African Clay Masks

We studied the art from Africa and looked at examples of clay masks in books.  We talked about the lines, shapes, colors, textures and symmetry that was found in the masks.  The students then created their own African clay masks using air dry clay.  They did a great job!

Sheep Sponge Painting

Our little artists drew an organic shape from construction paper.  They then cut it out and sponge painted around the shape.  When the paint was dry, they created a sheep from paper strips and oil pastels.  The oil pastels were also used in the background to show where their sheep was living or playing.

Organic Shapes - Wall Mural

Hello ECC Families!

I was out and about with my family over the weekend and came across this wall mural.  It stopped me in my tracks because I thought to myself, "How perfect would this be to share with my students and with their families."  So I took a picture of it with my phone.  This mural was three dimensional and it perfectly shows organic shapes throughout with a few geometric circles here and there.  Ask your little artist to show you where the geometric shapes are and to share with you all they have learned about organic shapes.  I think they will surprise you.  I know last week I was so proud how much they have remembered from this year in art class.

Shoe Fish

Our little artists learned about geometric shapes, like circles and squares, as well as organic shapes which are shapes like popcorn and broccoli.  We created organic shaped fish by tracing the outline of our shoes.  Then our artists used both geometric and organic shapes to design the rest of the fish.  The students were introduced to construction paper crayons which we used to color our fish compositions.  They should be arriving home today.

Printmaking Around the Room

Once again we explored the art of printmaking and how a print can be made over and over and over again.  The artists were able to choose from a wide variety of objects to use as their printing tool.  They traveled around the room from station to station to create their masterpiece.

Painting to Music

Today was so much fun!  We learned about the artist Wassily Kandinsky and how he painted to music. We discussed how colors, lines and shapes can portray feelings and movement just like music can. For example, many of our artists thought that the color blue reminded them of a sad feeling and the color yellow was a happy feeling. We also explored how curvy lines are cheerful and straight lines can portray an exciting feeling. Then our little artists had the opportunity to paint while listening to music like Beethoven, Star Wars and Indiana Jones just to name a few.  These masterpieces will come home next week after they had a chance to dry.  Look for art work that has lots of color, lines and shapes.

Piet Mondrian

We are now studying the artist Piet Mondrian.  When he was a child he wanted to be a teacher but later in life he decided to be an artist.  His art that we are studying used black straight lines, squares, rectangles and the primary colors-red, yellow and blue.  A fun bit of information is that the artist's favorite colors were black and white.

Today we created the lines using black paper strips and next week we will paint the rectangles and squares using the primary colors.  Look for them to come home early March.