Week 4

Week 4 is starting with a refresher on Caring for Our Art Supplies.  my students do really well with this, but it never hurts to remind them why it is so important.  For this refresher course I found a fun video about "Young Sloppy Brush" who is a paint brush that was not properly cared for.  (To see this video, click the link below)

Young Sloppy Brush

The video was made by the talented Dryden 5th Grade students of Mrs. Fuglestad's Class to educate us all on Paint Brush care.  "Young Sloppy Brush" now travels the country educating classes about his experiences.

The 2nd Graders are really catching on to the freedom of choice without getting overwhelmed by it.  Other classes seem to love choice, but have trouble finishing artwork before moving on to a new choice.  Here are some of the fantastic pictures by the 2nd Grade.

This first picture was the completed over a 3 week time period, as was the one below.  I have been really impressed with the determination of these students to finish it to their best effort no matter how long it takes them.

This collage was created by another 2nd grader.  I loved how the artist gave the Flamingo not only a name, but a personality as she talked about her artwork.

This young lady wrote a very nice story on the back of her paper to accompany the artwork.  Here is what she wrote:

Me and my Mom love to dance!  So we put on a show and they love it.  They threw roses at me and my Mom.  Then they threw more stuff.  Soon it was time to do another dance and they love it.  They threw more roses at us.  Soon it was time to go home and we danced even more and more.

Here are some other fantastic artwork by 2nd Graders!

This little girl made the picture to cheer her mom up.  She said "Mom doesn't usually wear dresses, but I put her in a dress anyway.  I want to make her feel happy."

1st Grade Artwork

 This picture was painted by a young man in 1st grade.  While some parts of the dragon's colors may not be completely filled in the lines give a texture to the skin and dynamic to the body of the the dragon that brings him to life on the paper.

Kindergarten Artwork

When asked about the Dinosaur in the picture, the artist stated that "it's a dinosaur cloud."  I know that as children we all see shapes in the clouds so it was really neat to me to see this in a child's artwork.

Week 3

Week 3 was a very busy week!  As choices for creating art we added Collage and Sculpture to our list.  Rather than tell you all about what we did, we'll show you instead!

Week 2

Week 2 saw the addition of painting as one of our choices for art materials to use.  The transition into Choice Based art making has been going rather smoothly.  The students seem really excited by all the items in the Idea Station which they can select to draw or use as inspiration.

This student finished his house this week.

I have a group of boys who are insisting on making their pictures look "old-fashioned" by only doing black and white pictures so we talked about how there are black and white, but lots of grays in the pictures too.

A kindergartener's light bug.

This 1st grade picture was inspired by a lot of different things.  I was really impressed he took so many ideas we talked about first semester and put them together in this picture.

This week the art room saw a lot of standard landscapes; grass, sky, sun, trees and with some animals.  Rather than see this as phase or a down side to the week I instead see this as an opportunity to discuss with students the other points of view they can use to create a picture.  Does we have to show the whole deer or can it be just a close up?  How do you as the artist want to depict this deer?  Instead of having them just do something, because that is what the assignment requires or the technique demands we can discuss the possibilities and choices that each student has to make the best possible decision for that particular student on their artwork.  Since the student is highly invested in their art and ideas I feel these discussions will be more meaningful for them and have a greater effect on their artwork.