Kindergarten Clay!

Texture Shoe-prints create amazing pendants or ornaments.  Kinders had their first chance to roll and squish clay for this project.  We talked about textures, how does it feel on our fingers... lumpy, bumpy, soft, smooth, furry, fuzzy, scratchy, rough.  Everyone investigated the textures on the bottom their shoes.  The texture from the shoes was pressed into the clay ball leaving a shoe-print.

The shoe-prints were 'fired' in the kiln.  The kiln is a neat machine that gets really hot to make the clay really hard like a rock.

Then, we set up a glazing station.

Glaze is like a special kind of paint for clay.  The glazed clay shoe-prints were loaded back into the kiln to 'fire' once again and to melt the glaze so it turns into glass.

With a little help, bits of yarn was glued to the back so they will be easy to hang.

Today everyone created an Origami pocket to safely take the ornament and poem home.  Origami is the art of folding paper, no cutting, gluing, or taping needed to make something special.

Tints and Shade of Snowmen

3rd Grade is learning about TINTS and SHADES.  We have learned a lot about how to mix colors, and now we are practicing making tints and shades.
Tint has a kind of a rhyme... all you need to remember is to make a Tint, add White, and it makes it light.  Tint-White-Light.
Shade is a different story, no rhymes, but some letters in common.  To made a Shade, add Black, and it makes it Dark.

A work in progress, Day One- TINTs

The art room was a buzz on day one.  Wow, look at this color!!! I made a tint!  Does this tint look darker?  Day One we mixed 3 tints-a light, medium, and dark.

Day Two - Shades took over.  We mixed a shade of our original color to paint the snowman's accessories.  Once again, a buzz of excitement.  Everyone was very careful to only use a little black at a time.

I was so happy with how these paintings turned out that I hung them up immediately in the display case.  Fortunately, 1st grade also finished their pinch pot snowmen today, and the 3rd grade painting make a beautiful backdrop.

Sleepytime Quilts

1st grade can weave too!  Everyone learned the importance of a tabby weave, with the under over pattern.

Our blankets show a fuzzy and snuggly texture.  Did you notice a color scheme?  We used warm and cool colors.  Weaving was kind of tricky, but a with a little practice and a little patience, everyone wove their blanket.  A ribbon was glued across the top to finish them.  

The weavings make a great display in the hallway with all of the peaceful dreaming faces snug under the blankets.

5th Grade Pocket Weaving

The much anticipated pockets!  When I went through this project for the first time myself, I didn't really believe that it would turn out as great as what it did.  You can imagine the excitement for fifth grade when they get to actually weave a unique and personal pocket or pouch that includes a flap and button to close it.  This is not a quick project but instead one where hard work totally pays off.

How it comes together...
Day 1: All about measuring and cutting.  Everyone creates their own loom to weave on.  On day one we create the loom and then wrap it with white string.  The sting will keep the whole thing together when we take it off of the loom.
Days 2-4: Weaving, Weaving and yet more Weaving.  It is super important to know the ABAB pattern to weave a strong pocket, and to keep the yarn scrunched and tight.  Loose yarn or the wrong will make for a weak pocket that may have holes in it.
Days 4-5: The magic!  We get to take the weaving off of the loom and see it transform into a nifty pocket!  This is the day that creates a lot of nervous energy.  It is the time to see if the pocket will be strong or weak.  Once the pocket is off of the loom-more excitement-digging through and picking out the perfect button.

Weavings on the loom.

Working on the 'flap' of the pocket. 

Finished pocket!

You should ask your child about this whole project.  It takes a lot of time and thought.  Many of us become better critical thinkers and problem solvers throughout this project.  You would be amazed to see how many questions there are the first day and how few there are by the end.  At the end most of the students can help classmates and can become teacher assistants.  It is great to see!

I'm always amazed with how great these turn out and all of the things we learn along the way.  I also am proud of myself this year for finally organizing yarn in a manageable way for everyone to be able to pull, measure, and cut their own yarn.

Yarn Station

I upcycled some crayon boxes by cutting slits in the front of the box.  The skein of yarn is safely tucked inside with the tail hanging on the outside... genius!

Weaving 2 Ways

Fourth grade has been crazy busy weaving! Basket weaving it where we started.  So many great discussions about what weaving is, why it exists, and how it came to be.  All 4th graders were delighted to find out that they were going to be making a functional piece of art... meaning something they can actually use!  They all cut out a template as we discussed a weaving pattern.  Some of them could recall weaving from second grade, but the vast majority forgot how to problem solve their way through the pattern.  Also, to weave the bowl they were working around a circle, not just back and fourth.

A pile of bowls awaiting to be finished and taken home.

I meant to get a picture of the weavers in progress, but I ended up cutting yarn, helping problem solve knots, and a plethora of other things that popped up.  So after the yarn created strong walls and got about an inch away from the edge, all of the yarn was neatly trimmed and the bowls were finished off with a bit of paint on the tips and the base.

As weavers were finishing up with the bowls, others started creating a paper weaving.  4th grade measured and cut a loom to weave on top of.  Next they picked up a few colored strips of paper.  They wove using an ABAB pattern.  All hands were on deck to staple these weavings into cylindrical tubes.  They will look like lanterns hanging from the Art room ceiling. 

Weavings ready to be be tubes or cylindrical

Totally Tubular!

Kindergarten Fall Trees

Fall was in the air when we started these trees a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately, crazy winter has already set in and we have below zero wind chills.  Any of our beautiful fall trees are frozen.  These trees offer a wonderful warm pop of color.

This was a 3 day project.

Day one we read the book Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf learned all about those beautiful warm colors-red, orange, and yellow.  We used sponges to paint our paper so our colors could overlap and mix.

Day two we layered our green and yellow paint for grass on the bottom of the paper.  Everyone did their best to create great texture with short little brushstrokes.  Then, we thought and thought...what capital letter would make a good tree? an I? a T? better yet a Y!  We pretended we were a seed beneath the soil and grew very tall and spread our branches.  After acting it out we were ready to paint our tree.
Day three today! We discussed the edges and textures of leaves, and yes, we were able to tear our warm color painting and glue down as many or as few leaves we wanted.

What Are We Working On?

Happy Wednesday!
All Square1 Art order forms are due today, but online orders can still be placed. https://square1art.com/

Top Row: 5th grade Op Art, 2nd Grade Warm Suns, Kdg. Rainbow Lines
Bottom Row: 3rd Grade Sunflowers, 4th Grade Monarchs, 1st Grade Kandinsky Circles 

So what are we working on?
I will be posting for each grade level soon.  We have been busy artists...

• Kindergarten- Fall Trees
• 1st Grade- Sleeping Quilts
• 2nd Grade- Fall Reflection
• 3rd Grade- Rainbow Fish
• 4th Grade- Basket Weaving
• 5th Grade- Pocket Weaving

Pictures and more info by the end of the week.

IAEA Student Awards

KBK's proud artist and artwork on display

What an amazing weekend! Can you believe that all four elementary schools in Kaneland had student artwork chosen for the Illinois Art Education Association student show!!!

IAEA Student Art Show Winners from Kaneland

Unbelievable Blackberry's winner is the amazing artist in the second row on the right.  All the Art teachers (including myself... in the back on the right) are standing proud behind our artists.

Monsters!

Roll-a-Monster!  What a fun project for this time of the year.  Each student had a dice and a worksheet.  Each roll lead them to build and draw a different part of the monster.  With the primary kids it helped reinforce looking and the dice and matching numbers to the right column of the sheet.  For intermediate kids we also worked on ENLARGING and shrinking our monsters with correct proportions... tricky concept.

Then we let our imaginations run wild with naming our monsters and writing something interesting about them.

Thanks to http://www.expressivemonkey.com/ for all of their amazing resources!

Peaceful Scarecrows

No Scary Scarecrows here!  The book we read about a scarecrow that loved nature and watching the seasons change inspired these peaceful scarecrows.  Even though the scarecrow has a smile on it's face, it kept the garden safe.  Instead of scaring the crows away, it invited them to stay and chat on it's arms all day.  One of my classes realized..."if the birds are on his arms all day, they won't bother the food in the garden!"  What great thinkers!

We made sure that there was a horizon line in the background so we knew where the ground and sky came together.  I'm so proud of our first graders filling the entire paper with color and adding the fun patchwork borders to finish the pieces.

OP ART - Tricky or treat-y & Gnomes too!

Smashing success with our Optical Illusions in 5th grade!  There are daily compliments on these eye catching pieces.  We learned three ways to create optical illusions and pumpkins served as a perfect canvas for this time of year.

OP Art should make you take a moment to pause to look closer at the artwork.  It may make you think-how did they do that?  Op Art masters create amazing optical illusions that create a sense of depth, a warped surface, or some kind of movement within their pieces.

We have just scratched the surface of understanding and creating Optical Illusions.


Clay GNOMES!
In 5th grade we start to work with clay a bit more.  The objective of this lesson was to create a balanced piece that could support it's own weight... and oh-yeah... make a clay GNOME!

Yes-we talked about cones, sphere, and cylinders.  We reviewed how to scratch, slip, and attach our pieces so they don't fall apart.  Texture for beards and hair... end results... GNOMES!!!

Pumpkins and Louise Nevelson

There is an amazing story we read Pumpkins written by Mary Lyn Ray/Illustrated by Barry Root.  The story is about a man who loves an open field across from his house.  One day a 'for sale' sign was in the field.  He was worried that construction on new houses would demolish the beauty of the field.  He was able to buy the field by planting pumpkins in it and selling them.  The book has such a simple but important message.

This book inspired our artwork-

Artwork on the drying rack

Drawing pumpkins so they looked near or far was a goal for this piece.  Understanding things that a near are typically larger and they get smaller the further away they are.  We reviewed what a horizon line is and talked a lot about overlapping, what does it mean and how does it look.  It was fun to see everyone think about how to make it look like their pumpkins were not all just sitting upright.  The topsy turvy pumpkins look like how they really grow in a field.

On display in the Halls

The pumpkins were traced with Warm Color markers so that when we painted them orange a little of the marker blended into the paint to create some shading.  These pumpkin fields look beautiful in the hallways.

Louise Nevelson-Recycled Collage Art
Our second graders learned how to reuse and recycle items that could be considered trash and make artwork out of it.  Louise Nevelson was an artist who did not have a lot of money, so a lot of the materials she used to create her artwork came from the trash.  She used her imagination to create new collages out of the 'treasures' she found.

works in progress

Ready for Display

They had a great time arranging and thinking about what they could do with the 'treasures' they found and brought in for class.  It was neat to see all of the different items the kids had collected.  It was also eye-opening for me to see how the reimagined and repurposed the objects.  It was a bit of a process with a great pay off!

"Value"able Pumpkins

Do you know what Value is?  Most of the time we think of money or worth... but in the art room it is all about showing the differences between light and dark.  Why is important? Well, with out it our drawings would always look very flat.  Value helps add depth and make things look three-dimensional.  We learned about value scales, highlights, and shadows.

So-What do you think perspective is? and how do we use it in the Art Room?  Take a look at the amazing pumpkin drawings and see if you can spot how we used perspective.

Our perspective a.k.a point of view shows depth by how near or far we are from the pumpkins and how they are overlapping.  The perspective is also shown with the different views or angles of the pumpkins.

The beauty of these pumpkins is better seen in person.  The artists worked very well with all of these ideas and different mediums- color pencil, chalk pastel, and a hint of whimsical metallic paint.

Color Mixing Light Bulbs

Every year I look for a new way to teach color theory.  This year I looked around for inspiration... then a light bulb sparked an idea-haaha.  Colored Light Bulbs! Perfect, they are transparent so having two different colored overlapping light bulbs would make a third color.  We discussed the different parts of a light bulb and the different shapes.

Color Mixing- Overlapping Light Bulbs

After we drew the light bulb shapes we filled them in with the PRIMARY colors -red, yellow, blue.  Where a light bulb overlapped another we had to think... red+yellow = orange, yellow+blue = green, blue+red = purple.

Last but not least we shaded the metal with our pencil and added black broken glass shapes in the background to break up the space and make our colors pop!

International Dot Day

Our whole school celebrated International Dot Day earlier this year.  We read the book The Dot and thought about how we would like to leave our 'mark' on the world.

Unique Dots

All grades

Kindergarten Dots on Paper Plates

1st Grade Concentric Circle Dots

New and Improved

Hey All! Well it is about time that I am figuring out this blog again.  My apologies to those of you who were waiting for so looong.  I'm excited and rejuvenated and want to keep you up to date with the latest and greatest that our amazing artists are creating at Blackberry Creek.

Super Neat Color portraits from the first day of school

Starting on day one this year we read My Many Colored Days by DR. Suess.  Every student at Blackberry drew a monochromatic (one-color) self portrait... yes even the kindergarteners asked if it was like drawing a "selfie."  Made me smile : )  We created a great sense of unity and community with this great start to the year.

OPEN HOUSE!!!

WOW where has the time gone???  It is already open house!  Over the past week students have been making art portfolios to safely take artwork home.  So the craziness in the art room has been me running around trying to get all artwork handed back. Huge undertaking, but it is always amazing to see everyone's faces light up when they see artwork from the beginning of the school year.  How far we have come!

If you are a lucky to be a student or parent at from Blackberry Creek, you should have a green sheet explaining our artistic endeavors so far this year.  Here are a few of the most recent snapshots!  Note to self...need to take a lot more photos!

Here is a glimpse inside the Kiln Room.  The Kiln is where all of Blackberry's clay pieces are fired.  Lines up along the top are some 5th grade Spherical Animals that are ready to go home.

 This shows the inside of the kiln, the clay pieces are sitting at the bottom.

2nd Grade-Wayne Thiebauld Artist Study

We looked at Thiebauld's artwork and discussed his life.  Everyone practiced drawing cupcakes and then three stages of a full cake.  We discussed shapes, form and texture.  Some finished pieces are hanging in the hallways, but here are a few quick peeks at these delectable treats.

1st Grade-Romero Britto Style Fish

Bright, Bold, and Colorful!