A New Year, A New Room

It's almost time for a new school year to begin, and I am excited to be meeting my students next week.

I have been busy this summer.  Some of the things I have done this summer include moving from our old classroom to our new art classroom just down the hall, taking online courses in art and education, and attending a fun summer Elementary Arts training through the district.  I have also had the opportunity to spend a lot of vacation time with my family and found several good books to read.

Moving our art room has given me the opportunity to re-decorate and create some new fun displays in our room.  I also have discovered a great collaborative art piece that was done by Forbes students a number of years ago.  I have also started planning some of the fun projects we can do this year.

I hope you are all as excited to get back to school as I am!

Week of February 5th thru 8th

This was a very busy week.  With a minimal day to start off the week and then two common start days the kids were troopers just going along with all of the adjusted times.

This week in the art room we had one last class period to work on any missing or half finished projects.  I am very proud of how quickly most of the students got right to work and completed anything they hadn't turned it.  At this point just about everyone is caught up!  Those who are still missing things can work with me individually to create a plan for getting them done.

I enjoyed seeing so many of my students and their families at SEPs this week.  I love getting to show off the great things my students are doing in class, and I hope they like to show them off too.  If you didn't have a chance to visit during SEPs and ever want to see what we have been doing in the art room you are always welcome to come and visit. 

At the end of the week 5th and 6th grade students began our next project.  With Chinese New Year being tomorrow we are creating paper Chinese lanterns.  These lanterns will hang instead of float, but offer the opportunity for each student to create four unique art panels.  We have talked about how Chinese art is very detailed and intiquate in design.  They will be working on creating panels that have detailed designs as well.  This project should take us at least a few class periods to complete because I want them to focus on the details of the designs they are creating. 

One we have some of the lanterns complete watch for them to be on display in the art cabinet in the front foyer.

Week of January 29th thru February 1st

This week we learned about the artist Jim Dean.  We talked a little about Pop Art and the use of everyday items in artwork.  Jim Dean has several prints that were done of hearts.  Following the examples of Jim Dine students created a page full of heart prints of their own.  Several of these will be displayed in the Art Cabinet in the school foyer during the first weeks of February.

During the remaining class time this week students were allowed to work on any assignments they had missing.  Most of them were able to use this time wisely and finish off several projects they had just about finished.

Week of January 22nd thru 25th

This week students got to work on another fun winter project.  They each created a landscape painting of trees.  First they created their trees by ripping painters tape and placing it on their paper.  Once they had created their grouping of trees they were then allowed to paint over the taped trees to create a background.  They were instructed to create a horizion line behind their trees and to use the other elements we have learned so far this year to create their landscape.  They were allowed to create any type of sky they wanted, meaning they could choose to do a sunset, sunrise, or night sky.  They were asked to include shadows from their trees as well as value elements to show highlights.  Once the paintings were dry they then removed the painters tape and were left with white voids for their trees.  They completed the landscapes by adding in texture and other details on their trees.  There were several students that completed their project this week, but many others will have time next week to finish.

Week of January 15th thru 18th

This week has been spent learing about the art element, "value".  In doing this students completed a project where they each drew a snowman using value to show the light and the shaded side of the snowman.  These were a lot of fun and turned out great.

Week of January 8th - 11th

This week has been lots of fun in the art room.  We have been busy getting back into a normal routine and doing a winter art project.  I talked to the students this week about the art of quilling paper and how individual quills are used to create projects.  This turned into more discussion about other forms of paper art and how quilling or shapping paper can create art. 

Students this week worked to create a quilled paper snowflake.  There were actually 3 paper options given to them.  The first was creating paper quills and then making a snowflake by gluing the individual quills together.  The second was a combination of paper folding and quilling.  The thrid was a paper weave project that also created a snowflake.  Students were allowed to choose from the three designs and create their own snowflake. 

I am impressed with the detail many of students put into creating their snowflake and am happy with each and every one of them.  I think it is fun for the students to look at all of the snowflakes as they are hung together and really notice how even though they all followed similar patterns every one of them is unique and different in just a little way. 

We have displayed some of the snowflakes in the front lobby art case, others in the classroom, and even more in the hallway.  If you get a chance to be in the building check out the great art your students are creating.

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.