Winter Has Arrived!

We started with rain in the morning.  By late morning there are heavy white flakes falling.  It's the official start of winter!

In the Elementary Art Room Halloween projects have been wrapped up.  

Seventh Graders have started their new classes for the quarter and Eighth Grade has started a new art class.

Thanksgiving projects are just around the corner!

Halloween Projects

Catching up after a bad cold!  Never an easy task.  :)

Halloween in Chase County Schools is a treat.  The kids get to dress up and decorate pumpkins.  At the end of the day there is a parade.  Even the pre-school is asked to join.

A few of the decorated pumpkins:

Even the example board is decorated!

Halloween in the Art Room

Just a small sampling of what's coming up next week!

Halloween projects!

The Gnomes are Ready to Go Home

Seventh Grade students finished their gnomes.  There were a couple casualties, but most survived intact.

    

Not a bad looking bunch :)

One poor gnome did not escape in one piece.  But with a little glue and patience, he's mostly whole again.

Fifth Grade Mandalas

"Mandala"comes from the Sanskrit word for "circle"

Mandalas appear all over the world, in various forms.  The mandala commonly represents unity, the circle of life or the universe.
Mandalas use Radial Balance, meaning everything comes from a center point, a circle with a center.  Think of spider webs, flowers, snowflakes; these are all examples of radial balance.

Students start with a circle. 

Divide the circle into equal sections.

        Add a repeating design. 

       And finally add color!

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Some students chose to work with a theme too:

Peace

Halloween

Cow

This is one of my favorite lessons to teach each year.  Even though it is a basic idea - radial balance, line and color - students always create such a great variety!  

- Miss Tomaso

First Grade Rainbow Fish

1st  Grade read "Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister as inspiration.(http://www.amazon.com/The-Rainbow-Fish-Marcus-Pfister/dp/1558580093/ref=wp_bs_1_B00CKC8PM6_hardcover)

Our fish have rainbow bodies.  The colors are in the order of the rainbow - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet.

 

We talked about emphasis - giving something importance by making it the biggest, by putting it in front or using contrast.  

Our fish are the biggest object on the paper, contrast against the blue and are placed in front of the bubbles.

 Students used shapes to make their fish.  We also painted circles on the blue paper for a background.

After drawing our fish, we cut them out and put them on the background.

Some of our fish have extras - fish friends, starfish, seaweed, even a shark and octopus!

A colorful school of fish from the 1st Grade!

Back on Track!

The Seventh Grade gnomes are finally in the kiln!  I was out of town for a wedding.  Then a hail storm knocked the power out at the school for over an hour yesterday.  Progress has been delayed.  We will be glazing later this week - pictures to follow.

Some of the other classes have also started on their Halloween projects!  The end of the quarter is nearing.  Projects are being wrapped up, displays being changed and all with pictures to be posted soon.    

Kindergarten Lines

We have finished our color boxes and have started moving on to line.

"A line is a dot that took a walk"

Working with line and color.  Kindergarteners fill their page with as many lines as they can think of, which can be a challenge for some!  

When the whole page has lines students add color.  

Not quite finished, but close!  :)

Next week we will be finishing our line pages.  Pictures of the finished artwork to be posted.
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