December 11th thru 14th

This week in art we focused on finishing many of the projects that have been started but are still not complete.  This meant that students this week were working on their Aurora Borealis and Watercolor Silhouette projects as well as the Stained Glass projects.  Hopefully most of them have finally finished the older projects.  The Stained Glass projects will most likely stretch into the new year when we all return after the break.   For those students that work quickly and do finish all of their work there will be an extra project for them to work on as well.

Week of December 4th thru 7th

This has been a busy week in the art room.  We have been trying to get both the Aurora Borealis and the Watercolor Sillohette projects compeletly finished. 

For fourth grades this will most likely take all of our time left before winter break because we had an extra one day project last week of creating Christmas ornaments to decorate the lunchroom with. 

For fifth and sixth grades these projects should be finished now with only a handful of students needing an extra day.  So we started also talking about stained glass windows, the origin of stained glass, and how it is considered and used as an art form both for windows and art glass as well.  Students began designing a stained glass window they would like to make.

In addition to the other projects we had going on, I decided to let a few of my fifth and sixth grade students decorate my classroom windows for the holidays.  Those students who had all of their other projects completed had the chance to draw sticks to see which three students from each class would get to decorate a window pane.  Those students were then allowed to pick two others to help them.  Finally, this afternoon all of the windows were finally painted.  It was a lot of fun for me as well as the students.

Week of November 27th thru 30th

This week we did our artist focus for the month of November.  We talked a little about the artist Louise R. Farnsworth.  She is a Utah artist that paints landscapes and cityscapes using vibrant colors and soft lines.  Her paintings are great examples of the use of background, middle ground, and foreground in artwork.  The students did an assignment that asked them to remember two facts about her life, draw an example of background, foreground, and middle ground to show their understanding, and finally to write once sentence that explained their feelings or thoughts when they looked at the paintings by Louise R. Farnsworth.  This was an assignment that was completed in one class period.  Students who chose not to complete the assignment or to otherwise waste their class time will have a score that reflects that.

During the second class period we had together this week, we began talking about stained glass windows.  I love doing stained glass window projects around Christmastime because they are reminiscent of painted windows and holiday themes.  During our class together we began talking about the history of stained glass windows and how it has evolved as an art form including both windows and art glass sculpture, lamps, and more. During December I hope that students will use their time wisely and be able to complete their stained glass window projects before the holiday/winter break.