Plaster shells March 19, 2014

While the 5th graders have been working on observational drawings of shells, the spec. needs 4/5 class has also been exploring shells, but in all mediums.  Most recently, they created plaster molds of shells.  First, the smoothed a layer of clay into a round container.  Second, we pressed small shells into the clay’s surface, creating negative imprints.  Lastly, we mixed up a batch of plaster and poured it on top of the shell.  About an hour later, the plaster pops off, leaving positive casts of the shells!

Smile Morse February 26, 2014

The prints are being hidden as we speak!  36 prints total will be hidden throughout school, waiting for the lucky student or teacher to find it!  Check out Bren Bataclan’s page for more info about the Smile Project.

Here are the 5th graders 3 part reduction prints.  They carved linoleum, printed, re-carved, printed again, and then colored a bonus color on.  The students loved experimenting with color combinations.  Well worth the effort!

 

Messy hands February 3, 2014

The 4/5 spec. needs class is hard at work with their Smile Project.   They are currently creating large, 3D sculptures of smile characters.  Here, you can see some hands in paper mache,  a definite class favorite! I think they’d happily use paper mache every day for the rest of the year if I let them!

Be on the look-out for these sculptures at the Morse School Art Show in May!

  

Smiles soon appearing! January 26, 2014

The 5th graders are hard at work on their Smile Project.  In the past, we have done paintings and relief tiles; this year, reduction prints.  The students carved their smile characters into soft linoleum blocks and printed them.  Next, they will cut away more of the block and reprint on top of the first round prints.  These hidden prints should start to make an appearance throughout school in 3 weeks or so.

Surrealism, cont. December 21, 2013

The 5th graders have finally finished their surrealism watercolor stories! We discussed many of Salvador Dali’s paintings, and guessed how he came up with some of his ideas.  They created silly sentences using words picked from a cup.  For example, what sentence could you write using the words ‘bunny’, ‘rainbow’, ‘sad’, and ‘jump’?  While painting, students had to incorporate 7 different watercolor techniques: crayon resist, wet on wet, wet on dry, dry brushing, salt, rubbing alcohol, and light/medium/dark values.  The results are great!  Watch out for these paintings and stories in the spring Morse School Art Show…

  

  

Silly Surrealist Stories December 10, 2013

The 5th graders are busy with a watercolor surrealism unit, and the 4/5 spec. needs class just finished their own version.  We began the unit by playing madlibs, and creating impossible, silly stories.  Inspired by the madlibs, the students created their own stories.  Using pre-cut magazine images, the students collaged together unlikely people, places, and objects.  They wrote the sentences for each others collages to describe what was created.

    

 

 

Watercolor Magic Tricks November 14, 2013

5th graders are preparing to paint their Surrealist stories, but first they needed to learn some magic tricks!  With the help of salt, white crayons, and rubbing alcohol, the students practiced 7 different ways to use watercolors in a creative way.

Here’s a close up of the salt and rubbing alcohol techniques, by far the favorite!  All you do is sprinkle salt/rubbing alcohol onto wet paint and let the magic happen…

 

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.

 

  

  

City Life April 23, 2013

After viewing Alexander Calder’s Circus, students were inspired to create a story of their own.  One class chose “city life” as their class theme, and the other class chose “summer olympics”.  Using metal wire and found objects, students constructed their sculptures as individual pieces that fit together as a large collaboration.  Some students took on an added challenge of creating a kinetic sculpture, one that moves.  Arthur Ganson is another inspiring artist/engineer whose sculptures are housed at the MIT Museum, if you’re interested in seeing kinetic art in real life!

Some scenes from the city (view the whole collaboration in the display case in the main lobby):

  

 

Art Show Field Trip April 10, 2013

In case you missed it, the Morse School Art Show is on display all this week.  Last night was the reception; roughly 85 students with their families, plus teachers and neighbors came out for the event.  I’ll post some pictures of the evening tomorrow!  Several classes have been walking up to Gallery 263 this week during Art class, to check out the show.  Here are some shots of the 5th graders admiring everyone’s work: