Kindergarten Before and After

This has been such a wonderful experiment! The very first week that I had kindergarten, I had them draw a self portrait. Now for the very last week, I've had them draw a new one without showing them the old one. Once their done, they bring it to me and we compare the two to see how much they have grown as an artist. It is amazing to see the difference one year can make!!!

The old self portraits are at the top, and the new ones are at the bottom :)

Last Few Weeks

*Phew!*

These last few weeks have been crazy! 3 weeks of testing, along with field trips, special presentations, and all kinds of other activities have made it difficult to get much done in the art room. Today is our school-wide Variety Show! I set up an art display of student works who wanted to participate, and also made some fun bulletin boards in the gym next to the stage for the show. We went with a Broadway/Night at the Oscars theme, which has been quite a lot of fun!

1st Grade Doodle Paintings

THIS WAS SUCH A FUN PROJECT!!!! I talked about pattern with my first graders and we discussed different ways of using pattern to make doodles! They began with black paint that they used to create doodles that filled the entire page. After they dried, they used oil pastels to enhance their artwork with color. They turned out so cool!

3rd Grade Chagall Paintings

3rd graders have been studying the style of Marc Chagall (crazy colors, everything imaginative and topsy-turvy.) For this project, they used oil pastels to draw a cartoon style portrait of themselves, the house they grew up in, and either a heart or a depiction of someone they love, since those are all themes that are common in Chagall's work. Then, they used liquid watercolors to fill the page with color...I love how vibrant they turned out!

4th Grade Masks

4th graders have been learning about Greek burial masks! They made them out of cardboard so that parts of the mask would be raised off the surface. Then, they wrapped tin foil around them and colored them with gel markers. Traditional Greek masks are solid gold in color. I didn't want to limit their creativity to just one color, so I let them use any gel marker color they wanted. The gel markers turned out looking really awesome on top of the foil!

5th Grade Abstract Notans

For this project, I discussed abstract art with the 5th graders. They had to compare and contrast various artworks that were either abstract or representational. Then I showed them some examples of different types of notans and did a demonstration of how to create one. Some of them chose the more simple approach, while others chose to kick it up a notch!

4th Grade Ocean Collages

4th graders have been focusing on foreground and background, as well as designing a scene and using details to embellish it. For this project, they had to create an ocean background using oil pastel and watercolor. Then, they used scrap papers to create animals, shells, seaweed, etc to be in their foreground. I was so impressed with how these turned out! Everyone did a fantastic job!