, what are they hearing, is there confetti falling, are there crowds of people, etc. The picture was done in colored pencils with construction paper confetti.


We learned when Veteran's day and Memorial day began. We found out which president was in office then. We identified most of the flags in the print. We talked about people throwing confetti (shreds of paper) down onto the parades in times past. They did a great job interpreting the day.

Vincent's Sunflowers are done!

The 4th grade and after school art class both completed their paintings this week of Vincent Van Gogh's three sunflowers. It was a challenging painting for us but they really turned out quite good. We decided that the dark green background was too dull and learned to use artist medium with the paint to make a multicolored background. The wooden table also got some dressing in some of the paintings with checked or colored table cloths appearing.

The after school group will do another painting from Van Gogh but switch to watercolors in the next couple of weeks. I hope the 4th grade found a modern art painting they liked to follow up their trip to the Blanton. We may have to take a look at some of Picasso's work next week.

Kindergarten paints a neighborhood

"Imagine that you are riding on a bird and flying high above the ground" the instructions began. "What do you see looking down on your neighborhood?" The students closed their eyes (briefly) then hands waived wildly as each wanted to say what he or she had "seen." Students donned their painting shirts and aprons (borrowed from the pre-school) and fingerpainted the things they saw on special paper with tempera paints. They did a large road with a crossroad, a stream and a pond, trees and areas of dirt--dirt intreagued them! Trees without trunks were a hard concept though.

The second week we again imagined being high above the ground and pointing out the buildings we saw and the other things we thought were in the neighborhood. Each drew these on a sheet of paper, colored the drawings with markers, cut the sections out with scissors and glued them to the painting from last week. They even remembered the fire station and the movie theater as buildings they might have on the "map."

After school art class tackles VanGogh's sunflowers

It is taking a bit longer than we thought but the results are well worth the time. We are using one of Vincent Van Gogh's many sunflower paintings as our subject on a small canvas. First the students drew or transfered a drawing to the canvas--they learned how to make graphite transfers--many prefered to draw freehand. Next we painted the emerald green pot and began the sunflowers and their leaves. Some have chosen the traditional wood table as a base others are putting their own mark on the painting by changing to a tablecloth. We expect to complete them next week and smudge in a background behind the flowers. You can see a copy of the painting in the background. Each student has their own brush pack and is taking care of cleaning and replacing the brushes in addition to setting up their own paint palette and keeping up with wash water. This is really a great group. I am looking forward to the boats on the shore painting next.

3rd grade creates their own painted prayer rugs

This class is getting lots of opportunity to combine art with other subjects. We reviewed a wide variety of prayer rugs last week using the computer projector--taking note of designs, colors, borders and learning about fringe. The students started a sketch to guide them on the project. Towels are a bit of a challenge to paint on but the price and size were right so we gratefully started on them. Each student has redrawn parts of their design in colored chalk then using fabric medium and acrylic paint they started the designs. It will take several weeks to complete the rug but it looks like it will be worth it. The students were impressed by the detail on some of the very old rugs we found pictures to share.