Friday, November 30, 2012

The Gift of Artwork!


     I have had a great first week at Suffield!  This is my first time there this year because of my maternity leave at the beginning of the year.  In second grade, we are starting a fabric collage unit, and I was surprised with this beautiful and sweet artwork yesterday morning after having introduced the lesson the day before.  Erica went home and used art materials she found at home to make an artwork for me of my precious baby, Rex.  Leaving Rex each day is difficult, but thoughtful/creative/wonderful students like this make it worth while!  Thank you Erika for this special artwork!

     As you can see, Erika's collage looks just like Rex!

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving Little Falcons


Happy Thanksgiving!  I am thankful for the amazing artworks my students create everyday!



 

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

4th Grade Animal Enlargements in Oil Pastel


    In fourth grade at Brimfield, we are just finishing these oil pastel animal enlargements.  We talked a lot about different kinds of perspectives in art and the students were challenged to create these artworks of extreme zoomed-in perspective.  The students used simple viewfinders I made by cutting a 1" x 1" square in the middle of a piece of tag board.  They used the viewfinders to select an interesting composition within an animal photograph that they also chose. 
    



     When their drawings were complete, we worked really hard on our oil pastel techniques.  The students really REALLY looked at their photographs to figure out which oil pastel colors to layer to create creamy and rich artworks.  Students were challenged to layer colors on all parts of their artworks; even spaces that just appeared white or black.  Even though the end result for many of these artworks is abstract, the students agreed that, for many of them, these are the most realistic artworks they've made!