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!

ZENTANGLE!!!
Our whole school has learned about Zentangles.  You may have seen or heard your child talking about them.  Zentangles are fun to create and you don't need many supplies.  So what is a Zentangle?  The word can be broken down into two root words.  Zen = peace and harmony in mind body and soul... kind of like a way of meditation.  Tangle = messy knotted, kind of crazy!  The words are opposites and contrast each other.  The easiest way to explain it is to create peace and focus while making complicated marks on the paper.  Have you every kind of 'spaced out' and found yourself doodling on a paper?  It is kind of like that.

You'll notice that each of these are in different stages.  Look at the amazing detail and how much focus these tangles took.  We used black and white to create more contrast, and so we could focus on just the design.  A heart was added for emphasis and a pop of color.  Some of these were up before Jump Rope for Heart and decorated the hallways.

I encourage any of you to keep Zentangling!  You can find a lot of neat resources on line.  It is a new craze in the art, art therapy, scrap-booking, journaling, and meditation worlds.  It keeps our minds thinking creatively!

5th Grade- Clay Spherical Animals
One of the clay units for fifth grade that is loved by all.  5th grade is given the problem of creating a three-dimensional hollow sphere.  This hollow sphere then has to be a self supporting sculpture... and an animal!  Below is a picture after some of the animals have been through their first firing in the kiln.

From Left to Right: Wolf, Standing Pig (with hat), Elephant, Horse, Whale

These pieces are bisque, meaning that they have been fired once to cone 06 in the kiln and are ready to be glazed.  

Before the firing... there were several steps that flew by and I did not get any pictures.  We created a hollow sphere out of clay by building two pinch pots and scratch, slip (watered down clay like glue), attach, and smoothing them together.  Then, everyone thought and sketched out possible animals that could be made.  The sketches had to be drawn from at least two perspectives, to get the idea that the animals would be built three-dimensionally. 

Why do they have to be hollow you ask?  If we were to just roll a big ball of clay it would take too long to dry, and when it gets fired, it would more than likely crack because the temperature on the inside of the piece and the outside of the piece would be very different...causing stress... equalling a crack.

Day 2 was all about building.  We thought three dimensionally with cubes, spheres, pyramids and cylinders.  A lot of problem solving happened with this step.  We had an idea on paper and had to bring it to life.  Difficult for some, but for others building with clay comes more naturally.  It is all about thinking through it and making it work!  The last,  but one of the MOST IMPORTANT thing was to make a small air hole with a toothpick.  By creating an air hole it would allow the animal to dry evenly and would also allow the hot air from the kiln to circulate inside the sphere, creating a perfectly fired animal with no cracks!

Here is a much anticipated, long awaited UPDATE!!! My head is spinning from our crazy cold weather.  The update is Kindergarten through 4th grade.  I was so happy that I could finally load and fire the kiln today that I didn't snap any pictures of the amazing Spherical Clay Animals our 5th grade have been creating.

Kindergarten
We have been experimenting with Chalk Pastels.  Thinking about how they are the same or different than oil pastels.  We also talked about how Cardinals stay in Illinois for the winter, and it is neat to see a bright red bird in the white snow.  We also are always working on trying to draw and cut out shapes.

Our Cut Shape Cardinal in the snow with a chalk pastel background.

HEARTS! The heart was used as a stencil to block the chalk pastel.  We added glitter paint to the heart to give it a little something special. 

1st and 2nd Grade with Frozen Noses

What did we learn....?
Cool and Warm Colors
Horizontal and Vertical
Lines can show Movement
CRAFTSMANSHIP!!!

3rd Grade
Continuing on with Gustav Klimt inspired trees.  Our trees show movement by the swirly lines that branch off in different directions.  Our Tree represents our life.  There are a lot of paths we will find ourselves following.  It's all a journey!  We used Tints in the background and a Shade for the tree.  You can create a shade by mixing a little black with any color.

Our papers were so big that it helped to stand.  Standing also helps us make flowing lines with our brushes.

4th Grade MONOCHROMATIC LANDSCAPES

Monochromatic, huge word! we broke it down Mono = one and Chroma = color.  That huge word simply means one color.  With that one color we can use all of the Tints and Shades, which can create a dramatic painting.  We focused on the idea of a winter landscape.  The struggle, how do we show perspective in this piece?  We created the impression of distance by using perspective.  If it is near... it is bigger and closer to us on the paper and when it is far... it is little and further away from the viewer.

Everyone chose their color and created tints and shades of that one color.  We had time to practice painting different size trees to show perspective, but these are still a work in progress.

WOW what a busy day!  Today is one of those days that I see a lot of grades, 5th, 4th, 3rd and 2nd.  It is always a blur.  My hands were covered in clay for 5th grade, so no pictures yet and black paint took over during 4th.  I was lucky enough to get one picture for 3rd and even one for 2nd.  It was such a MESSY day!  You may notice that both pictures, although different classes, were taken at the same table, they are the closet to my desk where the camera was trying to stay clean and out of the way.

A TINTED background for 3rd grade.

 Third grade concentrates on color theory.  We have learned all about Primary and Secondary colors, the Warm and Cool color groups, and now we are getting into Tint and Shade.  Today was about TINT.  What is a tint you ask... it is a color that is made lighter by adding white. Everyone got to choose 4 colors plus white to drag vertically on a huge piece of paper.  These will serve as eye-popping backgrounds for a winter tree in the style of Gustav Klimt... more to come next week!

2nd grade keeping it cool (or warm)

2nd grade and 1st grade are following a similar style of project, there are just some small tweaks of concepts to fit in with the curriculum.  We read Frozen Noses by Jan Carr and created illustrations in the style of Dorthy Donohue.  The illustrations were tucked away so we could paint either a WARM or COOL themed background.  Everyone tried very hard to visually break their paper into equal thirds... tricky concept, but I think we got it.  We also revisited the directions of vertical and horizontal.

What a holiday break we had!  The extra freeeeezing days were a nice surprise.  Besides visiting family over break I was able to do a lot of planning for the up and coming lessons.  At home I also did a lot of organizing and cleaning, I think that it is time for the Art room to go through the same process.  It is a fresh calendar year and I'm energized and inspired.  All classes are starting new projects and concepts.  Pictures and blurbs will be ready in the upcoming week.

Third Grade has gone a bit more in depth, how can we tell a visual story with a beginning, middle, and end.  A story of what you ask? A snowman of course!  What could possibly happen to our snowman that can be illustrated in 3 frames... we brainstormed a great list on the board.

Then, it was sketchbook time-

Finally, the projects, which are not all way finished, but great so far!

Can you guess this last one?

There is a snowman... and a snowflake... and what, a tongue?  Ahhh, the snowman is catching and eating the snowflake. 

How the time flies!  It is our last week before Holiday break and all classes are scrambling to finish projects that we have been working on for quite some time.  A few classes had the chance to get creative with snowmen!  Different grade levels are trying out different ideas.... 1st and 2nd grade we were focusing on different perspectives, or point of view.

Snowman Snapshots

Great angles and perspectives... they caught the snowman with great expression.  Smile snowman... you are getting your picture taken : )