Paul Klee inspired towns

First Grade students combined shapes to create these towns inspired by Paul Klee.

Pop-Art Portraits

Fifth Grade students looked at artwork by Andy Warhol. Warhol is famous for creating pop-art images. Pop Art is short for popular art which means using everyday pictures or images such as photos of celebrities or mundane things like soup cans, and turning them into fancy museum art. Much of this type of artwork was and is used in advertising. Students altered photos of themselves on a website called www.phixr.com, then traced their photo and finally painted their pop-art portraits. They could only use two colors to paint their portrait in this graphic style. They had to choose complimentary colors (colors across each other on the color wheel) or analogous colors (colors next to each other on the color wheel.)

 

 

Los estudiantes de quinto grado observaron algunas obras de arte de Andy Warhol. Warhol es famoso por crear imágenes de arte-pop, que significa usar imágenes de la vida diaria, como fotos de celebridades u objetos mundanos como latas de sopa, y convertirlas en arte para museos. Este tipo de arte se ha usado y se sigue usando en la publicidad. Los estudiantes alteraron fotografías de si mismos usando una pagina web llamada www.phixr.com, ellos trazaron su foto y luego pintaron sus retratos al estilo “arte-pop.” Solo pudieron usar dos colores para pintar sus retratos en este estilo gráfico. Tuvieron que escoger colores complementarios (colores que estén directamente de lados opuestos en la rueda de colores) o colores análogos (colores que estén adyacentes en la rueda de colores).

Cezanne Inspired Still Life

Second grade students compared still life artwork to portraits and landscapes. They studied the artist Paul Cezanne and painted a plate of apples that was placed at their table, in the style of Cezanne. Since we just finished an art project where students learned about Claude Monet, students also compared Monet's style to Cezanne's and discussed how artists can influence each other.

Coiled Clay Pots

Third Graders demonstrated their ability to roll a slab and attach clay using the score and slip method. Once the pots were fired, students glazed them and they were fired again.

 

Aboriginal Dot Painting

4^th grade students learned about the artwork of the aboriginal people of Australia. This group of people is indigenous to Australia, just like Native Americans are indigenous to the United States.

The students learned that the Aborigines are known for their dot paintings and x-ray paintings. As you can probably imagine, dot paintings are made with only dots, and x-ray paintings show the inside of the subject they painted. Students chose an animal that lives in Australia to paint in the dot and x-ray painting styles of the Aborigines.

 
 

Los estudiantes de 4º grado aprendieron sobre el arte del pueblo aborigen de Australia. Este grupo de personas son indígenas de Australia, igual que los nativos americanos son los indígenas de los Estados Unidos.

Los estudiantes aprendieron que los aborígenes son conocidos por sus obras de puntitos y pinturas estilo rayos x. Como se podrán imaginar, las obras de puntitos son pinturas hechas solo de puntos y las pinturas estilo rayos x muestran lo de adentro del sujeto de la pintura.  Los estudiantes escogieron un animal que viva en Australia para pintar en los estilos de puntitos y rayos x de los aborígenes. 

Printmaking in Kindergarten

Kindergarten students explored printmaking by printing objects such as q-tips and paper towel rolls dipped in paint to create owls. They used sponges dipped in paint to create castles.

 

Shape Robots

As part of a new art assessment through MAEIA, 1st graders created these robots to show their knowledge of geometric shapes. Each robot also has a job. Be sure to ask your first grader what their robot does!

 

Matisse Collage

Second Grade students looked at artwork by Henri Matisse who was known for his cut paper collages. Students learned that Matisse started out as a painter, but later created cut paper collages because he was sick and had to stay in bed.

Students also learned to create balance in their artwork, to make it more interesting to look at. They asked themselves these questions:

  -Are there any spaces that look empty?

  -Did I use small and large shapes?

  -Do some of my shapes overlap?

  -Did I use black shapes evenly?

 

Clay Castles

Fifth Grade students demonstrated their ability to roll a slab and use the score and slip method of attaching clay while creating these castles.

Dali Inspired Animals

Second Grade students learned about Spanish artist, Salvador Dali. Students watched a brief video about surrealism (Get Surreal! With Salvador Dali).  Students discussed the meaning of surrealism, as well as where the surrealists get their inspiration. Then they looked closely at two of Dali's works that feature elephants with extremely long skinny legs. Students brainstormed animals that could be drawn in this way. Students chose an animal to create in the surrealist style.

 

 

Mouse Paint Color Wheels

First Grade students learned about primary colors and how to mix paint to get secondary colors. They painted mice with primary and secondary colors and glued them in the order of the color wheel. 

Tessellations

4th graders looked at artwork by M.C. Escher and learned about tessellations. Tessellations are shapes that can fit together with any overlaps or gaps, across a plane. First, they created a shape that would tessellate. Then they traced this shape until it covered their paper. Finally, they brainstormed what they thought their shape looked like and drew those details into each shape. Then they colored their tessellations.

 

 

Tints and Shades Ice Cream

Students learned to create tints by adding white to any color. Then students learned to create shades by adding black to any color. They used this knowledge to create ice cream cones featuring tints and shades.

Kandinsky!

 

First Grade students looked at artwork by Wassily Kandinsky and discussed how the artwork made them feel or what the artwork made them think about. They also looked at his famous artwork "concentric circles" which is a color study to see which colors look best next to each other. Students did their own color study on six circles. They experimented with the way colors look next to each other. The next week students revisited Kandinsky's artwork and discovered that Kandinsky often painted while listening to music. Then they listened to different kinds of music to paint the background.

Monster Cityscape

Kindergarten students discussed the meaning of cityscape, as well as what shapes we can find in pictures of cityscapes. Students drew their own cityscape with oil pastel, and painted it with tempera cakes.

Then students read “Monsters Don’t Eat Broccoli” by Barbara Jean Hicks. They drew a monster and created the monster’s skin by pressing legos into stamp pads.

Fifth Grade explorations with abstract expressionism

5^th graders tried their hand at abstract expressionism, also known as splatter painting, which was invented by Jackson Pollack. Students learned that this style of art is controversial because many people believe it does not take talent. However, after painting in this style, many students had a much more positive view of Jackson Pollack and his style of painting. After all, it is very messy and fun!