Walking with Paul Klee

First grade students have been working so hard the past month or so on projects that take multiple weeks.  For a change in pace, we took a look at Paul Klee's use of lines, shapes, and colors to do as he did and take our lines on a walk.We looked at his artwork to talk about what we saw within it.  Some students saw anywhere from one to three people, some said they saw animals, some said they just saw lines and shapes.  It's always unique to hear what students see when they look at art.  Students were then shown and told that Paul Klee once said....

"Drawing is taking a line for a walk."

Students were then given those awesome Play Color Sticks, shown an example where I had taken my lines on a walk, and then took their lines on a walk... here is what they "walked" within the art room!

A HUGE R.O.A.R to the

first graders in the Dominican Republic Class!

Dinner Party in the Art Room!

   ...A Dinner Party, in an Art Room, with three year olds?!...

I know, you probably think I'm crazy right now, but IT WAS AWESOME! previously I posted about a project(CLICK HERE!) where a parent volunteer came in to lead and work with students to look at art, interpret, and then be inspired to create their own.  Well, Mrs. Phaedra (Otherwise called Augusta's Mom) out did herself!  We looked at the concept of The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago (just the ideas of place settings of course-for those of you who know more about the piece...).  Phaedra worked to envision, collect, and drill all of the materials to the bamboo serving trays for students to create and collage upon their own food and things they'd like at their dinner party!

Students were given those AWESOME Tempera Playcolor Sticks (Check out the blog post on them HERE!)  to begin their artwork with, then after 10-15 minutes of paint creation, we brought out a variety of supplies to collage onto the plates as well!  The final touch was putting tissue paper in the glasses to represent what they students would drink at their dinner party. I think my favorite and funniest quote came from Eliot, who put brown tissue paper in his cup.  I assumed this was chocolate milk however he informed me it was his Dad's DIET COKE!  He then talked to me for about fiver minutes about how he loves to steal sips of his Dad's Diet Coke! 

Check out some pictures of the process, and final results.  We had a BLAST! And a very special  THANK YOU to MRS. PHAEDRA for making this possible and such a hit success!!

 

 * I LOVE the lighting in my classroom  in the morning!

Doesn't our dinner party look delicious and fun!?

Did you know.....?

Did you know Ms. Foy loves photography?  Did you know she has started a new blog just for her photography and life outside of the amazing Bancroft art room?! 

Check out Ms. Foy's new blog on her photography and personal art and life!  Do you know anyone celebrating something special or getting ready for a special day?  

Be sure to suggest Ms. Foy to help them capture every moment of their special day!  

Click here to go to Ms. Foy's personal Blog!!!

Meet Picasso!

 A Bit about the artist himself and how our Picasso got his name!

So why is Ms. Foy randomly posting about an artist?  

...because we have our very own PICASSO here at Bancroft!  Except, he's not a person, he's a Beta Fish!...Check him out!  Can you figure out why Ms. Foy decided to name him Picasso? 

You guessed it!!! Because he is all different shades of B-L-U-E!

1st Grade: DOMINICAN REPUBLIC ROCKS!

R. O. A. R. Alert!!!

 

WHOA!!!  Our first grade class (all classes are named after a native spanish speaking country) DOMINICAN REPUBLIC were EXTRAORDINARY ARTISTS today! Check out the art they made using our play color sticks!! 

*For those who don't know... I'm OBSESSED with these tempera paint sticks... they are AMAZING!  Pick some up from Sax Art Supply via, School Specialty!*

Students were inspired by the book The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and illustrations by Oliver Jeffers.  During this story the crayons express how sick and tired they are of always coloring the same thing.... Poor green is always the grass, blue always gets stuck with the sky, yellow and Orange always fight about who is actually the color of the sun... 

Well, we made self portraits that would make these colors happy for once!  Students were instructed to create a self portrait (preferably with a distinct mood/emotion) and use the colors all wrong to show the emotion within their portraits.  

There's something about these amazing pictures, that made me feel such joy in working with these young artists.  

*Hey Parents!  You can loan this book from your local library, AND if you're interested you can purchase these Play Color Sticks for your artists to use at home!  They're an affordable, no mess, but brilliant looking final product alternative to traditional paint at home!*

See Ms. Foy if you have any questions!  

 

An "Accordion" isn't just an instrument? It can be a BOOK style too?

Accordion Books and Storytelling!

Schools focus so much on reading and literacy these days that the most important, in my opinion (and I could be biased), part of the story are forgotten....  

The Pictures!!!

During African American History Month fourth grade students looked at the narrative within Jacob Lawrence's The Great Migration series.  We looked at how he documents and tells about an event using primarily pictures, not words.   Students then were challenged to think of a simple event in their life (my example was when I adopted my dog Dublin) and simplify it down to 5-7 sentences.  Students then took those 5-7 sentences and illustrated each one.  

 

 Now here comes the fun part!  At a recent professional development day the National Museum of Women in the Arts came and demonstrated the process of making an accordion book.  I immediately thought... PERFECT!... so I came back to work the following week, pumped to share this idea with my students, and well, they picked the concept up and ran with it!  Check out some of our phenomenal final results...

 

This student remembered the field trip we took to the Botanical Gardens LAST YEAR, where we drew from observation!!

Cave Art!

Check out this easy 1-class project that you can even do at home parents!

Kindergarten students have been learning about the ice age and pre-historic times.... and usually I try to relate my art lessons to their curriculum themes... I'd never done this cave art project before with Kindergarten because I honestly was dreading it would turn into a mess of paint but WOW did these kindergarteners surprise me!

 All you need for this project is brown, black, and white paint, a paper plate, paper towels, q-tips, and a piece of paper(it doesn't have to be brown).  Check out the set up for this project to the right....




Usually, I show images of the pre-historic cave art from the caves at Lascaux, and we talk about what these artists put into their images (animals, people, nature).  We then talk about how everything is painted out of lines and shapes.  You will probably get asked a question like "why don't we have other colored paint?" and "why  don't we have paintbrushes?" At this point we usually talk about how there weren't big machines used to make paints and supplies and so the cave people had to use what they could find from nature!



Check out the awesome results of what happens when students return to their seats and begin working on their own cave art!!