We the People...

This week we got to take a little art detour!  Tuesday was Constitution Day!  While students focused on learning about and reciting the Constitution of the United States in their classrooms, they came to art and got to learn about the art behind that and many other important documents of the time.  We learned about quill pens and the artists that used them.  Students learned that writers of the time were artists and that technology has changed writing and art drastically over the years.  The students even got to spend class trying their hand at being an 18th century writer!  They used quill pens made from authentic peacock feathers!  So neat!

For the coming week my 3-6 amazing artists will round out their form lesson by adding value to perspective drawings of their Pop Art Cakes.  My kindergartners are going to learn about line (2-D AND 3-D)! And my first and second grade sweeties are going to do a little portrait study with a special sitter at the end of the week!

Quill Pen Facts

http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/winter07/lettersside.cfm

Wayne Thiebaud (the cake guy!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI_QJ5D9Qm8

Patriot Day In Art

Leading Edge Academy East Mesa got patriotic this week in Art!  Students spent the week of September 11th learning about what it means to be patriotic.  In art class the students talked about Pop Art and how the more relaxed feeling after WWII influenced art.  Art became lighthearted and fun and flag art popped up all over!  Students competed against each other to create the most patriotic art they could!  All of the art created that week was displayed in the cafeteria and students got to vote for their favorites after lunch on Patriot Day.   Six lucky winners were awarded with character bucks and candy bars for their Most Patriotic Artwork.  Students have also agreed to share their artwork with our US Military Troops when the artwork comes down!  One truly neat week!

And the winners were:

1st Place - Larissa 

2nd Place - Indya

3rd Place - Osztin

Most Patriotic - Haylee

 Most Patriotic - Sophia

Most Creative -Katelyn

  

   

Stop into the cafeteria to check out the work!  I will be leaving it all up for you to see for the next week!  

Also in art this week my Kindergarten friends worked on portraits!  We learned about portraits, and self portraits.  We talked about the shapes that make up a face and how important it is to really look at your sitter.  Next week we will learn more about portraits in history and why artists paint portraits.  Oh, and if your Kinder wants to watch the video we saw this week it is called When Pigasso met Mootisse and it is on youtube!  Check out their Picasso Portraits below (they are of me!)!  

Also take a peek at the awesome weaving's that my third grade finished up this week!  AMAZING!!!  They practiced the element of space and landscape drawing in this lesson. 

Next week we are going to be using quill pens and reading Arlo Needs Glasses.  My older groups will be checking out the work of Wayne Thiebaud and drawing Pop Art Cakes!

P.S. We are in desperate need of new watercolor paints if you run across any in the back to school clearance bins we really could use them!  Thanks so much in advance!  

Math in Art!

That is right!  For all of my arithmeticians that "do not love art", this week was for you!  Most of our projects this week somehow tied into math as art (with the exception of Kinder and 3rd Grade...don't worry, you'll get your chance)!

Kindergarten Kindergarten this week played with color mixing.  We read "Mouse Paint" over and over and after using "Mrs. Krug's Magic Pencils" (watercolor pencils) to mix colors, we created our own "Mouse Paint" palette!  We continued to work on cutting this week and I have seen a huge improvement!  If you have been practicing at home keep up the good work!  At the end of the project, all of my good listeners (the whole class) got to add a mouse to their paint palate!

First and Second Grade focused on their favorite numbers and paying homage to them in a fancy portrait.  We talked about secondary colors and how to create them as well as Pop Art and creating exciting art using common things like numbers!  My little artists in these classes loved creating layers and did an amazing job on this project.  I actually would love to frame all of these and put them in my home!  So neat!!!

Third grade is continuing to explore the element of space through landscape drawings.  They also got to use my magic pencils!  This week they finished up their landscape drawing/painting and next week we will finish out this project by adding an awesome tree weaving right up front!

Fourth through sixth grade classes learned about color.  We created color wheels and talked about how complementary colors are used in art.  Students choose their own favorite set of complementary colors to finish out their Tessellation art work.  This group also focused on Math in Art this week as we continued to explore how a time of heavy focus on geometry effected artists like the cubists, Mondrian (our August Artist of the Month) and of course Escher.  Students good to look at a ton of pieces by M.C. Escher and we talked about Impossible Realism!

Take a look!

First Grade also created Color Birds this week.  We used these to play a fun color mixing game!

...And lastly, a little treat for the 4-6th...although I haven't quite finished up, here is my Tessellation!  I would have loved to post the students silly Tessellation Portraits, but their pictures could have created a privacy issue.  Coming soon to a backpack near you!

Next week we will focus on Pop Art while competing in a Design Your Own Flag contest!  We will talk about Patriotism in honor of Patriot Day on September 11th and use Pop Art to be patriotic!

It's all about perspective...

This week flew by and the kids must have heard some where that there was a three day weekend on the horizon!  It was a crazy week!  Despite all of the excitement, we covered a lot of ground this week!

Kindergarten got to read Mouse Paint and we are creating our own palate while working on mixing our primary colors to make secondary colors!  1st and 2nd grades are working on a portrait all about mixed media, secondary colors and their favorite number!  We are talking about the art of Jasper Johns and even got to do some marble painting!  3rd grade is learning perspective by creating landscapes that we will add a tree weaving to when we finish.  4th, 5th and 6th grade are all working on Tessellations and studying the art of M.C. Escher.  They seem to be really amazed that these cool patterns are math AND art!  We are creating our own tessellation background for photographic self portraits.  Pretty cool stuff.

Here is some of the stuff that we had been wrapping up from last week!  Kindergarten did these portraits based on ABC I Like Me, and 6th grade finished up reptile art work that focused on using pastels and geometric and organic shapes!

OH!  Last but not least!  The artist of the month for September is JASPER JOHNS!!

http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/audios/1/2176