Chance of Snow Flurries

After a week-end of abundant snow (and despite the rain) we talked about how snow changes the landscape, particularly trees.  Students described  snow that  blankets the tree branches as "skeletons" with" rabbit fur, or squeezed out glue, frosting, and dustings of sugar and flour."

We then had a brief lesson in drawing a tree by using a large Y shape to establish the trunk and two major branches.  The artists then added more Y shapes to create additional branches and continued on making smaller and smaller Y shapes to complete their trees.  The students then practiced modifying the base of the large Y to make different shaped tree trunks and the Y  shaped branches were modified by adding curves to the legs of the Y shapes.

This lesson was found at www.incredibleart.org and was submitted by Ned Fox of Spokane

After practicing these techniques the students created large trees with brown crayon on blue paper.   Snow was added to the branches and each student made  a decision on how  they could include additional snow in their drawings.  The final process included doing a water color wash of midnight blue over the entire drawing.

I have posted a variety of drawing from several artists.  The winter wonderland of snow capped trees are beautiful and many will be displayed in the hallways, so please take a minute to stop and enjoy the creativity of our East End Studio Artists.

Fundred Dollar Bills

What do the words juxtapose, snowflake, bookmark and fundred dollar bills all have in common?   They are the themes of our art projects this week in the East End Studio. If it sounds like a mixed bag, it is.  There will be quite an assortment of projects this week.  Lower grades will be painting water color - crayon resist snowflakes (with just a touch of sparkle) and celebrating our first big snowfall of the year.  The first graders have a Christmas gift project underway and the upper grades are working with the theme of juxtaposition in their compositions.  If there's any time left after projects are completed students can make a fundred dollar bill to support a project to get lead out of older schools.

Ask your students which project they completed this week. And if you're student is a fourth, fifth or sixth grader, they have hopefully added the word juxtapose to their vocabulary.

Mrs. Doell's morning class painted some beautfiul snowflakes using white pastels,  watercolors and a wash of midnight blue.  Please click on the individual photos to enlarge for a better view of your artist's work.
 Enjoy!

Mr. Downey's Gate class enjoyed juxtaposing two National Geographic photographs by deconstructing both images and then reassembling the images as one.

An finally, here's a quick look at Mrs. Greenwood's class Christmas present project.

Only one more week before the holiday winter break.

Home Sweet Home!

This week we looked at paintings by American artist Beverly Buchanan and German artist Gabrielle Munter.  After discussing the paintings, students used pencil and oil pastels to draw pictures of their own homes.  We talked about the colors, lines and shapes used by both artists and how light is revealed in each artist's work.

This  1989 oil pastel is by American artist Beverly Buchanan.

This 1911 oil painting is of a village in Germany painted by artist Gabriele Munter.

Many students did pencil sketches of their homes before adding oil pastel.  Grades four, fix and six drew directly in their sketch books, while kindergarten through third grade drew on 12 x 18 construction paper.

After drawing the basic shapes, students added color.

 Photos of the initial drawings and the completed work below are by artists from Mrs. Wangsgard's first grade class.  Many of the art moms and dads were so pleased to recognize their own homes and those of their student's playmates as they watched the artists at work.

Click on the images to enlarge and see if you recognize your home created by your  East End Studio artist.

Here are Mrs. Greenwood's first grade class drawings:

Home Sweet Home

Sketchbooks and Portfolios

You probably already know this, but the fourth, fifth and sixth grades students all have their own sketchbooks.  We keep them in the studio bookcase and they're available to work in when the students finish their assigned projects.  Next week the students will be working directly in their sketchbooks as we take a critical look at artwork held in the collections of important museums.  After comparing and contrasting some of these major works, the upper grades will respond to the work directly in their sketchbooks, while the lower grades will work on paper to be filed in their portfolios.   And in case you haven't been down to the studio, here are some photos of  sketchbooks and  student's portfolios that I took earlier in the year.

Thank you to the PTA for these wonderful sketch books

This is a shot of our wall of portfolios before they started filling up with our weekly art projects!

By the way, we'll  be taking down the cave walls.  But the work won't be gone for good, it'll be set aside for a later date for student's to incorporate in assemblage and collage projects.

This last week offered a time to reflect on what each and everyone of us holds to be dear and then offer our thanksgiving.  I am truly thankful to have the opportunity to make art each week with your children.