Picasso Portraits

You can't end a school year of art without learning about Pablo Picasso! I am constantly telling the kids that so many artists are famous because they were the first to do something new, innovative or exciting-Picasso is definitely one of those artists.  At the end of a period of classical art, Picasso came out and began doing abstract art unlike any other- founding Cubism. As a class we read a brief Biography of Picasso as seen here.

We then read a fun book called "Picasso and the Girl with the Ponytail" which is actually a true story that features a lot of Picasso's artwork!

Then, using a face template we divided it into angular shapes, learned how to color using nice, clean craftsmanship, and Picasso-ed away!

Chayse is a looker! 

Loving the hair, Emily!

It looks just like them!

Ruth is the sweetest, even in cubist format!

Way to go, Lillian!

This was a 2-week project and I loved that the children remembered so many terms, details, and facts about Picasso and his legacy from week to week! 

This is a lesson meant to stick!

Mother's Day Cards

I remember the first or second week I started at SVLA, I asked our students what types of art they wanted to try/learn. I distinctly remember one student in 3rd grade REALLY wanting to learn origami... so fast forward 8 months, here we are!

We learned that "ori" actually means "folding" and "kami" (or "gami") means paper, so "origami" literally means "folding paper" and that it is prominent primarily in Japanese culture.

For Mother's Day we brainstormed various adjectives to describe our mothers and wrote them on our cards. Then, we folded beautiful origami tulips to attach to the back.

I was basically dying of cuteness.

Grades 4-5 created some pop-up cards! Again, we brainstormed adjectives that describe our mothers, and wrote them on the front of our cards. They were in and out so fast that I didn't get pictures of our older kids cards :( So, all we have here are the examples. Even so, they did lovely work (as I'm sure you already know!)

Hope everyone had a perfect Mother's Day! Thanks moms for all that you do!!!

After School Ceramics Class!

I'm so excited about the turn out for our after-school ceramics class! With about 15 students, all sorts of styles, preferences, and combinations came about in our projects!

During week one, we learned where ceramics and clay are used today! For example, we talked about how all of our dishes come from a mold that was created around a original wheel-thrown plate or bowl. Or, how important molding and sculpting clay is for the first step in creating special effects make-up, like the prosthetics on Jim Carrey in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

In week one, we learned that you must score (scratch up) the clay before attaching one piece to the next. We made cupcake pinch pots which combines the process of pinch pots and coils!

Week two we painted our cupcakes and used different brushes and techniques to glaze cleanly and beautifully.

We also briefly talked about color schemes and planning what sections to color what in order to create an overall consistent and appealing final product. For example, we talked about how complimentary colors (colors that are opposite on the color wheel) create contrast! We see complimentary colors with Christmas (red and green) and in a lot of sports teams like the Broncos (orange and blue) and the Lakers (purple and yellow). We also saw how using one color on the bottom, and then the same color somewhere on top can help unify the entire piece.

How wonderful do these look?!

Week three we decided to make a little something sweet for Mother's day. By creating various round slabs, we were able to make beautiful rose sculptures. You cannot go wrong with this project, they are all so beautiful!

A class of planning and glazing later, We couldn't be happier with how these turned out (and hope our mothers loved them too!)

Spring Sculpures

In case you didn't know, I love working with clay, and have yet to meet a student who doesn't! Having had Easter and Spring just around the corner I felt a clay project was in order. The younger grades focused on texture, patterns, and color in their Easter egg spoon rests.

So many fun textures to press into clay!
And here are the finished products!

A few students made flowers and they are beautiful!

Grades 4-5 learned how to "score" their clay to help clay pieces adhere to each other, and focused on a pinch pot/coil union. I have yet to see a birds nest dish that hasn't looked amazing. They ROCKED their coils!

 

There is something relaxing about rolling coils...

Here, Mayra, Abigail, and Daniel focus intently on getting glaze in every nook and cranny!

This is kind of a fun comparison of how the colors change before and after the glaze is cooked in the kiln.

So many happy little nests!

It's official-Spring is finally upon us!!!

Colorful Kandinsky

To help us learn about the famous Russian abstract artist, Wassily Kandinsky, our students implemented bright colors, sharp lines, and various shapes! They followed close directions to create rythmic patterns, and excelled at it! Our younger grades embraced their inner artist to create vibrant shapes inspired by the artist's famous circle paintings.

Here, Jaramiah and Janeya focus hard to remember the color pattern we learned...

 

Alone they looked cool, but all together- magic.               

4th/5th grade: 

This was actually a 2-class lesson. The first class was spent focusing on creating the design and learning color theory with color mixing.  It was cool to see how the same 3 primary colors were used, but because of the different ratios the students came up with various shades and tertiary colors! The second class was spent finishing painting the colors and giving the painting a final bold black outline.

Again, seeing them individually is nice, but altogether is the best! I love my colorful classroom!