6th Grade Field Trip to Tufts Library

They missed out on the field trip last year because the butterfly collection was sent to Boston Public Library to be digitized. So better late than never. The students spent the morning looking over the vast collection of beetles, moths, butterflies and other critters. They chose a few of their favorites to draw using pencils. I want to thank Mrs. McCafferty and Mrs. Collins for helping and Mrs. Gonzalez for organizing the class walk.

Art Club (Drawing)

We finished up the last class of drawing art club with charcoal. I though we should give drawing from life a try. Each student got an apple. The first step was to draw the apple whole then the following three drawing should be progressive by taking a bite of the apple and drawing what you see. I was very happy with the skills of shading and blending with charcoal. 

Rainbow Mouse in Progress

1st grade rainbows waiting to be finished next week.

Black Cats

The 3rd grade continued with the "looking at things from a different perspective" ideas with this project. I scored a pile of fuzzy black sticky paper at the recycle center and thought it would be great for this lesson. We found out that is was really hard to cut with scissors. The bigger the cat was the easier it was to cut though. Good problem solving. The orange paper is decided into six sections and the cat is to be appearing from different directions. 

Color Wheel Eye

It wouldn't be art class without the good ol' color wheel. The 6th grade first class was spent drawing the wheel and dividing into 12 even sections. Then the student was given the primary colors, red, blue and yellow. From there the secondary and intermediate colors were mixed. I'm becoming the believer that the true primary colors are CMYK. I may have to have the students prove this for me. I do however love the way these came out as an eyeball.

Eiffel Tower

The 2nd grade class followed my step by step direction on how to draw the Eiffel tower. We talked about how the shapes help to add stability to the structure. All the little x's they had to draw are what makes it strong. It was also a lesson in patience. The black was made by dipping a piece of cardboard in paint and printing the lines.

Work from Home

Thanks to Alexis in 4th grade for sharing the excellent drawing she did at home. Keep up the character work, I love it.

Winners!!!

I was so happy to see Susanne, Madalena and Alex at the Columbian Square window painting contest. Their concept, painting skills and teamwork came through to capture second place. It is still up if you want to see it for yourself.

Paper Mache Pupkins

The 6th graders did an excellent job sculpting the pumpkins using a plastic shopping bag, newspaper, rubber bands and colored tissue paper. They are all ready to go home just in time for Halloween.

Torn Paper Faces

I don't throw out the scraps of construction paper from past projects. The 1st grade class brought new life to the leftover paper with these creative faces. No scissors were used.

My Desk

The 1st grade class turned my desk into a Wassily Kandinsky painting!

Contour Drawing of Shoe

Joe S in 7th grade did a great job with this project. Perfect example of a contour drawing. The pattern in the background was inspired by a pattern found on the shoe. Joe engraved the lines into a piece of foam and printed it with paint.

Foil Printmaking

Here we have K2 experimenting with paint on tin foil and a cotton swab. They would draw different designs then just brush the paint to start a fresh one. Once they got something they want to keep they would place a piece of paper on top, rub and lift to reveal the image printed. Below are some that were printed onto a drawing they did using warm colors. I love the texture and layers made with this process. 

Fantasy Land Maps

Let me tell you, I've been blown away by the way the 4th grade class has done with this project. They are just bursting with creativity. I gave them a list of made up town/cities to choose from. Then make a map of the town with required items to include like roads, mountains, water, building and names. Each map I look at is full of detail and well thought out plans. I would be happy to live in any of the places. Here are just a few samples, but I will post more next week. Too good not to share!

Abstract Foil Art

Ok, I wasn't sure what to call this art. Either way I love the way they came out. We have been working on texture and doing rubbings in K2 art. This project used wax sticks to place on a piece of cardboard in an interesting way. Then the student covered the whole thing with foil. The wax sticks were then rubbed until the shapes appeared through the foil. Markers were used to enhance the shapes.

Bats

Add caption

The 2nd grade spent some time cutting out bats from a piece of paper folded in half. When the had a few done they taped them to a large piece of paper and painted around the cutouts with a small sponge. We got some nice negative shapes of bats when the cutouts were lifted.

Halloween is Coming!

We had a little time left in class so I asked the 2nd graders to draw what they are going to be for Halloween. They were so excited.