Category: Art Programme

Every Artist is Unique

We began our art theory lessons last week with one of the main things that all artists should always be aware of – each artist is unique.  We can get ideas from others but we need to ‘do our own thing’ with that idea.

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I showed the students about 30 different prints from a wide variety of different artists (Cezanne, Monet, Pissarro, Van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso, and some students from British Columbia).  Each print was different from the other but all had one element the same – they all contained at least one tree.

Students were then directed to create their own pictures.  They could use any of the media on their desks (wax crayons, pencil crayons, skinny felt markers, fat markers).  They could have the paper in either position (landscape or portrait).  The only ‘rule’ was that the picture needed to contain at least one tree.

As you can see – every artist in Division 5 is UNIQUE!!!

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Value – Art Lessons

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In a continuation of our ‘elements of art’ lessons, students have been learning about ‘value’.  They had previously learned that the colour that we see is in the light and that without light there is no colour.

Students now know that black and white are not colours – they are examples of values.  Black is the darkest dark and white is the lightest light.  They created pictures on white paper only using a black crayon.

 

Bernard the Butterfly

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Last Friday the students heard the story about how the world became so colourful.   It involved Mother Nature and a curious, white (originally) butterfly named Bernard.  Ask your child to tell you the story!

Students then created their own butterfly using the same colours that Mother Nature had used in the story – the primary colours of red, yellow, and blue.

Today we discussed ‘symmetry’ – what it means and what parts of our bodies display symmetry.  They then added the bodies to their butterflies and curled the antennae.  The butterflies have now migrated to the bulletin board outside of our room.  Take a look when you come by the school.

There are also three butterflies created by some Division 1 students who worked with us on Friday afternoon.

Where the Wild Things Are

Last Thursday we did a great activity with our Division 2 buddy class.  We heard the story – Where The Wild Things Are – and saw the short video, as well.  Then, divided into two groups, we worked either in Mrs. Iverson’s room or our room.  We created some great – scary looking – monsters using chalk pastels on black construction paper.

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Check out the bulletin board outside of our room and the one upstairs by Mrs. Iverson’s room.  Both boards have a variety of pictures from each of the classes.  Here are two of our students’ work:

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I think that they look great.  I hope you agree!

Elements of Art – Colour

Last Friday, during our Art period, students performed experiments with colour.  We started with the three primary colours – red, yellow, and blue.  Students learned that ‘primary’ colours – meaning ‘first’ – are important because they can make other colours but other colours cannot make them.

Using these three primary colours students made the ‘intermediate’ colours – orange, green, and purple.

Once students had each created these three new colours they were given a new piece of paper.  They were asked to paint a picture – of whatever they wanted – but they were to show the six colours (the three primaries and the three intermediates) in this picture.

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I think they look pretty great!!  I hope you agree.

The Elements of Art

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Last week we began our study of the Elements of Art.  We did crayon rubbings with which the students demonstrated their understanding of the six elements.  Most of these elements are fairly self-explanatory (colour, shape, line, form) but as an FYI – ‘texture’ is how something feels or ‘looks’ like it feels, and ‘value’ is the lightness or darkness of something.  Value can be with colours or non-colours (black, white, and grey).  The difference between ‘shape’ and ‘form’ is the dimensionality – e.g. a 2-D shape drawn on the board is a ‘shape’ but as I can’t pick it up off the board it has no ‘form’.

Here are some of the crayon rubbings:

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Seuss is Happening in our Class!!

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We have been reading and enjoying a lot of the books by Dr. Seuss this past two weeks!!  We began with “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street” which was the first book that he wrote.  With an aim at being better at observing (and using imagination) we took a short walk down Pandora Street to see what we could see.  Back in the classroom students drew something ‘real’ that they had seen and then had to turn it into something ‘unreal’ or imaginary – similar to the way the character in the story exaggerated his observations.

With ‘The Cat in the Hat’ we had a directed drawing lesson on how to draw a human face.  Students learned about the correct placement of facial features and the proportions of these features in relation to each other.  As the first in our series of drawing lessons I think that the students did a great job!!  We added the great hats to finish off the art pieces.  Our drawing lessons will continue each week throughout the school year.  By June the students will have a fine collection in their portfolios.

We will continue with our Seuss theme throughout next week.  Many of the stories have been simply read by me during our daily Storytime after lunch – with others we have done activities.  We are currently finishing up our versions of ‘Yertle, the Turtle’.

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