Marc Chagall inspired Dream Paintings

Third grade students looked at the wacky and intriguing artist Marc Chagall. We discussed how he used his artwork as a way to share stories about his memories and dreams. Students found inspiration after looking closely at the ever famous “I and the Village” painting. Each third grader became the subject of their piece by drawing a self-portrait. Then, they chose an animal to share the limelight with. To top everything off, students told stories through dream images. I asked them, “What dream or memory might you have with the animal you chose?” and, “What dream could your animal have?” These questions encouraged students to push their imaginations. The icing on the cake: students painted their drawings with gouache paint and used wacky colors in the style of Chagall, himself. I must say, it was so exciting to see the creative results. 

Hardest Working Artist of the Semester

The results are posted on artscher.weebly.com!!! In the art room, students voted for their classmates who they believe deserve the Hardest Working Artist of the Semester Award. This award recognizes students who participate above and beyond in the art room with a tremendous ability to: stay on task, keep a positive attitude, demonstrate respect to everyone and everything in the classroom, and express creativity.

To see the winners for this semester follow this link, and click on the grade that you would like to see at the top of the page: artscher.weebly.com

3-in-1 Kinetic Drawings (Sol LeWitt, continued)

This piece of art may not move, but it sure does make you move. After exploring Sol LeWitt, students created three separate minimalistic drawings that explore three-dimensional shapes and design. The drawings were colored in using three separate color schemes: full-color, monochromatic, and black, white, and grey. Then, students created a base to hold the three drawings. There was a lot of measuring, folding, cutting, gluing, and taping that went into this project. The final result is a sculptural piece that has three separate drawings to be viewed by standing at different angles.

These photographs show the multiple views of one piece… 

Pinch Pots with "Feet"

Building upon ceramic skills from first grade, second grade students made pinch pots with an attached foot in art class. Students learned how to attach two pieces of clay together to become one piece. The trick is to score, slip, and weld both pieces together. Student chose between rolling a coil, and making 3-4 separate balls for a foot. Final touches included decoration and adding consistent coats of glaze.

Emotional Self-Portrait Yarn Drawings inspired by Edvard Munch

In fourth grade, students studied emotions and facial expressions, specifically the physical changes in the face when someone feels sad, happy, excited, surprised, angry, etc. We looked at how colors play an important role with emotions, and how you can often associate a feeling with a color. Students explored drawing different expressions and connecting them to related colors. Then, we looked at the art movement, Expressionism. In class, we discussed how artists use brush strokes and color to express their feelings at the time that they are creating their artwork. In particular, we looked at Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” and how he uses active lines and dull colors to reveal his emotion. Students chose a final emotion to express in a self-portrait, and studied the intricacies of their own face when making an expression. Finally, students drew with yarn to mimic the active lines that Munch used in “The Scream,” paying close attention to choosing the right colors to express their emotion. This is a personal favorite, as the results are always so unique! 

"Angry"

"Questioning"

"Thoughtful"

"Excited"

"Annoyed"

Glazed Coil Vessels

After bisque firing, fifth grade students applied colored glaze and gloss glaze to create a finished look.

It’s a Paper Sculpture Jungle!

I love to teach Alexander Calder. In second grade, we looked closely into the life of Calder and his humorous personality. His stabile sculptures were a source of inspiration for this project. Prior to this project, one class period was devoted to the “Paper Construction Challenge,” in which students rotated through stations that had a variety of paper sculptures at them (cones, cylinders, spirals, rectangular prisms, etc.). Students were given about 5 minutes at each station to attempt to construct what was in front of them. This was a fun way to get gears churning, and students engaged and ready for the stabile sculptures. After going over how to construct the paper sculptures, and how to use paper tabs to hold pieces together, each student made an abstract sculpture combining constructions.