Kindergarten- All sorts of artists!

At CSES, we are currently making art around the big idea of Culture.  Kindergarten is learning that people make art in all cultures around the world.  These people are called different things depending on what type of art they create.  The first class, students worked as potters and learned that potters create art out of clay. They worked hard exploring clay and creaing their pinch pots.  Of course they all LOVED being a potter because who doesn't love clay!? :)

This week, students worked as sculptors creating paper line sculptures.  We talked about the difference between 2-D (flat) and 3-D (popping out) and how we could create 3-D lines.  Students had so much fun making these line sculptures because they sparked their imagination!  We had many invisioning a skate park. amusement park, or playgound in their creations.  These sculptures were so vibrant and beautiful that I decided to display them all together in the hallway around our artist spotlight.  Everyone who visits agrees that these sculptures are eye catching and beautiful!  Come by and check out all of our kindergarten sculptors' colorful sculptures!

Next week, students will explore the Japanese art of Gyotaku (fish rubbing) printing!!  Come back to check out this cool form of art!

Art Centers: Drawing

Each year the Virginia Art Education Association conference pumps me up (even more than I already am) about what I have dedicated my life to.  I love going and taking in all of the great ideas that are shared there between art educators.  There are so many, it takes a while to go through my notes and think about what I want to implement in my own art room.

One thing that really stuck out to me was a session I attended that discussed using art centers in the art room.  The benefits of art centers are that students are self-directed and free to explore art materials and processes.  Today I set up drawing art centers for students.

We had two observational drawing centers.  One was a still life center where students could set up their own still lifes and draw them.  The other was a portraiture center where students could look in a mirror and draw a self-portrait or work with the person across from them and draw them.

The other five centers were using how to draw books of various animals. Each table had books for different animals such as ocean animals, dessert animals, rainforrest animals, insects, dogs, cats, horses, and dinosours. 

The students loved these drawing centers and at the end they were so eager to know when they could work with centers again.  Art centers are definitely something I can implement on weeks in between units and students would love them each time.  I look forward to including more art center days centered around other art media and art processes.

Art Makes You Smart!

It is true!  I came across this NY Times article about a study on the benefits of visiting art museums. With the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts right up the road from us, I think this is a great article to share with our Dolphin parents!!  Next time you are trying to think of a great family outing, think of the VMFA and this article.



Enjoy! :)

The Icky Bug... Beware!

Hello Dolphins!  I am reporting to you from home because I have been out sick for most of this week.  I have heard through the HCPS grapevine that it is something that has been going around.  Some of my art teacher friends at AHS say they have all gotten it recently as well... so BEWARE!!

I wanted to post here because some of you have students who brought home a notice about their artwork being on display at LuLu Creamery and that it would be up by today.  It was my intention to put them all up after school today but being ill has thrown a wrench into those plans.  So here is the update... these students will have their artwork up by Tuesday November 19th as I plan to go put them up after school on Monday.  I hope this does not interrupt any of your plans to go see the work on display.  Please make sure you go to see the new display even if you do not have a child whose artwork is there.  I love being able to show off the talent at CSES not only in our school hallways but also out within the community for all to see.

Thank you for your understanding and may you all have a wonderful, safe, and HEALTHY weekend!

Our Identity Unit!

Students have wrapped up the projects from our Identity unit and the artwork is out on display in the hallway looking fabulous!  I changed the small bulletin in the hallway to tell visitors more about the big ideas the students create their art around. This bulletin will change with the art displays so keep a look out!

 Take a look below to see what you can find as you enter the doors here at CSES :)

Third grade paper mache masks... so awesome and unique!!  Each one has it's own "IDENTITY" :)

Fourth grade surreal self-portraits inspired by the surrealist artist Rene Magritte.  Every student's symbol represents something more about their identity rather than just seeing what meets the eye!

Kindergarten mixed media self-portraits.  These are full of expression!!

First grade ceramic full body self-portraits on mixed media backgrounds.  Everyone that sees these just fall in love with them!  Aren't they so creative?!

 Fifth grade reduction print self-portraits with analogous color schemes.  These are so realistic since they learned the proper facial proportions!

I love the bow-tie on this fellow!! :)

Second grade superhero self-portraits inspired by Roy Lichtenstein.  Students used the visual characteristics in Lichtenstein's artworks such as bold black contours, color schemes, and Ben-Day dots!!  The Ben-Day dots for this project were created from painting bubble wrap and making bubble wrap prints!

This superhero loves animals... hence the animal print cape!! LOVE IT!!!

Our little Dolphins are SO CREATIVE and full of talent!!  I am so glad they get to show it all off in the artroom!!!!!

On Thursday and Friday of this week I will be out at the Virginia Art Education Association conference in Falls Church, VA.  I can't wait to bring back the great ideas I get from this conference and share them with students and here on the blog!  Make sure to check back for an update about how the conference went! :)

CSES Art Social

Teachers love art, too!  We had our first CSES teacher art social this week after school.  It is wonderful to come together once the students have gone home and take a moment to ourselves to make something beautiful.  This time we designed and carved some linoleum printing plates and printed them onto paper for cards.  We all used hot pink for our first prints, which we called our test prints.  We all loved our creations so much that we might have another art social to print more and maybe even use them for a clay project!

Take a look at what we made!

Mrs. Sherri just rolled her printing plate with ink, layed it on her paper, burnished (rubbed) the back and is about to pull her first print!

Mrs. Jackie is admiring the print she just pulled... looks great!!

All of the teachers who came to the first CSES Art Social of the year showing off their fabulous new artworks!  Great job ladies!!

:)

We Heart Art!!

One of my little kinders wore this to art today... I love it!! :)

And below are the images of Second graders working on their super hero self-portraits.  On this day, they learned about color schemes and chose one to use for their costumes!  They look GREAT!

"Every Child Is An Artist..."

One of my favorite art quotes is by the artist Pablo Picasso and it says, 

"Every child is an artist. The only problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up".  Every child IS an artist because their imagination is wild and they are not yet (for the most part) afraid to make a mistake.  They go for creating art that their hearts desire and there is nothing that gets in the way of that in this art room.  I love the warm and fuzzy feeling I get while the students are knee deep in their art making.  That feeling is my awareness of how special my job is as their art teacher.  The fact that I actually get to experience their artistic growth and explorations is something I don't ever want to take for grated.  I am truley blessed to teach these little artists!

Right now we are going on week three of our new unit.  This unit's big idea is Identity.  Students are exploring their artistic identities and how we can express our identities through our art making.  Most grade levels are exploring this big idea through self-portraits using various art processes.  Third grade is playing with the big idea of identity through paper mache mask making.  Take a look at the fun we have been having with our Identity unit!

Kindergarten: Self-portraits using black sharpies, oil pastels, and liquid watercolors.  I just love seeing kindergartener's first drawings in the art room.  They are full of imagination and pure artistic talent!

First Grade:  Full figure self-portraits using clay.  We first discussed the order of our body using an adapted "head, shoulders, knees and toes" theme and worked with partners to do some figure drawings.  After that exercise, students worked in teams in a friendly game of "clay olympics" where they could explore how to create a coil, slab, and sphere out of clay.  The next class we used our knowledge of the figure and clay techniques to create our clay self-portraits.  

I adore these!!

Second grade: Superhero self-portraits in the style of the famous Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein (who happens to also be our new artist on the Artist Spotlight this month!

Sorry, no pictures of these projects yet, I will get on it! But below is our Artist Spotlight bulletin!

Third Grade: Paper Mache masks. Here are the students working in partners to cover their balloons.  They are knee deep in paper mache goopy glop!  Some loved the feeling of the goop... others... well... they learned to love it! :)

The next class students created cones, cylinders, and cubes out of scrap posterboard so they could add and paper mache features to their masks next time!

Fourth Grade:  Self-portraits in the style of the Surreal artist Rene Magritt like one of his most famous paintings called Son of Man.  

These are fun!!  Students are learning symbolism and the fact that identity is not only about the way we look but also our character.

The symbols over their self-portraits represent something they love and "identify" with! ;)

YAY! GO GIANTS!! (sorry... had to!!)

Fifth Grade:  Reduction printmaking self-portraits.  Students are learning realism and using correct facial proportions while drawing their self-portraits. Students practiced these proportions on laminated head outlines before starting their real drawings for their styrofoam printing plates. Students are in the first stage of this unit so the next post will show some printmaking action!

Stay tuned for more in the next week!