New Year, New Things Happening in the Art Room

Welcome to the 2014-2015 school year! I am so excited to be back for another great year at St. Roberts! There are a few changes in the art room this year so I just wanted to briefly touch on them.

GRADING! Grades 4-8 will have a slightly different grading process this year. Instead of ONLY being graded on behavior, students will also be graded on each art project. BE NOT AFRAID. Grades will be based on a list of requirements, not based on talent. As long as students follow directions and complete their project on time, they will do fine.

FIRST FIVE. Students in grades 2-4 will be participating in an opening activity each day called First Five. When they come into the art room, there will be an activity on the smart board for students to quietly complete. It could be anything from writing down thoughts on a piece of artwork to a quick drawing of something. Before moving on to our lesson or project work time, we will discuss the first five as a class.

ARTSONIA. Artsonia.com is a website where students from all over the world create online art galleries. Last year, my third grade students (now fourth grade), used artsonia to upload four or five pieces of artwork.Their families could go online and see their artwork and even had the chance to purchase merchandise that featured their student's artwork. This year, ALL students K-8 have been designated an artsonia account. Every project completed in class will be uploaded to artsonia. Keep an eye out!

BLOG. I will still update the blog as regularly as possible, but I will not be uploading images of student artwork. Because we have artsonia, I will direct your attention to student artwork often via that site.

And last but DEFINITELY not least,

IPADS!! The art room has been given 8 iPads from Home and School. We will be using the iPads for art history and artist research, group projects, art app exploration, and artsonia uploads. I am so excited to be able to use these with all grade levels!

All Other Classes-Update

Some classes are mid project this week and really have nothing to show on the blog.

Sixth grade has been working on their collage profile. They will probably finish these the week after Thanksgiving. We took a little break to make our Native American headbands and place mats for our Kindergartners.

Fourth grade just finished up creating a color wheel. We are working on Native American parfleches made out of brown paper bags right now. Some of them are really starting to look nice.

Seventh and Eighth Grade both have been working on color wheels as well.

Sunset Silhouettes

Fourth grade has been working on a fall/Halloween inspired sunset silhouette picture. We painted the sunset in the background with watercolor and cut out black paper for the silhouettes. Here are a few examples that turned out great:

   Mark

     Claire

      Bridget

     Jude

Fourth grade Resist Project

Here at some pictures of the 4B class' resist project. 4A will finish this project next week and their pictures will be added to the bulletin board.

Art Room Update 10/10

There won't be many pictures this week because almost every class is in the middle of a project. Here is what students have been working on this week:

Kindergarten just started doing self portraits. They will finish these next week and also do a drawing of their whole body.

First Grade finished their scarecrows and are starting their self-portraits today.

Second Grade started self-portraits. They should be able to finish them next week.

Third Grade started a collage project. I am really excited to see these when they are finished. They will be our next artsonia upload.

Fourth Grade is finishing up their contour resist projects and will finish a silhouette project this week or next.

Fifth grade didn't have art this week, so they will be finishing up their Jim Dine heart project next week. These should turn out to look  very good.

Sixth grade has one more class period to work on their cityscape, then we are starting a new project.

Seventh is finishing up their "yellow line" project.

Eighth grade is finishing up their typography letter contrast assignment. I think these are going to end up looking really cool as well.

Fourth Grade

Fourth grade has been struggling to catch up on a lot of projects. We have been trying to finish up our contour line shoe, but we also started a contour line resist project. The students drew a still life object in contour multiple times, going in different directions and making sure they overlapped. They went over their lines in crayon, then painted in all of the different shapes created. This project has really started to turn out nicely. Unfortunately, because of the two Mondays we have missed 4A is behind. We will hopefully catch up soon, because I would love to put these on the bulletin board. Here are some photos of the work we have been doing the last couple weeks in fourth grade.

Here are some of 4B's contour line resist project. I love these projects. My favorite thing we have done so far. 

     Beau

      Emma

     Delaney

      Skylar

      Ella

Fourth Grade Contour

Fourth Grade has been learning about contour line drawing. Last week, they learned about the books by Laura Ljunkvist and made drawings with one line. Here are some examples:

4A

    Anna S

     Aidan R

4B

Aidan M

      Lauren K 

After this, students practiced contour drawing from observation then did a drawing of their shoe. I will post those pictures when more are finished. 

Updates for the week 9/16-9/20

Unfortunately, I will be out of the building tomorrow so I will not get a chance to update the blog as usual with pictures. I will, however, let you all know what each class worked on this week and will post pictures on Monday!

Kindergarten-KA did the pattern strips project that KB did last week, then made their cows.
KB started learning about shapes and did some coloring pages to help them identify different shapes.

First grade-Both classes started a project decorating an owl with patterns. We read the books "Good-night, Owl!" by Pat Hutchins and "Owl Moon" by Jane Yolen.

Second Grade-We finished our foil shape projects, then began a drawing of a robot using the shapes we learned about.

Third Grade-We learn about the planets in our solar system and practice using oil pastels to make a circle appear 3D with value. We also started working on an "outer space landscape" which includes the sun, all 8 planets, and some extras.

Fourth Grade-We finished our "Follow the Line Through the House" Project, then learned more about contour line, working on a drawing of our shoe.

Fifth Grade-We finished our texture names (many took these home as homework-due next Tuesday!) and started a new project using line to create a cityscape.

Sixth Grade-We have continued to work on our one point perspective names-they are looking great!

Seventh Grade-We learned about contour lines and practiced blind contour line drawing like last week's class.

Eighth Grade-We worked on value scales.

I will get pictures up Monday!

Fourth Grade State Seals

Fourth grade has been learning all about Nebraska history and the things that symbolize our great state of Nebraska. We looked at the actual Nebraska state seal, then it was up to the students. They were asked to think of at least five things they believe symbolize life in Nebraska and create a state seal with those things. Many students used our state symbols like the meadowlark and the channel catfish. Many also used other things, the Huskers and the Kool-aid man are some examples.

These are displayed on a bulletin board near the office, but here are some sneak peaks of what they created.

Raise Your Hand if You're Excited for Art

For K-5 students, their first project with me was to trace their hand and draw at least three things they are excited to do in art this year. They did these in their "class colors" I use in the art room. K-peach, 1-purple, 2-blue, 3-green, 4-yellow, 5-orange.  I made a bulletin board out of the results. Here are some pictures: