Celebrating Creativity

Every year the orchestra teacher and myself take 50 6th graders to the Joslyn Art Museum... 

and every year it is AWESOME! 

You can click here to see a KETV segment on it.

(this years group)

They spend the morning taking classes that focus on art, theater and music. 

Then we spend the afternoon listening to the Omaha Symphony perform (we can't photograph that).

It is always so much fun to see our kids enjoy the day 

and I am always so impressed with their behavior. 

Students were learning about theater makeup and how to make "bite marks." 

Students were learning how moving through dance works for storytelling. 

We get to have awesome docents take our students on fun gallery tours.

This years traveling exhibit is the St. John's Bible. It is amazing. Some students were able to learn about gilding and how it was used. 

Love that he had to wear an art shirt on the art field trip. 

and you can't forget the bus sing alongs... 

(even if I wish we could)

Just Makes Me Happy!

The 5th graders have been finishing up their non-figurative paintings... and they just make me HAPPY! Stay tuned for the things that are going to be happening with these!

Non-Figurative Artwork vs. Abstract Artwork

Abstract Art is an image of something broken down into lines, shapes and colors. 

We looked at the painting "Musical Forms" by Georges Braque and discussed how once you know the title, you can see more of what the image is based on... but that it isn't an exact drawing of a guitar or music. 

Students then took a subject (their name)

and drew them onto 9" square paper. 

We cut the squares into 3" squares

and students were able to move them around.

Students focused on turning their names into an abstract image 

of lines, shapes and color (black and white). They focused on making sure 

the image was interesting to look at. 

They then uploaded them to Artsonia. You can see our images here.

Non-Figurative Art is artwork that is art created by using lines, shapes and colors. 

(sound familiar?)

We looked at this sculpture by Louise Nevelson called "Case with Five Balusters."

And then we created these non-figurative watercolor paintings 

that focus on lines, shapes and colors.

You can check out our non-figurative paintings here.

This was a fun way to create some quick projects that really 

help us understand the differences between abstract art and non-figurative art. 

Display's...

So far this year I have put up a few things... and I still have a few to put up.

The 5th and 6th grade students made these cubes. 

I finally got around to putting all 600+ on display together. 

It is always impressive to see kids working independently 

but seeing them all together is so very impressive. 

The 6th graders created color wheels and when I finally put these on display

the kids all impressed. I had put a "exhibit under construction" sign on this 

cast at the start of the year. When that finally came down and this went up, they agreed

 it was worth the wait. 

The 5th graders are working through the difference between abstract and non-figurative art. 

Our abstract art project had us drawing our names, chopping them up and rearranging 

them into images based on lines, shapes and colors. 

6th Grade WIN Time

Every 3 weeks we rotate through different WIN (What I Need) groups. For my last group I had 6th graders and we worked through using Google Drawings to create these polyline self portraits. I think they did a great job.

I learned how to do these drawings from the amazing digital artist Joshua Pomeroy. 

You can check out his online videos on YouTube. 

The first video I watched and was amazed by was his drawing of Justin Timberlake. 

5th Grade Awful Alphabet Letters

I was super impressed with the drawings the fifth graders finished up. They did such a great job of creating their creatures and making fun places for them to "live." I also think they did a great job of creating alliterations to go with their projects. Here are just a few:

Enormous E eats extraordinarily elaborate eggs with an energy elixir everyday.

Jolly J jumped when Jayden Jaguar emerged from the Japan Jungle Jaguar Exhibit.

Artist A at an amazing art gallery

The cruel carnivorous C was creatively colorful.

You can check out the rest of them at our Artsonia site. 

6th grade Working Away

Just like 5th grade, 6th grade is working through testing, vacation days and altered schedules to finish up their projects. We are still finishing up our color wheel projects and we have been enjoying some fun art starter videos that have to do with color. You can check them out here:

This is always a fun review... even if it is stuck in your head for a long time. 

(click the color wheel image to watch a Khan Academy color intro)

We watch a bit of this one (start at about 5:20)

The students have been doing some amazing work on creating unique color wheels. Check out Artsonia to see what they are doing. 

The "Wednesday 6th graders" are doing great on their fiber art projects. They are finishing up their embroidery images and getting ready to start on sewing their creatures. I can't wait to share some of their work here. 

5th grade Just Working Away...

It may seem crazy that we haven't started anything new but with Maps testing, Labor Day and more we are still just working away on our current projects. By next week I will have finally seen everyone twice for each project... So a quick review:

5th graders are working away on creating their "awful alphabet creatures" and their colored pencil skills. We started by reading the book "The Absolutely Awful Alphabet" by Mordicai Gerstein. It is full of absolutely awful creatures created from the alphabet.

 

  

Everyone has worked on their planning sheet, coming up with two different ideas and working with colored pencils to create some quality value scales.
    
They are working on their final copies during art class and during Map Testing time. I am super excited to see these finished and uploaded to Artsonia in the next few weeks.  I am also excited to read all the alliterations they will have come up with for their images. 

Week #1

5th Grade 
This last week the students worked on finishing up their art cubes in their ELO's. When they came back to class we talked about Artsonia and how to use it. We then practiced uploading our cubes. Make sure you check them out... they are pretty awesome.

6th Grade
This week the 6th graders review Artsonia and uploaded their cubes. Then we started working on our upcoming projects... COLOR WHEELS. Students were given a color wheel worksheet and we watched this mind boggling video.

The students will work on making a color wheel of their choosing and then will share them with their classmates. I am excited to see how they turn out.

Wednesday
Our Wednesday classes are working on the art of textiles. The students are finishing up practicing their different type of stitches before they move onto creating an embroidery image. I will share some in-progress work next week.

Artsonia

It isn't a secret that I love Artsonia.

This website provides me with everything I want. It focuses on student safety. It allows my students to write about their artwork. It provides a path for parents, grandparents and friends to communicate with students about their projects. It helps me collect and gather digital artwork quickly and efficiently. I find it is super user friendly for me and the kids.

Finally, it also allows us to raise a few extra dollars for the art room. Sure I might only make a couple of hundred dollars a year but I really don't really push that side of the site (Artsonia sends enough emails for that 😉)

We are working on our first uploads this week. I am excited to see the year off to a great start. 

Getting Back at it...

I am working at getting back into the groove of the school year and back in the groove of blogging. It is my goal to create a place for my students (and their families) to review what we are doing in class each week. I am hoping to do a post of what we are working on, what is coming up and what we have finished.

This week we worked on getting to know one another. I started the year with my "get to know the art room" slideshow and a first assignment. The inspiration for this project came from a post on a facebook art teacher group page. I knew when I saw it that it would be a perfect way to collaborate and start the year off learning a bit more about each other.

Each student got a square and had to finish it in the following way.

We talked about how if everyone does this; we will learn who they are, something from their past and something from their future. If they color it this way we will also create a really cool 3-d looking wall. I am super excited to see what they make. 

This is my finished example. I remind them I have 30+ years of practice on them and then share how awesome it was when Mrs. Glanzer would draw a cake for everyones birthday in Kindergarten and how I dream of seeing the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Coliseum in Rome. 

Coming Next Week:  I am going to introduce the students to Artsonia and we are going to upload our cube drawings before we install the collaboration.