Art Room Update 9/24/18

This week, Kindergarten continued to work on the Kandinsky lesson, creating concentric circles of different sizes and widths within six squares. The room becomes delightfully quiet, as the children immerse themselves in painting. First grade finished their self portraits in crayon, while Second grade students continued their self portraits in oil pastel. Third grade started their self-portraits in soft pastel, noticing that when you blend pastel colors with your fingers, the surface of the paper looks velvety soft.

Fourth graders continued working on warm/cool color landscapes with trees, using oil pastel and watercolor. Fifth grade continued to work on their self portraits in graphite using a “torchon” or “stump” to blend the graphite shadows on their faces.
Sixth grade continued creating symmetrical name insects out of their names in “bubble script” letters, noting that insects have 6 legs, 2 antennae, and 2 compound eyes. Seventh grade continued the sneaker design unit, this week looking at designs by Dwayne Edwards, who was the design director at Nike for 11 years. They continued some research in groups on sneaker design, technology, and trends, and began logo designs this week. Eighth grade skateboard  sketches based upon Japanese artist Takashi Murakami’s style continued.

The 5^th grade Art Elective is learning to sew the running stitch and back stitch in order to create their “Monster/Animal pillows.”

The 7^th grade Fine Arts Elective have started a unit called “Common Threads.” They are drawing hands in different positions first, and have since embarked on drawing two hands holding a ribbon which will connect to every other student’s ribbon, creating one long piece. The background is to be split up into many geometrical shapes, in which each student will represent at least 3 different world patterns, and create the rest and/or use Zentangle designs.
The 8^th grade Fine Arts Elective are working on completing their portfolios, and took a multiple choice test this week on the Elements of Art and the Principles of Design in order to prepare for the specialized High School admissions art test. The lowest score was a 96!
Last year’s 4^th Grade artwork “Alphabeasties” filled 4 bulletin boards in our hallways. They had to create an animal of their choice out of either the first letter of the animal’s name, or out of all of the letters in the the animals name. They did such an outstanding job that I promised them that each students’ work would be displayed. Additionally, last year’s 7^th grade class created beautiful tile designs after having looked at Mexican Telavera designs, and many are on display in the glass cases opposite the elevator on the first floor.