Grandparents Day

Grandparents Day is on Friday! In honor of the event, kindergarten completed portraits of their grandparents using tempera paint. Here is the result:

 

 

 

Shoes

I am all about Vincent Van Gogh this quarter! He is one of my favorite artists and his work offers so much inspiration. Check out this GE sponsored installation at London's National Gallery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=541_ke_ADl0

 He is famous for a series of paintings of shoes. They have such an expressive quality; they are almost like portraits, as they can tell you so much about their owners. These paintings served as the inspiration for our current ceramics project. Students are working from observation to create a shoe sculpture that tells the viewer about themselves. Below I have included pictures of two projects that are approaching completion: a soccer shoe and worn-in Converse. I am absolutely floored by the quality of these pieces. This is easily high school quality work! I would love to enter them into an art contest, if I can only find one.

Royal Pooches!

This is a work in progress by 3rd graders. In response to many requests to draw animals, we are creating "Royal Pooches". We will be painting them with watered down tempera next week. I decided to paint my dog, Remy, as an example. Check out their preliminary sketches!

 

 

Thanks to Deep Space Sparkle for the idea!

Feliz Dia de los Muertos!

3rd grade traveled south of the border to discover Halloween-like traditions celebrated by other cultures. In Mexico, Halloween is not so scary. The celebrate "Dia de los Muertos" or "The Day of the Dead". It is a joyous occasion that remembers past friends and family members. Children dance in the streets with skeletons, decorate with marigolds and sugar skulls, and eat the favorite foods and beverages of the departed. Our class painted sugar skulls (these are sweet treats eaten and displayed during the festivities) with tempera and then added glittery embellishments.

Dear Vincent

3rd graders studied the life and art of Vincent Van Gogh then embarked on the creation of their own "Starry Night" masterpiece. Our skys came alive with swirling motion, bold colors, and short brushstrokes.Students washed over their oil pastel lines with liquid watercolors. No "mud" was allowed so artists had to be mindful of what colors they were blending. Once the background was completed we cut and paste our foreground from construction paper. Artists also enjoyed writing letters to their friend Vincent. They asked such great questions and were, of course, very interested in how he lost that ear. We look forward to hearing back from him later this week ;)

Empty Bowls

"In celebration of Feeding America Tampa Bay’s mission – Ending Hunger, Nourishing Hope - the weekend prior to Thanksgiving is set aside for Empty Bowls, the food bank’s largest annual event. This Tampa Bay tradition of more than 20 years offers guests a simple meal of soup, bread, fruit & water – similar to soup kitchen fare. Patrons also select from among hundreds of charming commemorative bowls handcrafted by Tampa Bay area school children – a reminder that there are always empty bowls to fill."

http://feedingamericatampabay.org/NewsAndEvents/Events/EmptyBowls2011HandinHandforHunger.aspx

I am very proud to have Brandon Academy artists participating in this event. Our ceramics class spent several days designing and creating their bowls for this event. They are difficult to part with, but we are joyful to see them go towards such a worthy cause. Students created bowls in homage to famous artists such as Dale Chihuly, Keith Haring, and Marcel Duchamp. See if you can spot the similarities.

Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives Art

This is one of my favorite games to play in art class. On the last day of the quarter, 1st grade had only one 30 min period left so we certainly did not have time to complete a big project. I believe that creative drawing is very important so we decided to play a game that encourages reading and introduces students to the different parts of speech. 1st graders were new to this information so it was a good learning experience for all! Students had to pick a mystery word from the noun, verb, and adjective bags. They then put their three words together to make a funny picture. We saw tall hawks ice skating, orange hamburgers swimming, and even a slimy cat sleeping! Check out our artists hard at work...