Welcome Back!

Welcome back for the 2011-2012 school year.  I hope you had a relaxing summer break.  I was able to see many of you last night at Meet the Teacher Night and I look forward to seeing all the students tomorrow when school begins.  Even though school hasn't started, there is already some artwork up in the hallways.  Students, you might remember making your Waldo style self-portrait at the end of last school year.  Those portraits are up on the bulletin boards across from the library and outside the art room.  Make sure you take a look tomorrow when you come to school and try to find yourself and my picture in the sea of Waldos.

The Art Room



5th Grade Bulletin Board: Get ready to study Pop Art!

When students come to art class this week, we will be discussing the Art Room Guidelines, which will help us to be kind, productive workers.  The guidelines are listed below:
1. Be kind.
2. Be a good listener.
3. Help with clean up.
4. Give your best effort.
5. Take care of supplies.
Please be ready to follow these rules and be excited to come to class.  I have lots of fun activities planned for the year, and I'm looking forward to having you participate in these activities.

 This summer I was volunteering in Kenya and I had the opportunity to see some very creative artwork being made.  The pictures below are taken in Nairobi at a place called Marula Studios and UniquEco.  At this studio they are using recycled flip flops to create sculptures, jewelry, and many other things.  They take used, worn out flips flops from a slum in Nairobi.  Then they clean them, glue them together, and carve the flip flops to make new things.  This recycling project is eliminating waste, creating jobs, and helping the environment.  I hope these pictures inspire you to think about ways to use old materials and trash to create something new.

A pile of flip flops before they are washed; Notice in the background the giraffe sculpture made of flip flops

A worker carves a flip flop animal

A woman makes a flip flop bracelet

The finished flip flop bracelet

Miss Back in front of a globe sculpture filled with flip flops

 Workers sand the flip flop sculptures

Check out this flip flop roof and floor tiles

Painting Like Pollock

The Kindergartners created some "action paintings" inspired by Jackson Pollock and his drippy/splattered paintings.  The kids LOVED the having the freedom to splat the paint onto their papers using eye droppers.  Many declared it was the best day of art class ever.  For one of the paintings, the students made swirling glue lines on their paper and then sprinkled salt on top.  After it dried, they painted the salt using primary colored watercolors and watched the colors bleed together to create the secondary colors.

Laurel Burch Cats

The 1st and 2nd graders have been continuing to create art related to animals.  These past 2 weeks they've been learning about Laurel Burch, an artist who created paintings of cats.  Burch's cats are abstract because they are bright, colorful, and full of patterns.  Burch's cat paintings have become well known because they've been printed on bags, pins, scarves, mugs, and many other objects.

Laurel Burch in front of one of her paintings

Photo courtesy of  http://www.patriciaebauer.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/20070924_laurel-burch.gif

 Here are some of 1st and 2nd graders' own versions of cats in Laurel Burch's style:

A Japanese Visitor

Last week students were able to learn about Japanese culture through a visitor named Rumi.  Rumi is from Japan but is currently living in the U.S. through a program where she does presentation on Japan for schools and community groups.  Rumi taught students about her way of life in Japan, which tied in well with our Japanese Art unit.  One interesting thing we learned is that all students in Japan remove their shoes upon arriving to school.  They then put on a different type of slipper to wear at school. 

Miss Back and Rumi

Eric and Mrs. Nomanson practice bowing, which is a form of greeting one another in Japan

Students practice bowing

Rumi demonstrates how to use chopsticks

The students practice using chopsticks

Rumi demonstrates how to put on a kimono.  A kimono is a type of robe.  In Japan, people now wear kimonos for special occasions only.

Hats and Instruments

The Kindergartners have been making artwork that is related to something you might see at or use for a celebration.  Today they finished up their crazy hats, which were inspired by pictures we saw of hats from the Royal Wedding.  They also created instruments a few weeks ago.  They had fun parading down the hall in their hats while playing their instruments.  Check out their awesome creations below:

Japanese Inspired Art

The 3rd and 4th grade students have been learning about Japan and Japanese art.   The picture below is inspired by the cherry blossom trees of Japan.  The students used an eye dropper to add black ink to their paper.  Then they used a straw, blew through the straw, and ta da!...The result is some pretty cool looking trees.  We added tissue paper for the flowers.

 One of the Japanese artists we looked at was Hokusai, who is known for his woodblock prints of Japanese landscapes and people.  He is most famous for his painting The Great Wave off  Kanagawa, which is shown below: 

Photo Courtesy of http://www.andreas.com/

After looking at Hokusai's prints, students created their own landscape or nature related scene and made a print using stryofoam.  The kids loved being able to make multiple copies of their design using brayers and ink.