1st Graders learn about John James Audubon

Spring is here and so are the birds! You may have heard a bird or two singing out your window in the morning. An artist became very famous because of his birds is John James Audubon. He loved nature and spent a lot of time outside studying different kinds of birds. He learned how to draw realistic birds. Drawing some realistic means to make things in your drawing look real! We will be working hard over the next couple weeks to draw realistically. After we finish our drawing, we will be using chalk pastel. Make sure you don't wear your best clothes on art day because chalk pastel is hard to get out of clothes!!!

2nd Graders are Finishing Up

In 2nd grade this week, we will be finishing up our pictures based on Marc Chagall and our dinosaurs based on Jim Gary. If they get both of those done, they get time for free art, which is a favorite for most students!

Dot Dot Dot

Kindergartners looked at an artwork that was done in the pointilism style. Pointilism is were a painting is made out of lots of little dots. Here are some examples of our artworks.

Henri Matisse or (On-ree muh-teece)

First graders studied the artist Henri Matisse. We learned that when Henri Matisse was older, he could no longer paint or sculpt so he decided to draw with scissors. Henri Matisse used lots of different shapes in his pictures, but we talked about two special kinds; organic and geometric. Organic shapes are ones that use curved lines, like a circle or crazy wavy shape. A geometric shape is one that uses straight lines to make a shape, like a square or triangle. We started to draw with scissors and create our own pictures. Some students created artworks that were abstract designs and other students created pictures with animals, people, and plants.

Learning about Marc Chagall

In second grade we started a project dealing with Marc Chagall. Chagall used lots of bright colors and many dreamlike images. He also painted the way things felt to him instead of the way things really look. Some of his paintings look, like I and the Village, look strange.

The students started their own drawings involving different emotions. Here are some examples of the start of student work.

Some New Artworks

We started working on monoprints today. A monoprint is a printmaking technique where the picture cannot be reproduced exactly the same twice. This means each time you make a print, it is an original artwork. Several students chose to create monoprints, while other students created lots of different things. Today we had some water sculptures, a machine that you could look into to see your future, and some cool monoprints!

Painting our Dinosaurs!

We have started painting our found object dinosaur sculptures. We have all different colors of dinosaurs. They are very interesting!