1st Grade Winter Self-Portraits

Winter Self-Portraits

In art class 1^st graders learned the different between a portrait and a self-portrait. They learned that a portrait is art you make about other people and a self-portrait is art you make about yourself.  1^st graders created winter self-portraits by drawing themselves thinking about showing an expression on their face.  They imagined showing themselves being cold, happy or even surprised.  They also had to draw winter clothing with interesting lines shapes and patterns.  They then used markers to trace and crayons to color their hair, faces and rosy cheeks.  Watercolors were then used to carefully paint their self-portraits. Finally white paint was used to splatter “snow”, making it look like they were in a winter storm or snow fight.

2nd Grade Matisse Inspired Winter Collages

Matisse Winter Collages

In Art class 2^nd graders learned about the French artist Henri Matisse. They learned that Matisse created his art using collage or what he called "drawing with scissors”.  Matisse painted papers, cut out shapes and glued the shapes together create pictures. Some of Matisse's works were inspired by music, the ocean or even the circus. Students looked at several of Matisse’s artworks and noticed how he repeated shapes to make patterns and show movement in his art. Using only cool colors students cut and glued shapes to create a background for their Matisse inspired collage. Students then learned how to cut out snowflakes and repeated snowflakes in their collage along with small white paper patterns. 

2nd Grade Kente Cloths

2nd Grade Kente Cloths

Students in 2nd grade studied fabric designs from all around the world. They learned about the different uses for fabrics and the patterns and designs created on fabrics. They looked at Navajo Weavings, Hmong Clothing, Mexican Blankets, Malawi Chitenjes and focused on Kente Cloths from Ghana. Kente cloth is a fabric made of woven cloth strips. Kente cloth is a royal and sacred cloth that was traditionally worn only by important people and was the called the cloth of kings. Over time the use of kente cloth became widespread and it is now worn for special occasions and events by people other than just kings. We read the book The Spider Weaver which was about the legend of the first kente cloth. Students created their own kente cloth by painting repeated designs and colors on a piece of white paper. Students turned the painting in into a loom by cutting lines in the paper so they could weave on it. They created the weaving using strips of colored paper they decorated. They finished by fringing the edges of the paper to make it look like fabric. Beautiful Kente Cloths 2nd Graders!

Kindergarten Architects

Kindergarten Architects

In Art class Kindergarteners learned about Architecture.  They viewed different artwork about houses and buildings and looked to find the different parts of architecture.  They found that the different parts buildings look like shapes. They found that many houses are shaped like rectangles and squares and have roofs that are semi-circles and triangles.  They also noticed that buildings have windows which are shaped like are squares, rectangles and semi-circles.  We also looked for other parts of buildings like steps, decks, chimneys, domes, door knobs, and other details too.  Students then created their own houses by cutting and collaging different shapes together to create houses.  They had to make sure the pieces were cut to the right size to fit on their houses and that the parts were in the correct places on their houses. When they were done collaging their houses they used watercolors to paint reflections of their houses in the water!

Great Job Kindergarten Architects!

1st Grade Van Gogh Sunflower Paintings

Vincent Van Gogh

Sunflowers

1^st Graders looked at several paintings by the famous artist Vincent Van Gogh and learned that he painted in the style of Impressionism.  They learned that he painted the first sunflower painting for a friend named Paul Gauguin and eventually did many paintings of sunflowers in his life. 1st graders learned the parts of a flower and then practiced drawing sunflowers. Students learned that van Gogh has his own style of thick paint and visible brush strokes.  Students practiced his style of painting on their art and practiced color mixing with thick brush strokes like van Gogh. At the end they traced their sunflowers with black oil pastels and added white spirals to show movement like van Gogh.

   Great Job 1^st Graders‼