Kindergarten Cats

Laurel Burch Pattern Cats

In Kindergarten we learned about the famous artist Laurel Burch and looked at paintings of her bold, patterned colorful animal designs. Students took a closer look at her cat paintings and then created their own version of her cats in the same manner of her paintings.  They first drew their cat and then used lots of beautiful colors to paint their cat. Then they learned about textures and added different textures in the background of their art.  For extra designs students went back and added more patterns on their cats with crayons.

1st Grade Wang Yani Monkeys

Wang Yani Monkeys

The 1^st grade students learned about the artist Wang Yani through a power point and video.  Wang Yani was from China and became an artist at a very young age.  Her father was a painter and an art teacher so he was able to help her.  She held her first exhibition when she was only 4 years old! By the time she was 6 years old she had created over 4,000 paintings! When she was 8 year old one of her paintings was made into a Chinese stamp.  Yani’s favorite subjects in her early paintings were animals, especially monkeys, since she had a pet monkey when she was growing up.  She usually painted them playing and being mischievous.  Yani’s later work shows landscapes and people and many of her painting tell a story.  The 1^st graders were able to see many examples of Yani’s work and then they created their own monkey scene using watercolors.  They also learned about Chinese writing and created black Chinese symbols in their art.  Then they created a red chop symbol, which is how the Chinese sign their name on their art. Thanks to http://greenbayartroom.blogspot.com/ for the inspiration.

2nd Grade Warm and Cool Color Landscapes

In this project 2^nd graders learned about art made about different places.  They learned the difference between a seascape (oceans), cityscape (cities) and landscape (mountains, hills, fields).  They also learned the difference between realistic art (art that shows how the subject actually looks looks in real life) and abstract art (art that shows the subject looking different then what it would in real life).  They determined that this project was an Abstract Landscape.  Students created hills in the foreground, mountains in the middle ground and either suns or moons in the background.  Students then colored their landscapes using warm and cool color patterns.  They learned about the Cool Colors: Blues, Greens and Violets and the Warm Colors: Reds, Oranges and Yellows.   They then added white to the tops of the mountains.  When finished they traced between each color with black oil pastels to make the colors stand out. Great Job 2^nd graders‼‼