Happy Summer! June 24, 2013

Whoops!  Last week was our last week of school, and therefore I was too busy for updating.  Have a great summer and I’ll see you all in September!  Maybe i’ll update with some art of my own that i hope to get to this summer…

Drawing Lab posters June 14, 2013

It’s been a week of breakfast celebrations for the 3rd-5th graders.  To help their parents and teachers, the students created informative posters of key terms.  The posters needed to include a definition, a picture illustrating the definition, and a third component providing additional information about the term.

 

  

  

Press Here June 13, 2013

We have 3 preschool classrooms at the Morse, and 9 students will be kindergarteners in September.  They got together and came for a sneak peek class in the Art Studio this week.  We read Press Here, which is such a fun and interactive book.  If you’re unfamiliar with Herve Tullet’s books, you really need to check them out, he is amazing!  His website is full of games and videos and activities.  Students were given circles in various sizes and were tasked with creating a design using the circles. After gluing the dots on, they had to create a direction for the page, similar to the directions in Press Here.  I think they’re all excited to come back to the Art Studio in September!

  

  

Ready and waiting June 7, 2013

The Super Still Life Improvement Awards have been made, and they’re patiently waiting for next week.  Next week, the 3rd-5th graders are coming to the Art Studio for a breakfast celebration where they’ll be sharing their year-long work in Drawing Lab.  After observing the students, taking notes, and assessing their work, I’ve selected 3 students from each class to earn these awards.  I’ll be presenting them at the breakfasts.

A reminder about the breakfasts:

3rd Grade: Wednesday, June 12th
4th Grade: Thursday, June 13th
5th Grade: Friday, June 14th

All breakfasts are 8:15-9am, in the Art Studio!  Please bring breakfast snacks to share.

Expressive Self Portraits June 6, 2013

3rd graders love the nickname I give to this project- big heads.  After learning the basics of a self portrait, the students are challenged one step further by drawing themselves with a different facial expression.  Students chose expressions ranging from excited to bored to angry to silly.  They drew heads much larger than life size and colored with chalk pastels.  One of the goals with the pastels was to blend and smudge multiple colors together to create shadow values and highlight values.

  

Sunflower Seeds and Glue June 5, 2013

The JK class just finished a multimedia still life drawing.  Along with the Van Gogh-inspired plaster flowers, students observed and drew vases of flowers.  Each bouquet of flowers featured one large sunflower.  Students outlined their drawings with black glue, glued sunflower seeds to the center, and colored the drawings with construction paper colored pencils.  Do you know about these?  They are fabulous and my favorite colored pencils.  They need to be sharpened about 1,000x more often than regular colored pencils, but sometimes, for the right project, they’re worth it.