Links..including a great Dr. Seuss Interactive Site!

Lately, I have been encouraging your children to keep checking up on this site because I will be adding art work each time that could be theirs.  I have also offered character bucks to any student that can "prove" their visit to me by coming in with a little info off the site.  The more that I have thought about this site I want to gear it a little more towards the students than I have been.  I hope you will as well.  Please, if you see art work you love, compliment the students in the comments!  Remember there is very little space on either campus for me to display student work for students, parents and teachers to see so I know they would love seeing that you are viewing it here!  As my part of the bargain   I will be including more links to artwork and information on each artist for the students to be able to check out!  

That said, here are links to Jim Dine, Salvador Dali, and Ralph Steadman!

Salvador Dali Interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUH_HVei7L0&feature=youtu.be
http://www.salvadordali.com/

Jim Dine (Gallery Installation)...and YES he is still alive ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_hrwrlmSNc
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/scobie/jim-dine6-28-10.asp

Ralph Steadman (Alice In Wonderland)
http://wonderland.paperstreetsupplies.com/2009/09/gonzo-in-wonderland/

Dr. Seuss (Super fun interactive site!)
http://www.seussville.com/#/author

Art is Sur-really neat!

Such a surreal time this past week!  Your children learned all about Salvador Dali and his life time as one of the very rare "living famous" artists!  We learned that the definition of Surreal is real with a little twist.  We also talked about how dreams were a great source of inspiration for Surrealist artists like Salvador Dali because of their real/not real aspects!  Such a fun lesson!  The students all worked on portraits of Salvador Dali who was well known for his many fabulous mustache styles!  They learned that a portrait is a picture of someone while a self portrait would be of themselves!  For this project they even got to work in watercolor paint!  On these portraits we worked first in Sharpie to create the outline and then finished them up with  watercolor!  The kids thought that it looked really neat!  I completely agree!!!  My younger students even got to do mustache portraits but they worked in marker and it was just a one day project.  They loved seeing pictures of Salvador and that mustache!  I could not get enough of their reactions!  Just ask them about him...really!  They also did another one day project similar to Dali's long leg animals!  We talked about how the animal was mostly extremely realistic while their legs seemed to be a mile long!  The kids got to create their own realistic animals while I added pipe cleaner legs that they could manipulate!  So much fun!  

Next week we are moving on to a line study.  Most of the kids mentioned that they worked on line earlier in the year, but I know that is just going to help make them experts.  We will run right through the lesson quickly and get into using lines to illustrate (Harold and the Purple Crayon for the younger students, and Ralph Steadman for the older students), and even work on some 3 dimensional lines while we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss!  Which, by the way, is TODAY!  Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!  

Anyhow, on to the awesome art we made this week!!

Add a little POP to your Valentine!

Jim Dine - POP ART STUDY

1st Grade

Kinder

5th Grade

6th Grade

4th Grade

3rd Grade

2nd Grade

This weeks focus was POP art!  What better way to celebrate a season of love than a movement that celebrates every day awesomeness!               Pop art  is all about art from every day objects. The students learned about famous Pop Artist, Jim Dine and his series of hearts.  My East Mesa students worked with paint this week also!  I bet you heard about that!  They had so much fun!  My K-2 kids masked off their own hearts with painters tape to discover negative and positive space.  They painted them with red, white and black paint while exploring texture and using several different tools to get all sorts of neat designs!  The 3-6th grades created backgrounds for their Pop art using crumpled paper.  What a great texture!  They then used oil crayons to create Pop Hearts Jim Dine would have been proud of!  I was so excited about these that I cleared the walls of the art room and I have them displayed around the perimeter of the room!  If you are on campus this week, please stop in and check them out!  

Grade 2

 Grade 3

Grade 2

 Grade 4

Grade 5

At Maricopa LEA this week we also took a good look at Pop Art!  In the K-2 classes the students created their hearts out of primary color oil crayons.  They created texture and got to cut and glue!  That is always a hit!!!  My students 3-5 also took a close look at Jim Dine and his series of hearts.  They created 4 hearts using what they learned about color (primary, secondary, tints, shades, complementary) to make their own pop art series!  We mounted everything to black paper in the end to create a really neat clean look!  I handed these all back at the end of the week in hopes that maybe a few Mom's and Dad's would get Pop Art Valentines!  My 6th grade class this week focused on fonts and the history of typesetting.  They learned all about typesetting and how font design has changed literacy and art dramatically.  Each student is now using what they have learned and designing their own font that we will hopefully use through out the course of the rest of the year!

What's Next?!  Salvador Dali and Surrealism!  We are going to be making some Surreal Mustache Portraits and some pretty TALL circus animals!  Check back soon to get a look!  

My first week was...

"We love ART because..." Project

 Amazing!!!  Teaching your students was so much more rewarding than I ever anticipated!  They are bright, creative and enthusiastic!  At East Mesa this week we worked on "We love ART because..." where the students and I got acquainted with name cards.  Each student created a table tent style name card that included their name and was illustrated with the reason they love art!  It was really great to see what they love to do so that I can plan going forward.  I also got to see what level artists I was working with (awesome, by the way!).  These projects will come home soon, but I want to be sure that I have a few more names under my belt before I let them go!  Also at East Mesa we began a study on negative and positive space with my K-2 classes.  The students each drew a heart and masked it off with artists tape,  (which was quite a bit of ripping and sticking for my young students) and as I expected they did great!  This week we will paint the remaining paper using lots of texture and then remove the tape to see the positive and negative space we created!  My 3-6 grade students are learning about Jim Dine and his heart series (notice a Valentine's day trend?!).  We talked about Pop Art, Jim Dine and worked with primary colors and texture as we work towards a 2 heart series of our own!  I cant wait to post some of these for you to see!  

I finished up my week at the Maricopa campus, and boy did I make more than a few new friends there!  At LEA Maricopa, my students also started out our time together working on name cards for their desks!  They also answered the question "I love ART because..."  On Thursday we began a new project also on Jim Dine focused around the upcoming Valentine's Day.  Students K-2 worked with oil crayons in primary colors to create a heart/s to be mounted on black paper.  We discussed primary and secondary colors.  My students 3-5 worked on hearts as well.  I also introduced them to the work of Jim Dine, famous Pop Artist of the late 50's.  During this project we discussed color, what a series is as well as gave examples of Pop Art!  They will be finishing up their projects by mounting multiple hearts in oil crayon on paper to create their own series on Wednesday of next week.  I cant wait to see how they all come out!  Their hearts were just awesome!  
Check back to see pictures!

Rules-schmooles...

Being that I am a new teacher new mid-year, I thought that I would post my own Art Class rules!  ...Don't worry, they aren't too bad!  There aren't a ton either but it is possible that as I get settled more may develop based on necessity, but for now...Heads up, here is what I expect!

1.  Have FUN!  Don't Stress!  This is ART Class!
2.  Do your best work.
3.  It is ok not to like your art, but keep working you may change your mind.
4.  You can talk all that you like while you work, just not while I am talking.  Please stay in your seat and use your indoor voice. 
5.  When the lights go out, listen up!  It is either time to clean up, time to listen for more instructions, or someone just did something totally AWESOME that I want to share with you!  
6. Please enter and leave my class quietly. 
7.  Be respectful of materials, your friends and your sweet art teacher.  (And remember...we only draw on our own papers!)

Each class period I will choose an Art Smarty or a Super Helper to reward you for your hard work!  I also will be having a class competition through the year.  Each class will get a sticker on their chart for a productive and great class, the class with the most stickers at the end of the year will get a special treat on their last day of class!

Not too bad right?  Now let's get down to ART!!

Hi Class!

Students and parents!  Thank you so much for having me as your Art Teacher!  I am so excited to start this new journey with Leading Edge Academy! 

 A little about me?  I am a mom of 2 beautiful girls.  My kindergartner is a student at Leading Edge Academy.  My other daughter is just 3 months old.  My husband is local business owner (a motorcycle mechanic at Medusa Cycles).  I completed my BFA in Illustration and Drawing in Buffalo, NY and moved here to Arizona (escaping the nightmare winters) shortly there after.  Although my passion was art and children's art specifically I found myself providing for my family in a banking job.  Although I have enjoyed learning the banking industry and my co-workers over the years, I am so excited to have to opportunity to share my true love with your kids!  This really is a dream come true for me!

What can you expect?  I have so many exciting projects planned as well as ideas for growing art in your homes and in school down the road!  Please keep an eye out for posts of student art work each time we complete a section as well as a Art Smarties of the week!  Parents, please check back often to keep up to date on what your student is up to in art class, no doubt they will be excited to discuss it with you!  And please, feel free to drop me a note any time at jkrug@leading edgeacademy.com.  I would love to hear what you think of their work!  Students, get excited!  There are so many fun things to come! 

Finally, if you are willing to donate any supplies or items that we need for projects please let me know and I will provide you with a list you can choose from.  Also, if you have any local artist friends we would love to have a guest speaker, gallery show or a even the possibility of field trip down the road! Just drop me an email!