Second Grade Explores Dale Chihuly!

Although the BES Art has not been busy on the blog lately (I am sorry!), we sure have been busy in the art room!  I am so excited to finally debut a huge unit that second grade has been knee deep in for the past 2 months.  As some of you might know, the contemporary glass artist Dale Chihuly had a special large exhibit of his work at our very own Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  As a Beaverdam native myself, I know how far away Richmond City seems from our small little town... BUT we are so lucky to have such a wonderful resource less than an hour away where we can see art up close and personal.  This is why I thought it was so important to introduce students to the artist Dale Chihuly and his artwork and try to spark the student's interest in going to visit the VMFA.  I hope some of you were able to go!!  If not, the students sure did learn a lot anyways right here at BES!

We started the unit just like Chihuly starts his glass work... by creating a painting!  Chihuly explains that he does not think about his paintings while he is doing them and that is what makes them so special and interesting.  Students had a great time experimenting with this way of art making.  THe results were MAGNIFICENT!!!

 

The next Chihuly series of work we looked at was his Ikebanas.  Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement and you can see the corelation when you look at his glass Ikebana series.  Students created their own on a much smaller scale using clay and glazes.  The clay medium made them fragile like glass and the glaze made them smooth, shiny, and reflective like the surface of the glass medium.  Take a look!

 

 

In between the clay handbuilding and glazing of the Ikebanas, students explored Chihuly's Maccia glass series.  Students experimented with creating their own Maccia like form using washable markers on coffee filters and spraying them with liquid startch to make the colors run together.  The startch also helped them keep a cup shape by letting them dry while slumped over a cup.  The finished result was translucent and similar to Chihuly's Maccias.  We displayed them as a whole grade installation and people really oohhed and awwed over them!

 

 

 

The last series we studied had the biggest WOW factor... the chandelier series!!  Students were able to use plastic soda bottles to paint the inside and cut into different lines to create the second grade collaborative chandeleir that now hangs in the main office here at school.  It is amazing discovering kid safe materials that show a similar surface quality to glass.

 

 

Weaver T. Beaver is all sorts of excited with this new art addition to his habitat!

 

This unit was so much fun!  I want to give a HUGE thank you to everyone who donated plastic bottles!  I also want to thank the VMFA for having this amazing exhibit and offering the teacher workshop that I went to to learn more about bringing Dale Chihuly into the elementary art room.  Please ask your second grader about their "Chihuly-Smarts" because I know they would be happy to share their knowledge. :)

 

 

 

 

 



 

Back At It!

Today was my last day of introducing students to all of the new routines in the art room. This means that everyone in the whole school has had their first art class of the school year! The first art class is a good time to go over introductions and expectations but it is also important to get them started on creating artwork. As I have mentioned before, I love doing collaborative art the first week to show the students how important they all are individually and what awesome things they can get accomplished when they all work together.

"Meet Our Colorful Students"

For this lesson, 2nd through 5th grades created self-portraits. The catch was that they had to use the color of the table they chose to sit at for the year. So people who sat at purple table used purple markers, purple crayons, and purple colored pencils and so on. We discussed what a self-portrait was and then got started on a little color theory. Second and third grades learned about color value. Their challenge was to experiment with the different drawing materials at their table to make both dark and light values of their color. Grades four and five took it a step further and learned about analogous color schemes. Analogous colors are colors that are neighbors on the  color wheel. Ex. Purple and red, green and blue, etc. They had to start with the color of the table they sat at and then they could choose one analogous color to go to and finish their self-portrait. These analogous color schemes helped the large mural transition from one color to the next. Ex. Green, green and blue, blue. This was an awesome lesson because it introduced new concepts while also reviewing art vocabulary that I knew some of them had already learned last year.

Kindergarteners and first graders also have to use the color of the table they sat at, however, they did line drawings. For first graders, this was an awesome review of different lines that we discussed last year. For kindergarteners, it helped me to see what they already knew about color and lines and determine each students' fine motor skill development.

I worked with a few students after school putting this mural all together. I am so thrilled at how it looks and can't wait to hear about the students reactions when they go to school tomorrow to see it for the first time all together. It sure has a "WOW" factor to it!! Parents please come by to see it in person!

*Special "THANK YOU" to the blog Elementary Art Fun for this awesome first week lesson idea!*

http://elementaryartfun.blogspot.com/search/label/back%20to%20school

Reminiscing

As I begin this new blog with the 2012-13 school year on the horizon, I can't help but think about the wonderful first year teaching I had last year. I learned so much about myself as an art educator and really got to know all of my students and their abilities as well. Therefore I am dedicating this post to the first art project we did together last year.

I wanted to do something collaborative to teach the students that wonderful things happen when we all work together. I also wanted to give them a little art history at the same time to get them used to my style of teaching.

Our school theme for the year last year was "Beaverdam is on a Quest for Learning" so I wrote out block letters for the slogan "Lets Quest to get Art Smart!" and cut them into puzzle pieces. I talked about patterns with kindergarten and first graders and then gave each student a puzzle piece to color with different patterns.

Second graders learned about the artist Andy Warhol and we talked about cool and warm colors. I had drawn the outline of Warhol's famous Campbell's Soup can and cut them into puzzle pieces. Each child got a piece and had to find the warm colors in their markers and use them to complete their puzzle piece.

Third grade learned about Pablo Picasso and the still life genre through his "Bowl and Pitcher" still life artwork. They also learned about cool and warm colors and had to pick out the cool colors in their oil pastels to fill in their puzzle piece. 

Fourth grade had it a little more difficult because with theirs I did not do a pre-drawing. They learned about the artist Vincent Van Gogh and his famous Starry Night painting. I cut up their puzzle pieces as well as the famous artwork and they each got a piece of the artwork. They had to look at their piece of the artwork and carefully replicate it onto their paper puzzle piece. This taught them the importance of observation and planing. 

Fifth grade learned about Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa". They also had a piece of the artwork and had to replicate it free hand onto their paper puzzle piece. I taught them how to blend oil pastels to create skin tones. Again, they learned the skill of observation and careful planing. *A student was absent that day so I demonstrated the facial part of this piece... can ya tell?  ;)

This first project of the 2012-13 year was very successful and fun! Within 45 minutes I was able to introduce myself as their new art teacher and teach an actual lesson with a wonderful outcome! I am looking forward to the collaborative art project that I have planned to kick off the 2012-13 school year!