Park Hill Art Fair

 

Come to the Park Hill Art Fair!!  The show is this weekend, and admission is free!!  See work by talented student artists, grades K-12.

 



Nelson Atkins Museum of Art

I had a fun day with 2nd grade at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.  It was fun to see some famous art in REAL LIFE!  We got to see paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and many more!  I hope YOU get a chance to see it, too.  Click the link below for more information on visiting the museum.  Admission is FREE!!!

Visit the Nelson!

Here we come!  We were excited to see some famous art.

2nd grade loved the shuttlecocks on the front lawn of the Nelson.

Wow... a real life Monet painting!!

Clay Flowers

 

3rd graders completed their clay project.  They look great!!  These beautiful ceramic flowers started out as just slabs of clay, but my students quickly tranformed them. 

 



First we drew a flower template and traced it onto the slab.

We carfully cut them out.

After adding some texture to create detail, we gently laid them in a bowl form to shape them.

Hard working artists.

They looked pretty great already... but we aren't done yet!

 

After the clay dried out completely (this takes 1-2 weeks), Ms. May fired them in the kiln.

Now they are ready to paint!

We used watercolor to paint them, and then applied Mod Podge over the top.

The flowers are currently part of a lovely spring time display in the downstairs case.  Come by and see them!

 3rd graders helped me with the display by creating some oil pastel leaves.

Great job 3rd graders!

Art Club Mural

Since English Landing Elementary is undergoing some construction this spring, Art Club spruced up one of the temporary walls by the office.  We were inspired by Wassily Kandinsky's painting of Concentric Circles.  Thank you Art Club for making our school more beautiful!

Each student was assigned one square. After drawing several concentric circles, they painted the circles with colors of their choice.

Work in progress.

Looking good!

Close up.

Finished product.  Wow!

Welcoming Spring with Mixed Media

4th graders gained experience with many different art materials for this spring robin collage.

 

Students learned about random weaving as they created a nest from materials such as newspaper, yarn, and rafia. 

 

We watched some fotage of real robins building nests.  It was fun to compare the real nests to our random weaving artworks.

 We had to use problem solving to figure out how to combine the materials in a way that looked good and wouldn't fall apart!

Finished nest.

We looked closely at pictures of robins in order to figure out how to draw them.  We painted them with watercolor.

When the paintings dried, we cut the birds out and added them to the nest.

Some spring blossoms were added as a finishing touch!

Finished product.

Finished product.

Finished product.

Color Exploration

 

5th grade has completed their big-fancy-color theory project for the year.  This project is a culmination of all the color lessons and activities that they have been working on over the years.  I am happy to say, these kids are now pretty much color experts!  

We began by reviewing the color wheel.  Using only primary colors, students had to create all of the color wheel colors using tempera paint.

Color Wheel

Next we looked at some art by Vincent van Gogh.  His landscape, Flowering Garden, was the inspiration for our project!

After sketching a landscape, students painted the drawing with tempera paint. The TRICKY part was that they were only given red, yellow, blue, black, and white. All other colors had to be mixed!



Check out that beautiful paint palette!

Artist in action.

Almost done with the grass!

Students added flowers on top of the hills.

Finished product.

Finished product.

Finished product.

Finished product.

Finished product.

Finished product.

Finished product.

Finished product.

 

Watercolor Koi Fish



 

According to Japanese legend, the Koi fish is a symbol of luck and strength.  2nd graders learned about these unique fish and practiced new painting techniques for this project.

 



 

We started by studying koi fish so that we would know how to draw them.  Here is one of the videos we watched in class.

 

After doing some practice sketches, we created large drawings of koi fish with oil pastel. 

We also added water lilies wherever we had extra space.

After the drawings were completed, we painted them with watercolor.

When we painted the fish, we added salt to the wet paint.  This technique creates an interesting texture that looks like the scales of a fish!

Finished product.

Finished product.

Finished product.