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!

O'Keefe Inspired Insect

Third Grade students looked at artwork by Georgia O'Keefe and read various books about her life. In one book, "My Name is Georgia" by Jeanette Winter, students discovered that Georgia O'Keefe created large artworks of small things like flowers, partly because she wanted people to see things the way she saw them. Students then drew and colored another small thing; insects. Students looked carefully at a picture of an insect of their choice and tried to capture as many details as they could. They colored their butterflies with chalk pastel. 

 

 

Northern Lights

Fourth Grade students discussed the phenomenon of the Northern Lights, and watched a time-lapse video showing the Northern lights. We read the book, "Once Upon a Northern Night" by Jean Pendziwol, and then created our own Northern Lights with cut paper and chalk pastel.

Dessert Prints

Second Grade students discussed the difference between printing and painting. They learned that prints can be made multiple times. Students designed their own printing block featuring dessert, after studying Wayne Thiebaud, an artist who is known for his dessert paintings.  They drew their dessert on a piece of styrofoam and then colored it with markers. Students then printed those desserts by spraying a piece of paper with water and blotting the paper with paper towel. Then they printed their dessert on that paper. Students were able to make multiple prints.

Neighborhood Collage

Kindergarten students combined shapes to create cut-paper houses in a neighborhood. They added details with markers. Finally, they used white paint to make their neighborhood look snowy.

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).

 

Wire Sculptures

4th grade students looked at the artwork of Steve Lohman. They used wire to create a 3-D sculpture that conveyed movement.