Attack!

CRICKET ATTACK!

Not really, but seriously, every time I open my classroom door into our courtyard, a few crickets come charging into the room. I end up on the floor trying to catch crickets to return them to the wild.

This week, I stopped fighting the crickets and started catching them in a bug catcher to take to release them in front of the school so it's harder for them to come back.

A few years ago (while I was student teaching), I taught a cricket drawing lesson. With all the spare crickets around, it seemed like a good time to try it again. Instead of putting a cricket or two on each table, I decided to just use the document camera to project them on the board.

These drawings are by 1st and 2nd grade students. We talked about the parts of an insect and counted the legs on our "models." My students loved the crickets and I loved watching them draw the crickets. Their drawings turned out wonderfully!

Disclaimer: Crickets were caught and released daily. No crickets were harmed during this lesson!

An O'Keeffe for Everyone

Georgia O'Keeffe was an amazingly versatile artist. Her paintings reflect a wide variety of painting styles and subject matter. But then again, she painted for nearly 90 years!

Second grade PES artists examined and discussed quite a few of O'Keeffe's paintings and drew inspiration from them to create their own works of art. Many students were interested in her still lifes of skulls and flowers, so we pulled objects from the storage closet (deer skull, anyone?) to look at as they worked.  Students also chose their own medium based on what would best fit their subject matter. I am excited about the results of this lesson and proud of my artists' hard work and experimentation!

Also, we l-o-v-e the book Through Georgia's Eyes, by Rachel Rodriguez!

Learn more about Georgia O'Keeffe:

American Masters: Georgia O'Keeffe

O'Keeffe Museum

Goldfish

Second grade PES artists love Henri Matisse! The bright colors and patterns he used in his paintings and collages are very interesting. Matisse's painting The Goldfish is especially fun!

These second grade artists were inspired by The Goldfish to create a collage of their own fish bowl!

The fish bowl of a true Star Wars fan! Darth Vader!

Mexican Suns

The sun is a common symbol in artwork throughout the world. It is honored by many cultures as the source of life for all on earth.
As in many other places, sun symbols are used very frequently in Mexican folktales and crafts. Second grade PES artists examined artwork featuring suns made by craftsmen in Mexico. Often the suns have interesting details, patterns, and faces. For this lesson, artists used compasses to create perfect circles for the sun faces, their prior knowledge about facial proportion and a lot of oil pastels to create these exctiting suns! 

So I know that it isn't from Mexico, but as far as fables about the sun, we love "The Contest Between the Sun and the Wind" by Aesop. It has been made into this wonderful picture book by Heather Forest. We highly recommend it! 

Red and Blue make Violet!

This second grade class was SO excited about mixing the primary colors- red, yellow, and blue- to make secondary colors- orange, purple, and green! There is a lot of art-making noise in this short video, but sometimes you can't hold the excitement inside! 

I love that the student in this clip responds to my question about mixing red and blue with "violet," instead of "purple." 

Slab Vases

2nd Grade artists have been using clay to build slab vases. My instructions were minimal- I demonstrated rolling a slab and using the slab to build a very basic form. I was astonished with some of the pieces of art that were created by the end of class! They have handles, faces, textures, patterns, claws reaching out, and so much more!
I can't take any credit for Logan's piece below, but I sure am proud of it!

I will post more pictures of this lesson when they are glazed and finished!

We're Wild About Fauves!

Second grade students have been discussing the group of artists called the Fauves. The word Fauve translates as "wild beast," and it shows in the style of the paintings! The photos are of second grade self portraits in progress, in the style of the Fauves. Check out those WILD colors!

Drawing and Development

My last post was about drawing and brain development. This afternoon, I found a few  kindergarten self portraits from August 2008.

Both of the drawings below are by Olivia, a very talented and intelligent second grade artist. I'm missing her first grade self portrait, but the progress is so fun to see! Wouldn't it be great to collect a self-portrait of every child at the start of every school year and then view them all together? hmm...

Olivia, sad about saying "goodbye" to her mom on the first day of Kindergarten.

Olivia on the first day of second grade!

Masterpiece of the Week!

Brad's Fauvist-inspired Self Portrait!

Paper Cutouts a la Matisse!

2nd grade artists were inspired by the paper cutout art of Henri Matisse to create beautiful collages using only organic shapes.

An Organic shape is a shape withOUT a name.

A Geometric shape is a shape with a name, like circles or squares.

Symbolic Migration

To celebrate the migration of the monarch butterflies to Mexico, 2nd grade students created "Ambassador" butterflies in art class. They then typed up messages in Spanish for students in Mexico to attach onthe backs of the butterflies.

Our butterflies migrated to Mexico over the weekend and in the spring, a new flock of butterflies will come back to us!

Find information on the Symbolic Migration at: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/sm/index.html

Mexican Sun Faces

Second grade artists studied the importance of suns in Mexican culture. They practiced using a compass to create perfectly round sun faces!